The birth of this type of Kaba is closely associated with the traditional vocal music. Professor Ramadan Sokoli has ascertained that the Kaba, as an instrumental piece, is pervaded by elegy elements, features of funeral weeping. The interaction between vocal and instrumental music it is known and elaborated in various ethnomusicological works. We should stress the fact that the creation of these Kabas was preceded by the intensive technical development of vocal voices where their progress tended to acquire specific instrumental features.

It is commonly said that the Lament/Kaba tunes of Labëria, with their vibrant and unique inflections, have deeply penetrated into the Saze instrumental music and traditional orkestrinas of some of south Albanian towns such as Tepelenë, Gjirokastër, Sarandë and Vlorë. The orientation towards the lament tune, in terms of content and musical formulas, is the most intrinsic thematic source for the creation of an expansive clarinet Kaba. The laments, in general, we consider them to be one of the most distinctive features of Albania’s folk, rural and urban traditional music. As far as the Kaba/lament is concerned, it displays many archaic musical features borrowed from the traditional multipart vocal music and mythological folk traditions. The practice of the wedding and funeral laments is very much interwoven with the repertoire of traditional instruments; these laments bear characteristic terms such as ‘logatja’ and ‘borohitja’. At first sight one may think that they are just different terms and idioms in order to present more or less the same occurrence, however, it should be stressed that the Lab laments they hide in themselves some characteristic elements of praise and consolation over the death of a particular person, which signify local or regional codes and principles. Thus, the lament genre materializes a very short range between the traditional performer and the not-yet-buried deceased person; ‘logatja’ starts from the moment when the traditional performer is stirred by memories of the deceased (any item or clothing of the deceased will serve this purpose); in this case the distance with the deceased is of the sort ‘neither close nor far’. There is also a ‘borohitje’ type, a kind of lament found only among the shepherds, who apply it to ‘mourn’ the memory of someone who lies in his grave in the mountain, that is to a distance that includes the time segment between life and death.

The borrowing of vocal lament tune goes further; the ‘weeping’ or ‘mourning’ is structured not only as the first musical part of the Kaba, but is also widespread in the language domain, i.e. related to the performance of the Kaba and its artistic interpretation. When the interpretation reaches its climax, people say ‘he wept the Kaba’, so to speak, ‘sang it with the instrument’. In the Lament/Kaba, it is felt that the impact of Lab tune is stronger than that of Tosk one. Çabej noted that ‘I am naturally inclined  to depict the Tosk tune with two attributes: elegiac and expansive. The impression that comes from the Lab song is its severity and heroic spirit’. Closely connected with the lamenting nature of the Lab pentatonic spectrum, this type of Kaba highlights this mode distinctly. Nowadays, the specific use of minor seventh serves, among others, as an identifying factor.

The musical features of both types of lament are, in one way or another, borrowed by the Saze performers in order to structure their performance of Kaba. With regard to the polyphonic structure, we note that ‘polyphonic Kaba’, based on the formal relationship of the polyphonic voices, retains the structural dependence that comes from the vocal polyphonic music. Therefore, in the Kaba structure, the gërnet (clarinet) is the first voice or marrësi (the ‘taker’), the qemane (violin) is the second voice or kthyesi (the ‘answerer’), whereas llauta, bakllama and def (tambourine) play the role of pedal configuration or rhythmic iso (drone). This relationship also marks what is commonly referred to as ‘polyphony with Saze’ implying that this is the same traditional concept of polyphony. This Kaba brings in a relatively interesting finding regarding the polyphonic pattern. If, from the melodic point of view, this Kaba uses the Lab pentatonic system, from the multipart layering of voices standpoint, it is more inclined to the Tosk type of polyphonic concept. Here the ‘blend’ shapes a kind of multiple stylistic sketches. It is so true that, not only in the ‘taker’s’ role of the clarinet, but also in the ‘answer’s’ role of the violin during the performance of Kaba, it can be clearly observed the relationship of the traditional roles of the ‘taker’ and ‘answerer’. An excellent example illustrating the above-mentioned viewpoints is introduced by the renowned clarinetist Remzi Lela-Çobani with the Kaba titled ‘A mountain leg broke off’, performed at the National Saze Festival in Korçë in 1994. This well-known Lab lament, was transformed from a proper vocal monody, into an instrumental polyphony.

The Kabas created by the Saze groups belong to the early decades of the 20^th century. By this time it was created not only the musical structure of these Kabas, but also, to a great extent, the identity of their expression and interpretation. For this reason, many Kabas are already known by the names of their creators who were their first performers playing the clarinet or violin. ‘The lament of Selim Leskoviku with clarinet’, ‘Mediu’s Kaba’, ‘Beshiri’s Avaz’, ‘Lab Kaba and the Lab singing’, ‘The lament of Muharrem’, are among various other very popular titles. The pattern is still present to our present-day. ‘Lulushi’s Kaba” introduced at the National Folklore Festival, Gjirokastër 1983, is identified as the contemporary Korçë Kaba, whereas ‘Laveri’s Kaba’ identifies Përmet and ‘Jashari’s Kaba’ labels the Pogradec type of Kaba.

A strong reason why this period was one of the most intensive in the consolidation of Kaba, is related to the fact that the Kaba, the ‘instrumental concert’ of the Saze music, became a genre and a form where the traditional musicians reached the peak in their technical mastery and artistic expertise of tempered instruments, and in some cases going even beyond their own potentials. This is quite obvious, since being originally a vocal-instrumental formation, the Saze would have now to reflect its new level, its next stage where traditional instrumental music had advanced. This was coupled with the transition to perfection of all parameters, starting from those of the musical structure, semantics, instrumental language, to the technology and technique of interpretation. For this type of Kaba, instruments represent distinctive characters, with clearly defined features and individualities. The Kaba itself became more structured in adapting to the technical evolution of the performance of these instruments.  It may be said that the modelling of this type of urban Kaba has created the ‘instrumental concert’, the perfect form of expression of our Saze.

In terms of musical form, the most advanced type of Kaba is a two-part structure, ‘Weeping’/’Lamentation’ and ‘Dance’, as well as is of polyphonic textures and appears to exhibit a variety of contrasting traits, virtuoso and concertante. As far as the span of pitches between highest and lowest of these Kabas, it should be noted that in the districts of Gjirokastër, Sarandë and Myzeqe, their melodies, usually with clarinet, occur in the lower register of the instrument and very rarely in the middle one. In the regions of Tosk polyphony such as Korçë, Kolonjë and Përmet, the Kaba airs are developed in the middle register but also in the top one. The Kaba in itself is a form which develops step-by-step along with its performer. Being multi-sourced at its core, the Kaba has shown that it remains an ‘old’ as well as a ‘new’ category of artistic composition.