Before Fanfara Tirana there was no proper Albanian brass band tradition. Brass bands did exists, but they played mostly light pop music and folk songs arranged for brass. Unlike other Balkan countries, there was no wedding brass band tradition.
Albanian music is roughly divided between the monophonic north and the polyphonic south. Fanfara Tirana borrows from all parts of the country, with an emphasis on Turkish small bands playing aheng, a style of Gypsy music; saze, a clarinet dominated style of traditional music, and the polyphonic a cappella music of the south, with so...