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It's easy to chalk up the birth of the Klezmatics to randomness: five people
from different musical and geographical backgrounds, all recently arrived in
Manhattan, answer an ad in the Village Voice (a well known alternative
publication from New York City) looking for anyone interested in
forming a Klezmer band. Then again, maybe the future Klezmatics were simply
following a historical imperative, as Klezmer is the music of the Eastern
European Jewish
Diaspora; music that sprung forth between connected strangers in a new land.
The original members of The Klezmatics, Alicia Svigals (violin), Dave Lindsay (bass) and Rob Chavez (clarinet) met after reading
the ad in the Village Voice in 1985. Shortly after,
Frank
London (trumpet), of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, joined the group. Other musicians joined the band a few weeks later: Margot Leverett (clarinet), David Licht (drums) and Lorin Sklamberg (vocals, accordion).
What's perhaps even more unlikely than their incarnation is that the band
remains not only intact?five of the six current members appeared on the first
Klezmatics record?but also vital. Seventeen years after their first album, they
continue to evolve, while still drawing sustenance from the traditional music
that first drew them together.
Whether the Klezmatics are a product of happenstance or historical imperative,
their early success was certainly marked by good fortune. In 1988, they were
mainly playing clubs and parties in New York. Through the influence of Ben
Mandelson of 3 Mustaphas 3, they were invited to play at the first annual
Heimatkl?nge Festival in Berlin?a proto-world music gathering held just as world
music was emerging in the global consciousness. The band played every night. At
the end of the week, the festival's organizers, who had recently formed a label
called Piranha, offered them a record deal. An album,
Shvaygn = Toyt
(Piranha/Rounder, 1988), Yiddish for Silence = Death, was recorded, live, at
Radio Free Berlin (SFB). Just like that, the Klezmatics had a record company,
and a future.
 Musically, the band hadn't quite found their identity. They did, however, tap
sources no other Klezmer act had thought to emulate: the small American Klezmer
bands of the '30s and '40s. They were also beginning to formulate their guiding
thematic approach to music and life-seamlessly melding cultural statement (that
Yiddish must be spoken, or else disappear) with historical politics (the ardent
socialist anthems of their forebears) and modern activism, particularly a joyous
affirmation of human rights.
Another minor miracle followed the Piranha record deal. Piranha's director,
Christoph Borkowsky Akbar, actually encouraged the band to take their time
recording their second album. Borkowsky wanted the Klezmatics to find their own
path and organically blend their many influences. Klezmer was the lifeblood, but
the band also mined the multi-ethnic and cultural influences of New York. Mixing
together Jewish drinking songs, socialism and Jewish mysticism, as well as punk,
jazz and classical attitudes seemed strangely natural?as did maintaining their
reputation as an ecstatic party band. This extended recording period allowed the
Klezmatics to forge their own unique musical identity.
By the time they'd finished their follow-up, in 1990, the band was ready to
break away from anything resembling predictability. They stated their intentions
in the album's title,
Rhythm & Jews (Piranha/Rounder, 1990). Jewish music had
always been thought of purely as melody; the Klezmatics felt the true backbone
was rhythm, challenging the supremacy of sobbing clarinets, violins and voices.
This was also the first time "Jew" appeared on the cover of a Klezmer album. By
using the word, the band was boldly asserting their own brand of cultural pride:
Jew Positive, a non-exclusionary belief that to find common ground with other
traditions, they first had to unabashedly embrace their own.
Like any great punk album, Rhythm + Jews thrived on energy. The band brought in
non-klezmer musicians like the Nubian percussionist Mahmoud Fadl, taking their
source material to wildly divergent destinations. They played Eastern European
melodies over Arabic and African rhythms; introduced their trademark multi-part
group vocal sound (a tribute to British folk-rock pioneers Steeleye Span); and
incorporated classical music?s bass clarinet into their already multitudinous
palate of sounds. They also began testing the waters of writing their own music
with a whirling, homoerotic interpretation of the love poetry of King David. In
a pattern that would perpetually repeat itself, the Klezmatics showed that,
while they would always view the world through the lens of Eastern European
Jewish identity, they would not be fetishistic about it.
The Klezmatics next album,
Jews With Horns (Piranha/Rounder, 1995), didn?t just
venture into new territory; it set up a carnival tent and invited the new
world's strangest denizens to participate in the delirium. The album included
the breakneck, pun-fueled ?Man in a Hat? (the band?s first song in English), a
Hasidic-style wordless chant and a stark, minimalist treatment of 20th century
Yiddish poetry. Musical guests included electric guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom
Waits, Elvis Costello, The Lounge Lizards), Canadian political folkies Moxy
Fr?vous and New York theatrical girl rock band BETTY. ?Man in a Hat? was
nominated for a GLAMA (Gay and Lesbian Music Award)-an honor they would actually
receive a few years later.
In 1994 the Klezmatics marked the beginning of their fruitful collaboration
between seemingly unrelated artists and milieus by pulling out of the archives a
century-old socialist anthem called "In kamf" (In Struggle) for the soundtrack
of the AIDS epidemic documentary Fast Trip Long Drop (Sundance Grand Jury Prize
nominee), about a gay Jewish mans struggle with the disease. They put in a
modern arrangement, while strengthening the link to the composition's roots with
a chorus of native Yiddish-speaking seniors, who had sung the song in their own
politically active youth.
