As decades roll, it is becoming increasingly clear that the klezmer revival of the late 1970s was neither a fleeting fad nor a bout of nostalgia; it was a serious identity exploration. The longevity and evolution of certain early groups — The Klezmatics, the Klezmer Conservatory Band — is telling enough. Yet, the most important…
Courtesy of Daniel Kahn We all know people who seem to have been born in the wrong decade — or even in the wrong century. Only very few of them, however, attempting to connect their society with that of another world, stretch across eras, and become giants — artists and thinkers like Sun Ra, Walter…
Photo by Frank Vena Like many of his klezmer contemporaries, Geoff Berner, the Vancouver-born accordionist and songwriter, has a lyrical flair for pairing social commentary with the comically absurd. And he’s been able to do it with tongue-in-cheek storytelling and a Tom Waits-ian sense of balladry. Two of his most recent studio releases, “The Wedding…
I never learned to speak Yiddish. As a child in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was the language of my grandparents, the language that my parents only spoke when they didn’t want me or my brothers to understand what they were talking about (and I don’t think they spoke it when my childhood friend Michael…
It was no run-of-the-mill Halloween-themed wedding when Jewish musical royalty married on Sunday, October 31st. The bride, Katie Down, is a sound artist, composer, performer and sound designer, and her groom was Grammy winner Matt Darriau, of Klezmatics and Paradox Trio fame. The couple met three years ago at Barbes, a Park Slope bar and…
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…
Michael Winograd is mostly known as a star klezmer clarinetist, as well as for his multi-instrumental work with bands such as Yiddish Princess and Xylopholks. But this October Winograd, together with percussionist Richie Barshay, will don a different hat as the curator of a new acoustic music space in Brooklyn, Ditmas Acoustic. The venue is…
It’s hard to beat Yiddish Princess’s own self-description (as per their MySpace page): “Melodramatic Popular Song” “Kick Ass Yiddish Power Ballads” “Influences: Kate Bush, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Whitney Houston, Mina Bern, Molly Picon, Pat Benatar, Suki & Ding” “Sounds Like: Celine Dion (if she went to Kheder)” Not all of this is strictly true —…
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