Jewish With A Beat
I;
an world music
fans make klez-
mer the next
reggae?
The Klezmat-
ics — New York-
based entertain-
ers about to make their
Michigan debut — hope the
answer will be "yes."
Just as performers popu-
larized Jamaican music by
adding rock 'n' roll beats to
create reggae, the Klezmat-
ics are updating Jewish mu-
sic from Eastern Europe
with some of the same rock
rhythms.
The sextet will spotlight
exactly what they mean as
they become the first pro-
gram in a four-show series,
"Encore," planned for the
1994-95 season by the cul-
tural arts staff of the Jewish
Community Center.
The band members will
present songs they have
recorded and taken to stages
around the world during a
rousing session 8 p.m. Sat-
urday, Oct. 8, at the Maple-
Drake JCC.
The season subsequently will
feature improv humorists teamed
as the Chicago City Limits, Jan.
14; Israeli singers Noa and Gil
Dor, Feb. 8; and comedian Deb
Filler, March 11 and 12.
"Most of what we do in concert
these days is from our new al-
bum, Jews With Horns, which is
going to be released in Europe on
Oct. 13 and maybe a month or
two after that in the States," said
Alicia Svigals, an electric violin-
ist and the only woman in the
Klezmatics.
"In the new album, we have a
real wide variety. Our first song
starts in Yiddish and goes to Eng-
lish, and the chorus is 'I met a
man in a hat with a tan in Man-
hattan,' a kind of funny, clever,
rhyming song in the tradition of
the clever, old show tunes from
the '30s and '40s.
"We do traditional instrumen-
tal tunes with our own arrange-
ments, changing them enough so
that they're practically our own
compositions. We have composed
a couple of new instrumental and
vocal things, which also are on
the new album.
"Most of what we do is based
on traditional folk songs or tra-
ditional instrumental pieces, but
we are starting to write new mu-
New York's Klezmatics
sic for old words and put new
words to old music."
The Klezmatics established
their group eight years ago, after
answering an ad placed in a New
York paper by a clarinetist, who
since left and lost touch with the
other members—drummer
David Licht, trumpeter/arranger
Frank London, clarinetist David
Krakauer, singer/accordionist
Lorin Sklamberg and bassist
Paul Morrissett.
Their first engagement was at
a small bistro in New York,
where they performed only for
food and found an enthusiastic
They get young rock
and jazz audiences
with their avant
garde spin.
audience response that encour-
aged them to continue.
Concert dates have taken
them to eastern Europe, a setting
allowing them to experience the
emotional roots of their style.
"We played in Budapest for an
audience of several thousand peo-
ple who, for the most part, were
the Jewish community of Hun-
A group of musicians
are attracting younger
fans to Jewish music.
SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
gary," Ms. Svigals recalled. "This
is a place where people are sud-
denly able to be openly Jewish for
the first time in many years.
"We saw Jewish Budapest
teen-agers dancing and respond-
ing to the music, and one guy
came up to us after the concert
and said this was the first time
in his life he felt good about be-
ing Jewish. When he said that,
we all burst into tears.
"That part of the world is
where this music is from and
where our families are from ulti-
mately. To go back there and con-
nect like that was just out of this
world."
As they travel to various tour
dates, the Klezmatics find a mix
of people enjoying their style.
There are the elderly, who look
forward to hearing old-time
klezmer repertoire they haven't
heard in decades, and there is a
young, progressive, world music
crowd looking for new kinds of
ethnic melodies.
"We play in a lot of rock clubs
because we do this kind of avant
garde spin and get young jazz
and rock audiences," Ms. Svigals
said. "Everybody gets into the
dances together, and it's great.
"Until a year or two ago, I used
to jump down off the stage and
just grab people and get them in
a circle and get them dancing, es-
pecially in Europe, where there
are practically no Jews in a lot of
the places we play, so people don't
know what to do.
"We tend to jump around the
stage in a kind of rock roll way,
but we don't dance on stage."
The Klezmatics, who have en-
joyed TV and radio engagements
and have seen their second al-
bum (Rhythm + Jews) hit the top
10 on the Billboard chart of
World Music Albums, have
not reached the point where
their band provides enough
income to sustain them.
They all take other musical
jobs; for Ms. Svigals, these
include playing in Greek,
Italian and Cuban bands.
Sometimes planned and
sometimes not, the Klez-
matics, all in their 30s, have
performed with Arab
groups.
`The musical languages
are very related," said Ms.
Svigals, who first learned
Yiddish from her grandpar-
ents and went on to formal
studies at the Workmen's
Circle School. "They share
some of the modes and im-
provisational concepts. It's
very exciting to put those
two kinds of music together
because there is a point of
entry from one musical cul-
ture to the other."
Ms. Svigals says her
group has political messages
that go beyond entertainment,
picking up on the concerns of the
members — five Jewish and one
non-Jewish, four straight and two
gay.
They called their first album
Shvagyn=Toyt, Yiddish for Si-
lence=Death, the slogan of gay
activists.
"We recorded that album in
Berlin," explained the violinist.
"Our idea was that if you don't
speak your language, it will die;
if you don't play your music, it
will die; and if you don't speak up
on your own behalf and on behalf
of other people who are threat-
ened, people die.
"Having done it in Berlin, we
felt like we were going back and
saying, 'It didn't work. We're still
here. We're still speaking Yiddish
and playing Jewish music, and
we're going to do that right here
in Germany.'
"Our mission is treating our cn
o,
musical heritage with great re- —
spect and a lot of innovation and
keeping it alive in a very vibrant, c`'
continually-evolving way that u r= j
will speak to young Jewish Amer- co
icans and Jews all over the 2
u j
world." ❑
o _
Is" For moreinforniation on t hi w
C )
"Encore" programs, which start
Oct.8 with the Klezmatics at the 73
Maple-Drake JCC, call 661-1000.