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Jewish World Review
April 6, 2005
/26 Adar II, 5765
Old, new, borrowed... and jazzy
By Paul Wieder
Nine new Klezmer CDs
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
The Jewish wedding music known as Klezmer has traveled, evolved and interacted with many other genres without losing its distinctive Jewish "ta'am," or flavor. Many new releases explore klezmer's ongoing journey:
Yikhes: Early Klezmer Recordings (1911-1913) "Yikhes" means "lineage." And here is an hour's worth of yikhes, tracing the journey klezmer and its practitioners made from the Old Country to the New World. A third of the 18 tracks feature Naftule Brandwein's incomparable clarinet; the rest includes luminaries from Abe Schwartz to Dave Tarras. The recording quality is surprisingly solid, and the music still sounds innovative nearly a century later.
Sandra Layman: Little Blackbird The subtitle illustrates the variety offered here: "Klezmer, Romanian, Greek, Turkish, and Hungarian music." Layman's quartet- her sprightly violin, two guitars, and a quick-witted cimbalom- ranges through 35 live songs and medleys. Fewer than half of the songs are klezmer or Chasidic in origin, but placing them in the context of their neighboring musics is enjoyably educational. It is especially interesting is to hear how the modes of Asia Minor have affected klezmer, often thought of as primarily Eastern European.
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The Burning Bush: Music of the Old Jewish World Britain's leading klezmer ensemble also dabbles in those forms outside klezmer that inform it. In order to recreate the music of Turkey, Morocco, and Greece, they incorporate both klezmer and Mizrachi instruments. Violinist Lucie Skeaping sings the ancient words- in Yiddish, Hebrew, Turkish, and English- adroitly altering her phrasing to the style in question. The playing throughout is spirited, and the production is crystalline.
Veretski Pass A klezmer supergroup of sorts. Bassist Stuart Brotman, whose background is in international folk, anchors Brave Old World. Joshua Horowitz's cimbalom is a cornerstone of his old-school klez band Budowitz, but he also taught jazz alongside Stan Getz. And Cookie Segelstein is a classical violinist who has played with big-time klezmer outfits. Together, they make "Traditional East European Jewish Music" that is as head-spinning as Mozart and gut-punching as MC5. This is an intellectual and emotional workout that demands and deserves attention. The liner notes contain photos, ruminations, and chicken recipes.
Introducing Sukke Clarinet, bass, accordion... keep it simple as a succah, a shelter designed for wandering tribes. This is the philosophy of Sukke, which also unites three major klezmer players, although this time from Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. Placing standards alongside new Yiddish song-poems, they weave a sound as delicate and elegant as a spider web... and as hard to leave.
Golem: Homesick Songs Klezmer music, garage-rock attitude. Golem is six people who have no business being this talented this young. Here, they present a dozen songs mostly named for places in the Old Country: Belz, Zlatopol, Odessa... which they long for with a twisted nostalgia. The characters in the tunes prefer the deep passions, as bitter as they were sweet, of the homeland's shtetls and fields to the unending drudgery of the "Goldena Medina's" slums and sweatshops. In one track, the sweet-faced "Greener Cousin" loses her bloom, damning her new land and its false promises. At least Golem enjoys wallowing in all the delicious angst.
Juez: Shemspeed Alt Shul
In Europe, "Alt" meant "old," and here it is short for "alternative." Both senses of the word come into play for this excursion of "breakbeat klezmer jazz." Juez takes klezmer and runs it through a hard-jazz processor. They use a trumpet and sax where most klezmer bands use a violin and clarinet, the two horns twining like vines on a chain-link fence. The electric bass sometimes decides that rock or funk is what is called for, and the drummer tries- but only casually- to hold it all together.
Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys "Jew-grass" fans-- whether pre- or post "O Brother, Where Out Thou?"-- will enjoy traveling this bridge between the Carpathians and the Ozarks. Most of the tracks are klezmer, with a sprinkling of bluegrass, and a few medleys (one called "Lonesome Fiddle Blues & Sid's Bulgars") in which one style slides seamlessly into the other. Clarinetist Leverett was a founder of the Klezmatics; bandmate Frank London sits in, as does Brave Old World's Michael Alpert. The sound is danceable, upbeat and endlessly surprising.
Celebrate Series: Celebrate Klezmer
The latest in the endless run of the Celebrate Series compilations, this one offers a klemer-copia of some of the finest acts in the klezmer revival: The Kelzmatics, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, and (gotta love the name) The Klez Dispensers. Veretski Pass is here, too. For this outing, producer Craig Taubman hands the reins to some experts, Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg. This is probably the best one-disc klezmer introduction since Itzhak Perlman's "In the Fiddler's House."
Klezmer, which dates back more than a century and a half, has the gravitas of all that is ancient. But in the hands of musicians both studious and playful, it never grows old.
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JWR contributor Paul Wieder is a public relations associate at the Jewish United Fund and a columnist for
JUF News. Contact the author or the magazine by either clicking here, or calling (312) 444-2853.
© 2004, Paul Wieder
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