In 1995, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Kushner (Angels in America)
furthered the Klezmatics' collaborations when he asked the band to pen the score
for his adaptation of S. Ansky?s The Dybbuk, the classic Yiddish folk drama of
ghostly possession. Those compositions formed the bulk of the next album,
Possessed (Piranha/Rounder, 1997). Kushner also wrote the powerful Possessed CD
liner notes. The band was joined on the CD by John Medeski of Medeski, Martin
and Wood, among others.
The Klezmatics next had the honor of working with renowned violinist Itzhak
Perlman, who requested that the Klezmatics join him and three other Klezmer
bands to record an album called In The Fiddler's House (Angel/EMI, 1995). This
album and ensuing tour dramatically raised the awareness of Klezmer music in the
United States. As the ultimate compliment, Perlman selected six original
Klezmatics compositions for inclusion on the CDs and live concerts.
The Klezmatics then paired with Israeli singer Chava Alberstein, an artist who,
in Israel, has a reputation as vaunted as Perlman's. Alberstein brought the band
fifteen Yiddish poems set to music. The band then created striking arrangements
to frame the voices of Alberstein and Sklamberg. For Alberstein, it was a return
to her mother tongue, and the first time she had recorded in Yiddish in eleven
years. It was also an act of bravery, given the tenuous existence of Yiddish in
Israel.
The resulting album,
The Well (Rounder, 1998), was produced by k.d. lang
collaborator Ben Mink, who also played on the recording. It remains one of the
band's favorites, not just for the music, but for the opportunity to help an
artist they admire achieve a personal triumph.
The Well is one of the band?s
(and Ms. Alberstein?s) most popular and beloved recordings and received rave
international reviews.
The collaborations had proven a point: despite the relatively obscure origins of
their music, the Klezmatics were citizens of the modern acoustic world, and
fully capable of lending their talents to any number of artistic forms. Their
next album,
Rise Up! Shteyt Oyf! (Rounder, 2002), was their first
non-collaborative album in years. The album also featured a new permanent
member, violinist Lisa Gutkin.
The tone of the record harkened back to
Jews With Horns, with politics,
religion, ecstasy and partying each vying for space, often within the same song.
Some of the songs on
Rise Up! had originally been commissioned for the band?s
collaboration with the innovative American dance company Pilobolus Dance
Theatre. 9/11 also affected aspects of the recording, particularly in their
bilingual cover of the Holly Near song ?I Ain?t Afraid,? later rousingly
performed onstage with musical heroes Near and Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers.
The band's intention at this point was to push forward with their own music, but
another chance meeting would redefine their immediate future. A few years prior,
after playing a concert with Perlman, they were introduced to Nora Guthrie-known
to most of the world as Woody's daughter and Arlo's sister. The band, however,
recognized her as the granddaughter of Aliza Greenblatt, an influential Yiddish
poet who had lived in Coney Island and the mother of Guthrie's Jewish wife. At
the time, Guthrie didn't recognize the importance of her grandmother to
appreciators of the Yiddish language and culture. She did, however, know that
her father had written a collection of Jewish songs, which she invited the band
to record in much the same manner as the Billy Bragg and Wilco collections
(Mermaid Avenue I & II).
Beginning in 2003, the band performed the music in a series of concerts,
including a Thanksgiving celebration at Carnegie Hall, under the title "Holy
Ground". They also self-produced eight of Woody's Hanuka songs, which resulted
in an album called Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanuka. An album of
Guthrie-penned Jewish Brooklyn Americana is planned for the near future.
In 2004, Piranha invited the Klezmatics back to the Heimatkl?nge festival, a
double invite rarely extended to performers. The show's theme that year was New
York, a theme fittingly embodied by the band. At Heimatkl?nge, the band
performed with jazz vocalist/organist Kathryn Farmer, as well as Joshua Nelson,
an African American Jew practitioner of ?Kosher Gospel? who was brought up on
gospel icon and collaborative superstar Mahalia Jackson. They performed a series
of shows, one night of which resulted in their first live audience album,
Brother Moses Smote the Water (Harmonia Mundi, 2004), featuring contributions by
Nelson and Farmer.
 Brother Moses spoke to every aspect of Klezmatics philosophy. It was undoubtedly
a Jewish offering?half of the songs concerned Passover. It also contained two
audience favorites: the socialist anthem "Ale brider" ("All United") and
?Shnirele, perele?, a Hasidic ode to the eternal Jewish yearning for the coming
of the messianic era. Not surprisingly, other influences naturally asserted
themselves, notably with "Old Testament"-based gospel tunes like "Didn't It
Rain" and "Oh, Mary Don?t You Weep".
The Klezmatics' powerfully diverse collaborative repertoire stands as a
testament to their ability to broaden the definition of the term world music.
They radically dispel the notion of pigeonholing music. The Klezmatics have made
a career out of breaking down musical barriers, fully embracing klezmer and
their Jewishness, while using these same essential spiritual, historical, and
cultural foundations as a springboard to ambitious new musical hybrids.
2006 line-up
Lorin Sklamberg - vocalist / accordionist
Frank London - trumpet
Matt Darriau - multi-instrumentalist
Lisa Gutkin - fiddle
Paul Morrisett - bass / tsimbl
David Licht - drums |
