Arts &Entertainment

ON THE COVER

Behind The Music from page C3

Jeff Haas

The Klezmatics

said, `No problem:A cable was stretched
between a tank and a half- track. I had no
choice but to take up the challenge. I started
walking on the cable when I realized it was
covered in grease. I slipped right off and
cut my wrist as I tried to cushion the fall. It
wasn't a major injury, but a headline in the
next day's newspaper proclaimed that I was
wounded in Lebanon in the line of duty! (A
bit of an exaggeration ...)"

THE KLEZMATICS
Founded 20 years ago, the Klezmatics blend
traditional klezmer tunes with everything
from punk to gospel to dance and often
incorporate provocative lyrics touching on
social rights. Plus ...
• In addition to Ben Folds, among the

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artists with whom the Klezmatics have col-
laborated: the Master Musicians of Jajouka
(a 400-year-old Moroccan rock ensemble),
Palestinian musician Simon Shaheen,
Itzhak Perlman, playwright Tony Kushner
and Chava Alberstein.
•Although popular on the New York
club scene, the band found fame only after
appearing at the Heimatklange Festival in
Berlin, where they received their first record
deal.
• The Klezmatics' first song in English
was "Man in a Hat',' on their 1995 album
Jews with Horns.
•After appearing with Itzhak Perlman,
the Klezmatics met up with Nora Guthrie.
In addition to being the daughter of Woody
Guthrie, Nora is the granddaughter of

Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. Nora invited
the band to record a collection of Jewish
songs that her father had written. Nora's
daughter, Sarah, has since appeared in con-
cert with the Klezmatics.

THE JEFF HAAS QUINTET
The Jeff Haas Quintet features saxophon-
ist George Benson, trumpeter Rob Smith,
Marion Hayden on bass, Alex Trajano
on horns and Jeff Haas on piano. Jewish
melodies meet up with African-American
traditions and jazz to create a sound the
Pittsburgh Tribune says is filled with "exqui-
site textures, passionate invocations:'And
• Jeff's favorite musicians are Thelonious
Monk and Charlie Mingus, both of whom
"have such personal and unique musical

voices and have one foot firmly planted
in the jazz tradition and the other in the
future of music:' He also loves anything by
Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye
and Stevie Wonder.
• Jeff once performed a concert in the
middle of a field in upstate New York. "We
had to take a two-track for several miles
through a maze of open fields and woods:'
he says. "When we got to the performance
site, there were well over 500 people in lawn
chairs waiting for the music to begin."
• He loves old art films by Fellini, Truffaut
and Bergman and would love to have
met the late classical composer Arnold
Schoenberg.
• Jeff's first music teacher was his father,
who also wrote music for May the Words

Was Stephen Gottlieb?

Stephen Gottlieb and Lisa Benjamin
were preschoolers together at
Temple Beth El; they attended the
same middle school (Lederle) and
the same high school (Southfield).
In 1976, Stephen asked Lisa out
to dinner and a movie, The Bad
News Bears. After the film, the two
went out for coffee — and that was
it. "I knew right away that I wanted
to be with him," Lisa says.
Stephen Gottlieb, in whose honor
the Jewish Community Center's
MusicFest has been named, was
born in 1958 and died of brain can-
Stephen Gottlieb
cer on Oct. 30, 2006.
"He was a very happy child; he
always had a smile — and he could
tell a lie with such a straight face," says his mother,
Sarah. He was a bright boy, "but he didn't like
school." His first love, "other than his mother," was
music.
Stephen started with drums then became inter-
ested in the piano. Buying the instrument was a bit
costly, so the family opted to rent from Hudson's.
Then they arranged for piano lessons. The minute

C6

Elaine Serling

February 21 2008

everything was set, Stephen sud-
denly announced, "I don't really
want lessons anymore."
If his parents, Sarah and Harold,
were mad, it didn't last.
"There was a goodness about
him," his mother says. "You couldn't
be angry with him for long."
"Stephen had an air of self-con-
fidence that definitely caught my
attention," Lisa adds. "And he had
a good sense of humor. He was very
much his own person, the kind who
would go out of his way not to go
with the flow."
Lisa and Stephen dated for nine
months before he proposed. Both
were 18, and they stayed engaged
for 16 months before they wed; "I was waiting to get
my braces off," Lisa explains.
Finally the two were married by Rabbi Harold
Loss of Temple Israel, took a honeymoon in Harbor
Springs, settled in an apartment in Southfield and
later moved to north Oak Park, where they raised
three children: Joshua, now 24; Ryan, 20; and
Lauren, 17.

Music remained a passion of Stephen's throughout
his life, Lisa says. "He had a studio in the house. He
didn't sing, but he wrote songs and he played most
of the instruments" on his recordings. His favorite
musicians included the Allman Brothers Band, Jimi
Hendrix and Pink Floyd.
Ask Lisa if she liked her husband's compositions,
and she laughs. "Not really," she admits, "but he was
very good at what he did, and he taught me a lot
about his music."
She misses him every moment of her life. "I miss
his just being here for me," she says. "I have a hard
time not calling him during the day."
"He was the sweetest guy in the world," says
Harold, with whom Stephen worked in hotel manage-
ment. "I miss him terribly."
Stephen's parents, who honor a special film each
year with the Sarah and Harold Gottlieb Prize for
Contributions to Jewish Culture at the JCC's Lenore
Marwil Jewish Film Festival, wanted to memorialize
Stephen through music.
Naming the MusicFest for Stephen was a natural
says his brother Cary Gottlieb. "Stephen was a Jew
who adored music. Playing, recording and mixing
music was when he was happiest."

- Elizabeth Applebaum