In the Jewish tradition, you’re supposed to greet Rosh Hashanah — the New Year — with foods like honey, apples, dates and pomegranates. But all those treats can get kind of sticky, so we
wanted to usher in the year 5772 the way we know best: with some sweet, sweet music.

So we invited The Klezmatics to stop by for a little holiday celebration. Twenty-five years into its career together, the band is one of the greatest klezmer groups in the world, but its members are more than that: They’re Jewish innovators, American roots-rockers, punkish social activists and folkie balladeers. (Keep an eye out for the forthcoming documentary On Holy Ground, directed by Erik Greenberg Anjou, which chronicles The Klezmatics’ anarchic and messy path to musical glory.)

Since 1986, the Yiddish-American roots band the Klezmatics has spearheaded the popular revival of a tradition that once flourished at Jewish weddings and other joyous occasions in the shtetls and cities of Eastern Europe. They have performed in more than twenty countries and have released ten cds – of which Live at Town Hall, made in conjunction with the recent documentary film The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground, is the newest.

The double cd captures the Klezmatics’ milestone sold-out concert at the storied New York venue. The band rips through a career-spanning setlist, assisted by a star-studded roster of special guests including two of the band’s former clarinetists, David Krakauer and Margot Leverett and recent vocal collaborators Susan McKeown and Joshua Nelson. The audience is treated to a musical journey, traveling from the band’s earliest days (“Dzhankoye,” “Fun tashlikh”) through newly-composed songs featuring the lyrics of folk troubadour Woody Guthrie. The event was a real Klezmatics hometown party: a celebration of community, music and love, past, present and future.

With your help we can spread the word and the joy… Lomir ale freylekh zayn!

Where does klezmer meet American folk music and social activism? Thanks to The Klezmatics, we discover common ground on Brooklyn’s Mermaid Avenue, where Woody Guthrie lived in the late 1940′s. Working with Guthrie’s daughter Nora to uncover some lesser known gems from the pioneering balladeer, the band confounds expectations by tapping into a bluegrassy vibe (“Gonna Get Through This World”) and a 1950′s style pop (on “Mermaid’s Avenue”) as well as into its iconic klezmer energy on such tunes as “Goin’ Away To Sea” and “Wheel Of Life.” Regardless of what flavor a particular track takes on, however, the Klezmatics prove themselves to be sensitive interpreters of any artistic language they choose, shapeshifting their sound around vocalist Lorin Sklamberg’s lithe and heartfelt lead. While the trip along Mermaid Avenue is off the beaten Klezmatics path, it’s a welcome diversion.

By David Dye

As daughter of folk legend Woody Guthrie, granddaughter of poet Aliza Greenblatt and sister of folksinger Arlo Guthrie, Nora Guthrie is heir to a substantial legacy. After her father’s death in 1967, Guthrie expressed a desire to keep his music alive, and as director of the Woody Guthrie Archives, she’s done just that. Her primary goal in creating the archives was to reveal new and exciting glimpses into the life of her father, and 1998′s Mermaid Avenue, a collaboration between Billy Bragg and Wilco, was the first in Guthrie’s series of projects revisiting her father’s work. A sequel followed in 2000, while The Klezmatics’ new Wonder Wheel serves to highlight the Jewish themes in Guthrie’s work.

When Nora Guthrie approached The Klezmatics with this project seven years ago, the group was eager to take it on. Now 20 years old, the Jewish roots-music band saw the collaboration as a way to broaden its audience and its sound. Since coming together in New York City’s East Village in 1986, the group has brought its klezmer music (sung in both English and Yiddish) to fans on a worldwide scale, playing on numerous television and radio shows, traveling the world and serving as an integral part of assorted cross-cultural collaborations. However, like Nora Guthrie aimed to do with her father, The Klezmatics’ members wanted to broaden their audience.

Wonder Wheel, the band’s first album to be sung entirely in English, features the lyrics of 12 previously unreleased Woody Guthrie songs, backed by traditional klezmer music. The album serves as a fitting tribute to the legend and his timeless songwriting. At the same time, Wonder Wheel functions as a celebration of The Klezmatics, whose members, even after 20 years, continue to explore new territory with the usual Klezmatic spirit.

08/08/2006

By Mike Regenstreif

***** (5/5 Stars)

Another amazing set of unknown songs surfaces the Woody Guthrie Archives. Set to music by the Klezmatics, these songs include Headdy Down, a kid’s lullaby, Mermaid’s Avenue, a joyous celebration of the various immigrant cultures that were interacting in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn when Guthrie lived there after World War II, and Come When I Call You, a reflection on the effects of war that sounds like it could have been written just this week. Pass Away, Holy Ground and Heaven have Guthrie movingly musing on issues of spirituality and mortality. Drawing on Klezmer and other world and folk styles, the Klezmatics cast a wide musical net in composing and arranging the music. The performances range from quietly poignant to rollicking and infectious.

Woody Guthrie’s life on Mermaid Avenue, in the immigrant neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Coney Island, was the closest he got to being stationary. Settling there with his second wife, Marjorie Mazia, they set to raising kids. Woody turned his insatiable curiosity to the things immediately around him and within his own family. Marjorie’s mother was legendary Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt, and the two found in each other kindred spirits of wordplay and idealism.

