Arts & Entertainmen
Photo by Steven Meyer
The Klezmer Madness Ensemble: For those who remember "yesterday's" klezmer and the world music enthusiasts of today.
Clarinetist David Krakauer and the Klezmer Madness Ensemble infuse jazz,
funk and hip-hop into a traditional art form.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
Ann Arbor
I
t's not your grandmother's klezmer, but it's filled
with Bubbemeises ("Lies My Gramma Told Me").
Hear for yourself by attending the University
Musical Society debut of David Krakauer and the
Klezmer Madness Ensemble, a concert scheduled for 8
p.m. Saturday, March 31, at the Rackham Auditorium in
Ann Arbor.
Bubbemeises is the title of Krakauer's latest CD, and
he'll be performing selections from it. The tune "Electric
Sher" from that recording could very well summarize his
approach.
"I've been playing klezmer for 20 years, and the whole
trajectory of my career has been to mix different con-
temporary influences into the music:' says Krakauer, who
also takes his clarinet talents to classical concerts. "There
always was a search for making klezmer relevant and
modern, not holding up some sort of museum piece.
"This is great music that has its roots in the past of
descendents of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and
it has the potential to grow and change. When I'm adding
jazz, funk and hip-hop into the mix, I'm working to make
a really contemporary klezmer music that exists in the
present."
Krakauer, 50, sometimes a singer and often work-
ing with his Bubbemeises collaborator, Jewish hip-hop
DJ Socalled, will be appearing in Ann Arbor with his
Klezmer Madness Ensemble, a group that includes Sheryl
Bailey on guitar, Trevor Dunn on bass, Will Hoshouser on
accordion and Michael Sarin on drums.
"We do some songs with lyrics;' says Krakauer, who
has appeared in Ann Arbor with chamber groups. "We do
`Rumania Rumania; a standard klezmer song, and we do
`Rue Mania, an edgier, darker version of that song.
"I don't write lyrics, but I write songs. There will be
several of my compositions also featured.
"One song I wrote is Ilezmer a la Bechet; which has to
do with Sidney Bechet, a great New Orleans jazz clarinet-
ist and a big influence on my own musical development.
The song is about a mixing of styles and the meeting of
two cultures — African American and Polish Jewish."
Krakauer, the son of psychiatrist turned actor-singer
Bill Krakauer and the late violinist Barbara Krakauer,
started playing the clarinet when he was 10. He knew
he wanted to be a musician by the time he was 14 and
attended New York City's High School of Music and Art.
After starting out at Sarah Lawrence College, Krakauer
spent a year at the Paris Conservatory and earned a mas-
ter's degree at the Juilliard School of Music.
"I freelanced in New York and spent eight years playing
in orchestras and chamber music groups," says Krakauer,
New Wave Klezmer on page 60
March 29 a 2007
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