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80 Detroit Jewish News
Tit L
PLACE
851-7000
LYNNE MEREDITH COHN
Special to The Jewish News
II
noxville, Tenn. Not a place
you'd expect to find a
thriving klezmer audience,
right? But thanks to a band
known as Tennessee Schmaltz, even
the country-music lovers in this
below-the Mason-Dixon-line city are
taking a liking to traditional Yiddish
music. What's not to like about a hora
with a Southern twist?
Combining traditional klezmer
instruments with wacky Appalachian
sounds, Tennessee Schmaltz melds
Old World charm with country
twang. There's a chance to hear for
yourself at 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6,
when the band takes the stage at The
Ark in Ann Arbor. It's a gala gig that
band members are thrilled about.
Ken Brown, an attorney with
Lockheed Martin Systems in Knoxville
who plays alto and soprano sax, can't
wait to play a particular piece for the
first time before a live audience. The
song "starts with the 'Orange Blossom
Special,' a classic bluegrass fiddle tune
that is blatantly fast," explains Brown.
After that, "we segue into little [frag-
ments] from `Hava Nagila' and
`Tzena, Tzena.' We klezmerize the -
Tennessee Waltz."
The band was the brainchild of
flutist Judy Megibow, who attended
KlezCamp for a couple years in the
Catskills, where klezmer bands and
musicians gather every summer to
trade songs and tips.
"She's always loved that music,"
Brown says of Megibow, who works
full time as the Russian resettlement
coordinator for the Knoxville Jewish
Federation. "She figured, 'why not try
to put together a klezmer band in
Knoxville?' So she did."
Megibow tried to find Jewish
musicians who played traditional
klezmer instruments — without a
ton of success at first. Knoxville's
Jewish population is small — a
Reform temple has about 200 fami-
lies, and the sole Conservative shul
has nearly 270, says Brown. The city
has no Orthodox synagogue, and
those who keep kosher drive to
Atlanta to buy kosher meat.
But Megibow persevered. Joining
her and Brown are violinist Aaron
Feldman, a Knoxville lawyer; Rob
Heller, a professor in the department
of communications at the University
of Tennessee, on clarinet and washtub
bass; Manny Herz, an architect in Oak
Ridge, Tenn., who plays keyboard;
and Israeli-born Danny Shapira, a
nuclear physicist who plays accordion.
Megibow also plays the piccolo.
The clarinet and alto and soprano
saxophones add an Appalachian hint
to the music, says Brown. Those
instruments "did not even exist when
klezmer music was being developed in
the 19th century. [But] soprano sax
sounds especially appropriate because
it has a nasal, sexy oboe sound. It's not
the typical klezmer sound. But then,
we're not your typical klezmer band."
The original idea was just to play
for fun, adds Brown. And the group
did just that for a year and a half,
beginning in 1995. But when
Tennessee Schmaltz started playing
local gigs, the Jewish community
actively started booking the band.
Schmaltz played a concert for
Jerusalem's 3,000th anniversary and
has performed at weddings and b'nai
mitzvah celebrations.
Huntington Woods resident Dale
Rubin, special events coordinator for
Federation's centennial celebration,
became a fan of Tennessee Schmaltz
when she lived in Knoxville. "I saw
them at a couple of bar mitzvahs," she
recalled. "Tennessee has never seen
anything like them."
Three years into what is becoming
a wildly successful hobby, "people