This is the Forward’s coverage of klezmer, an instrumental music genre of Ashkenazi Jews.
Klezmer
The Latest
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The Schmooze Horas for Headbangers
Back in 1997, “Buena Vista Social Club” introduced American audiences to a style of Cuban music that was popular in Havana in the 1950s. The album charmed the critics, topped the charts, spawned a documentary film, and was championed by Starbucks when the coffee behemoth decided to become a curator of world music. Such a…
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The Schmooze Yinglish and Spanglish at the International Accordion Festival
Mark Rubin is a musician based out of Austin, Texas, who has played at the International Accordion Festival since 2001. His latest project is the Atomic Duo. The International Accordion Festival is not well known outside of Texas, and that’s a shame. For a decade, the people of San Antonio have been treated, at no…
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The Schmooze Symphonies for Space Cadets
For those familiar with One Ring Zero’s sound — a sometimes-kooky, sometimes-eerie blend of forsaken instruments like theremin, claviola, and glockenspiel — it will come as no surprise that the band’s latest album, “Planets,” is a musical tour through outer space. Given their fondness for far-out noises, it was only a matter of time before…
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The Schmooze Bringing Slavic Soul to Rikers Island
As their name implies, Slavic Soul Party! updates traditional Eastern European sounds with a festive, contemporary feel. Their instrumental music conjures carnivals and circuses, pep bands and klezmer bands, James Brown and James Bond. Brooklyn music aficionados may know Slavic Soul Party! from their weekly Tuesday gigs at Barbès; uptowners may have caught them at…
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The Schmooze From Toronto, a Gateway to the World
Canada is home to less than three percent of the world’s Jewish population, but every other year, Jewish artists from around the world congregate in Toronto for the Ashkenaz Festival, which returns this year from August 31 to September 6 at the city’s Harbourfront Centre. The festival was created in 1995 as a forum for…
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The Schmooze Off in Yonder Klezmer Mountains
It may be stretching a humorous point to call the band behind original Klezmatics member Margot Leverett “boys,” whether or not they are from the Klezmer Mountains. Nevertheless, the Klezmer Mountain Boys of the band were at least a decade younger than most of the audience members who’d snapped up the tickets so early that…
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The Schmooze Abe Elenkrig and Tupac Shakur, Together At Last
Abraham Elenkrig was a trumpeter, a barber, and the bandleader of Abe Elenkrig’s Yidishe Orchestra, one of the very first outfits to record klezmer music in America. Though considered something of a secret treasure by klezmer connoisseurs, Elenkrig has never really gotten his due. Last week, however, the Library of Congress made Elenkrig’s 1913 rendition…
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The Schmooze A Passover Nightmare
It’s Passover time, and a heady mix of liberation, freedom and matzah fills the air. While we recount the tale of the Children of Israel’s escape from Egypt, a strange inversion of this story unfolds in France. In this nightmare exodus, the Israelite (a non-Jewish klezmer clarinetist) flees Egypt (Moldova) and makes it to the…
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