Meijer Broadway Series presents
The New Wave
THE ODD COUPLE
starring Barbara Eden & Rita McKenzie
A new front line of women in Jewish music
finds acceptance and success.
GEORGE ROBINSON
Special to the Jewish News
J
ewish women have been an inte-
gral part of the klezmer revival
that has been going on since the
1970s. And now, they have stepped to
the front of the bandstand, carrying
their sisters in other Jewish musical tra-
ditions along with them into the spot-
light.
Just ask Elaine Hoffman Watts, the
drummer for KlezMs, a group led by
her daughter, trumpeter Susan Sandler.
Watts is a third-generation klezmer,
like the New York-based Metropolitan
Klezmer, whose leader is drummer Eve
Sicular.
Another sign of changing times on
thellezmer scene is the proliferation of
bands whose members are all or nearly
all women.
Mikveh, a spectacularly talented
group, draws from the top Jewish
music groups working today. The
band's personnel include Alicia Svigals
on fiddle (Klezmatics), Lauren Brody
on accordion, singer Adrienne Cooper
and ja77, bassist Nicki Parrott.
"What we represent is a moving
from that decorous one-girl-per-
' band thing to a front line of
women," says Cooper. "We don't
.2 exactly understand the effect on
the audience, but it seems to bog-
o gle their minds to see a front line
4 of women in a band.
We're not setting out to do
`women's music,' but what it
means is there's something that
radiates to the audience as female
energy, interaction between
women players on stage."
For many of the women
involved in klezmer and other improvi-
sational contemporary Jewish music,
what's happening is that women's voic-
es are being heard.
Basya Schechter, the leader of
Pharoah's Daughter, a highly acclaimed
Brooklyn band that plays a heady mix
of Middle Eastern, Chasidic and folk-
rock tinged with a klezmer beat (see
accompanying article), believes her suc-
cess is equivalent to what's happened in
the pop world.
"Women singer-songwriters are get-
ting so much attention in the regular
music world. Men have begun most of
the waves, but at some point, [other]
people have their viewpoint and want
some balance," she says.
For instrumentalists, however, the sit-
uation is a bit different.
"Women relate to women in a differ-
ent way. Playing with men, I'm more
reticent to take the lead," says Susan
Sandler of KlezMs.
Eve Sicular — in addition to
Metropolitan Klezmer, she leads two
all-women bands, Isle of Klezbos and
Ana and the Tevkas -- says winning
acceptance as musicians, and Jewish
musicians, is more important than
being perceived as "female musicians."
Caron Dale, leader of Lox and
Vodka, emphatically agrees.
"I'm a Jewish musician," she asserts.
"The gender is not the issue." Fl
Apr. 25 at 7:30 pm, Apr. 26 at 8pm and Apr. 27 at 2 & 8pm
There's a new odd couple in town—Felix and Oscar have been transformed into
Florence and Olive in Neil Simon's laugh-riot revised production of The Odd Couple—
the female version.
Ticket Office 586.286.2222
www.MacombCenter.com
"
daughter of the
famed xylo-
phonist Jacob
Hoffman and
the first woman
to graduate with
a degree in per-
cussion from the prestigious Curtis
Institute.
Remembering her struggles in the
1950s, she said, "They didn't use
women musicians. They had girl
singers, but not a girl instrumentalist. It
was their club, their thing. I wasnt a
part of the club. I played when it was
my father's job, when he was the leader.
Otherwise they did not use me because
I was a woman."
But all that has changed.
For the first time in the history of
the form, numerous, predominantly
male ldezmer bands are being led by
women (as opposed to being fronted
by female vocalists), and these
klezmerot are instrumentalists first and
foremost.
Some of the bands have been around
a while, like the Wholesale Klezmer
Band (out of Western Massachusetts),
led by clarinetist/composer Sherry
Mayrent; Chicago's Maxwell Street
Klezmer Band, led by guitarist Lori
Lippitz; and Lox and Vodka, led by
Washington, D.C.-based accordionist
Caron Dale.
Others are of more recent vintage,
Alicia Svigals,
Lauren Brody,
1Vicky Parrott and
Adrienne Cooper
of Mikveh.
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