The Bazaar
Background
The Bazaar is one of the songs that fully established The Tea Party’s trademark with the release of The Edges Of Twilight: the blending of rock music and oriental influences.
Although we had experimented with an East meets West sound on the first record, I’ve always felt that “The Bazaar” fuses the exotic with the heavier rock side of the band better than any other track. From the resonating tones of the harmonium to the polyrhythms played on dumbeks and daraboukas, it moves with a different feel.
The song was released in several countries as a promo single, flanked by the video, which was filmed in Istanbul (Turkey), while the band was on tour in Europe. The band is not really a big fan of photo and video shoots, but they have fond memories of the shoot in Istanbul. ” We spent our evenings out in this market square, where we first came into contact with some roaming gypsy musicians, who proceeded to teach me proper fingering technique on the dumbek. At night it was up to the rooftop of our hotel to stare at the Blue Mosque, put back a couple of pints, and reflect on how damn lucky we are.” worte Jeff Burrows in the Tangents Booklet about the stay there.
Stuart Chatwwod mentioned in the commentary to the video that the Turkish press was more interested in Suzy, the actress in the Bazaar video than in the band itself.
You can see the Turkish newspaper article here:
They came from Canada for the video clip
The Canadian rock group The Tea Party came to Istanbul to shoot a video for “The Bazaar,” a song from their album “The Edge Of.”
The group, consisting of Jeff Martin, Stuart Chatwood, and Jeff Burrows, was accompanied by a Canadian dancer named Suzi performing erotic dances during the video shoot. The band members, who said they were greatly influenced by Turkish music instruments, stated that the video would be shot in Kapalicarsi, Cemberlitas, and Yedikule. Some portions will also be filmed in the Aegean Region.
Visiting Turkey for the first time, the band members said, “We know your country from TV and press, but we found it much more modern than we expected. We’ll come back at the first opportunity.”
Caption under left photo: The Tea Party members smoked hookah during their video shoot for “The Bazaar” in Turkey. Caption under right photo: Melez’s daughter Suzi
Credit: Hasim OZ / MAGAZINE SERVICE
The Bazaar was a top 30 hit in Australia and Canada and the video was a top 3 hit at MuchMusic and top 10 at MusiquePhus.
The song has also been covered by the symphonic metal band Hollenthon as a bonus track on their 2008 album, “Opus Magnum (album)” – you may want to listen to it here.
Releases
Promo (Canada)
01. The Bazaar
Label: EMI - CDPRO 1125
Format: CD, Single, Promo
Released: 1995
Promo (USA)
01. The Bazaar
Label: Chrysalis – DPRO 10413
Format: CD, Single, Promo
Released: 1995
Promo (Netherlands)
01. The Bazaar
Label: EMI Music Canada – CDPRO 1125
Format: CD, Single, Promo
Released: 1995
Promo (Australia)
01. The Bazaar
Label: EMI - CDRP369
Format: CD, Single, Promo
Released: 1995
video
Band commentary on the video