Columnist Jerry Fink: Kitchen Cafe serves up the right philosophy

Friday, Nov. 23, 2001 | 9:12 a.m.

Jerry Fink's lounge column appears on Fridays. Reach him at 259-4058 or jerry@ lasvegassun.com.

Plato, the Greek philosopher who lived 400 years before the birth of Christ, said that a man who cannot dance is uneducated and unrefined.

Men and women were dancing and singing in Greece hundreds of years before Plato came along, and have continued to celebrate the festival of life more than 2,000 years later.

The tradition lives on at the Kitchen Cafe Friday through Sunday.

On those three nights the restaurant is a Mediterranean melting pot, filled with Greeks, Israelis, Armenians, Syrians, Lebanese, Monrovians and other nationalities who come to sing and dance 'til dawn.

The man behind the music is the restaurant's owner, Teddy Daginis.

Daginis, 52, grew up on the Greek island of Chios, a land of medieval villages, Byzantine mansions, monasteries and ancient monuments. The island is supposedly the birthplace of Homer, author of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."

On Chios, there is a festival for every occasion so that islanders will have a reason to party.

Daginis said if you have seen "Zorba the Greek," the 1964 film starring Anthony Quinn, you know what people and life are like on Chios.

"After that movie came out, Greek music became very popular in this country," Daginis said. "Every major city in the United States had five or six Greek restaurants with live music."

In recent years, the number of places where people can go to hear authentic Greek music and dance traditional Greek dances has dwindled.

But the Kitchen Cafe refuses to surrender to modern trends.

The Hellenic Mode, an all-Greek band, keeps traditional music alive.

The members of the band are not exactly household names. They include vocalists Marianna Basdakis, Nikos Amoryanos and Kostas Antonianits and musicians Yianis Gianakopoulos on bousouki (a guitar-like instrument), Christos Nikolotoulos on drums and Notis Issichopoulos on keyboards. The only person I know who may be able to correctly pronounce the names of the band members is my editor, John Katsilometes.

The names are all Greek to me, but their music is an international language.

While many of the fans who go to the restaurant on Greek music night have Greek heritage, the atmosphere is similar to St. Patrick's Day.

On St. Patrick's Day, everyone is Irish. When you step into the Kitchen Cafe, you are Greek.

One recent evening a wedding party that turned Greek was from Memphis.

"Greek music is about love and life and death," Antoniantis said. "There is a spirit to the music, it is very spiritual.

"People listen and they want to dance, they feel like flying through the sky. It brings back memories. Greek people love life and they express it in their dancing."

Antoniantis was an international performer for more than 30 years before settling down in Las Vegas four years ago.

Amoryanos sang in Greek nightclubs in Greece before he immigrated to the United States almost 30 years ago. He sang at clubs in New York and Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas in 1996.

At 74, Issichopoulos is the oldest member of the band. He became a piano player in Athens after World War II, performing big-band music as well as traditional Greek music.

Issichopoulos married a Greek-American woman from Los Angeles in 1958 and came to this country, playing at nightclubs in New York before moving to Las Vegas in 1962 to play with orchestras at the Sands and other venues.

Gianakopoulos, 22, is the youngest member of the group and the only one who did not grow up in Greece, although his parents did. The family moved to Las Vegas 20 years ago.

A business major at UNLV, Gianakopoulos has been playing the bousouki (a traditional Greek instrument, one of the oldest in the world) since the age of 15. He has been a professional musician for seven years, but says he probably will concentrate on business when he gets his degree.

While Gianakopoulos was brought up to appreciate Greek traditions, he says the culture in this country is fading.

"The culture is still there, but it is being followed by less people," he said. "Not as many Greeks are coming to the United States as 20 or 30 years ago."

Basdakis was raised in Athens, where she was a sales representative for a record company. She didn't realize until she came to the United States about 11 years ago that her singing voice could make her a living.

"I got married (to an American soldier) and we first lived at Fort Hood, in Texas," she said. "I used to go to Greek clubs all the time, and I enjoyed the music, and I would sing.

"We moved from Texas to San Diego, were I started getting serious about my singing."

Basdakis said the band sometimes performs until 6 or 7 a.m.

"We are supposed to stay here till 4 in the morning, but sometimes the people are having so much fun, you can't just stop the music."

Lounging around

And the winner is -- Craig Newell. For the past four weeks officials at Fitzgeralds have been holding a weekly Elvis contest to find a replacement for their resident Elvis, Michael Kennedy (who also works at the Westward Ho). After listening to a dozen or more Elvis imitators, Newell was chosen.

Actually, Fitzgeralds is getting two Elvi for the price of one -- Newell's 8-year-old son, Sam, has been doing Elvis impressions since age 2.

A Fitzgeralds spokesman said don't be surprised to see a father-and-son Elvis act on occasion.