It was in this environment Woody’s songwriting settled a bit, too. He began applying his ideas of union (as in of all humankind, not just workers) to daily life, with less urgency but no less potency. These are the songs covered here, amazingly but appropriately by the Klezmatics, the premier and popular klezmer group in America. And if you can accept that there is a premier and popular klezmer group, you’re halfway to understanding how well this disc works. The ‘Matics surround Woody’s lyrics with music not just Jewish but simple folk (the daily mantra of “Gonna Get Through This World”), psychedelic (“Pass Away”), Eastern European (“Goin’ Away to Sea”) and whatever seemed to fit the songs. It’s another project from the Archives that seems baffling on paper but skips merrily out of the speakers and becomes the life of the party.

By Robert Christgau

Rating: A

What a treat to have Lorin Sklamberg singing in English, with the gentleness and precision non-Yiddish speakers sense in him elaborated and specified by the dozen Guthrie lyrics Sklamberg and his cohort turn into music. He’s cheery for the neighborhood pep rally, transported for the mystic prophecy, tenderly humorous for the lullaby, delicately feminine for the tale of two rings, a wedding singer when the music gets Balkan (or is that Middle Eastern?), a Marxist simp with a Scotch-Irish melody dreaming of roads paved with the “finest of plastics.” One of the age’s signal voices, finally available on terms an Al Green fan can understand.

It is hard to pick a favorite CD from this leading Klezmer supergroup – so I cheated and picked three. Like most Klezmatics’ recordings, these CDs feature a captivating blend of traditional Yiddish melodies fueled with dynamic jazz and rock arrangements and a heavy dose of social activism (tacking everything from religious fundamentalism to homophobia). All of the band members are in top form, including Frank London’s spirited singing trumpet, Matt Darriau’s soulful sax and clarinet, David Licht’s punchy percussion section, along with Paul Morrissett rounding out the sound with bass, piano, and wonderful tsimbl playing. Accordionist Loren Sklamberg is in top form with his trademark evocative vocals, reaffirming his position as the leading voice in the Yiddish world. Alicia Svigals isn’t on Rise Up! after moving on (now with the group, Mikveh), and consequently the Klezmatics’ current sound relies more heavily on accordion, tsimbl, and brass on some numbers. Rise Up! is worth the $16 just for the Klezmatics’ mesmerizing version of Holly Near’s rebel anthem, “I Ain’t Afraid.” Here the Klezmatics come up with a spectacular bilingual (English and Yiddish) song that indicts both sides of the current war on terrorism. The song is so infectious, it is hard to believe that Near’s original version wasn’t a klezmer tune. Possessed is also full of captivating songs, most notably Sphrays Ikh Mir. The Well is yet another timeless recording, a result of a magnificent collaboration between the Klezmatics and Chava Alberstein. Here, Alberstein to sets treasured Yiddish poetry to music, complete with brilliant musical arrangements and performances by the Klezmatics, and the exquisite touches of Grammy award winning producer Ben Mink (K.D. Lang).

By Theodore Defosse

It’s hard to outgrow “punk”. Injustice was built into life — you’re given what you can bear, not what others can bear, so you’ll always end up with more misfortune than your neighbor, or less — and no angry kid who seeks release in music will give up on that outlet as an adult. Music is simply too good a tool for helping us to vent. Songs are good. Songs are a great release for “hate”.

The Klezmatics are not a traditional punk band. They’ve built a career around music as politically and socially conscious as Fugazi’s, but they’re klezmer, for God’s sake. They play the hell out of their instruments, and they know their Wittgenstein from their Shirley MacLaine. This is a smart band, weaned on years of study and practice, and they’re not randomly disrespectful. Unlike MDC or Anti-Nowhere League or GBH, they poke their fingers judiciously; when they hate, it’s not a fake sensation. That’s what makes their cover of Holly Near’s “I Ain’t Afraid” so wonderfully powerful. The lyrics are not profound, and won’t offer many revelations, but their directness (“I ain’t afraid of your praying / I’m afraid of what you do in the name of your god”) makes them very powerful for these times. Rise Up! features two version of the song — one mostly in Yiddish and one in English. The Yiddish version has the language going for it — a unique language that carries all of its history with it when it is spoken or sung. This history heightens the tension established in the music; it glides with righteous spit from their lips, and you get a good sense of how religious wars are devastating our languages, and thus our humanity. Then again, the song gets slightly skewed in this version, because it’s hard to sing in Yiddish and make bystanders believe you’re as angry at the Jews as you are the Muslims and Christians. The klezmer music behind the lyrics is quite another story. There’s something about this music (or polka, or any culturally rich music genre) that conjures up images of neighborhoods, streets, and the smells of real people. It’s emotionally pure. It’s human music, devoid of the materialism that videos and glossy photos that we associate with most pop music.

Rise Up! Shteyt Oyf! is very post-9/11 serious. It’s not preachy, and needn’t be (when I listen to Yiddish, I let the sounds conjure up my own frustrations, not theirs); it’s aggressively forthright, and none of the songs end with a question mark. The deconstructed piano work in “Kats Un Moyz”, for example, sounds as if every note was abused in a specific manner for specific reasons; I could just envision the cat throwing the mouse back and forth as the piano rocked. While “Tepel” includes a faux-Hasidic boys’ chorus, there’s nothing giddy about my interpretation of it, either. I don’t hear innocence — I hear revenge and chases and violent slow-mo sequences. Throughout the record, the fiddle, violins, clarinets and piano are plucked and banged upon with professional aggression, the performers’ heads and hearts completely in synch.

Rise Up! will not be food for the skinheads; it’s punk rock for people disheartened by society, who need the energy music provides in order to keep on fighting until their own inevitable ends. Listeners who are getting on in years should never forget bands like the Klezmatics when they’re looking for that punk fix; instead of the sweet nostalgia that the Damned might conjure, The Klezmatics’ music actually pricks the skin and keeps the blood boiling.