Klezmer Music...
Klezmer, which literally means “tool of song” in Hebrew, is the secular folk music of the Jews of Central and
Eastern Europe. In the first decades of the 1900s, this music flourished not only in the Old World but also in the
New, in the immigrant community of New York City. There, the sounds of the European “fiddler on the roof” mixed
with the sounds of early jazz and Tin Pan Alley. The result was a quintessentially American sound.
For decades, the music faced extinction. Genocide in Europe eliminated much of the cultural source for klezmer
music, while in this country, the children of first-generation immigrants sought to forget the Old World ways of
their parents and become fully assimilated into American culture.
It was not until the 1970s that a small group of Jewish musicians and ethnomusicologists began to study and
re-learn the songs and melodies of their grandparents. Now, several decades later, the klezmer revival is in full
swing with dozens of bands across the nation. Some faithfully recreate the traditional sounds of the past, and
some push the boundaries of the music by incorporating modern influences from jazz and rock and roll.
The Alexandria Kleztet creates a wonderfully original sound by blending klezmer with other genres. On
their third full-length CD, Close Enough for Klezmer, a variety of musical influences are prevalent in five original
compositions as well as creative re-imaginings of traditional material.
Compositions by bandleader Seth Kibel,
a skilled swing and jazz instrumentalist, and by bassist
Scott Harlan, a
noted jazz-fusion player, show strong jazz roots, as do numerous improvised sequences within songs. From the
New Orleans feel of “Bashana Haba’a” to the latin dance interpretation of “My Yiddishe Mame,” Kibel and his
bandmates manage to put a fresh spin on timeless classics. The result is an “alternative” klezmer album that is
both innovative and enjoyable.
For a wealth of klezmer-related information, visit Ari Davidow's
KlezmerShack.
