a “wild, mystical, provocative, reflective and ecstatically
danceable” genre of music that borrows on history and
tradition yet is entirely their own — and which has pas-
sionate fans around the globe.
On May 3, the Klezmatics, in all their colorful joie de
vivre, will head to Metro Detroit to celebrate another
long-standing tradition as they play the Detroit Jewish
News Legacy Gala. The event will celebrate the 75th
anniversary of the publication and highlight multi-gen-
erational families who have helped shape the Detroit
Jewish community.
“We know that it takes a lot of work to keep some-
thing together for the long haul,” says London, adding
that they also recognize the significance of being com-
mitted to Jewish culture and identity in an inclusive
way. “I think we come to this particular event with a real
great degree of respect for the Detroit Jewish News and
what [it’s] been doing for all these years.”
Klezmer, a Yiddish word that comes from two Hebrew
roots meaning “vessel” or “instrument” and “song,”
was actually a term used for the person who played
the instruments. Klezmer music, which has Eastern
European Jewish roots, came to North America as those
Yiddish-speaking immigrant musicians arrived with
their communities from the 1880s to the 1920s, when
they met and assimilated American jazz. At this time, it
was often referred to as “Yiddish” music, or sometimes
freilech music (“happy music”). The music, which waned
in America following the Holocaust and also saw a pau-
city of new immigrant musicians, was rediscovered in
the mid-1970s and spread in the decade that followed
through North America, Europe and beyond.
Growing up in a Reform home on Long Island, prac-
ticing Judaism in English, Frank London didn’t discover
Yiddish culture or language until later. But when he did,
klezmer music spoke to him. A student of the world’s
music, he discovered klezmer and Yiddish decades back
alongside other global flavors of expression.
London went on to become a founding member of
the Boston-based Klezmer Conservatory Band in the
1970s, before putting together the Klezmatics.
“Every music of the world does the same thing,” he
says. “They express all the range of emotions people
have.” But klezmer and Yiddish also speak to a certain
type of flourish found in old cantorial music. Expressive
melodies are intended to replicate the human voice —
the sounds of crying, wailing and laughing.
“You hear the voices and the particularity of how the
singers sing, and the particular way they’re crying out
and the ornaments [musical flourishes], how they’re
not just musical ornaments, but how they’re emotional
ornaments that express the depths of emotion through
the voice,” London says. “Klezmer music is the instru-
mental version of that vocal music, that’s what I really,
really love about klezmer music.”
For co-founder Lorin Sklamberg, who grew up in a Los
Angeles suburb in a Conservative Jewish community, the
music is not only about heritage but also an outlet that
resonates with him more deeply than much of what he
grew up with Jewishly, he says. “I’m not being preached
at. I’m doing it for myself and for the band.”
Sklamberg grew up around Yiddish speakers from his
grandparents’ generation, hearing bits and pieces of the
language with Jewish culture around him. He moved to
New York from Los Angeles in 1983 to be more immersed
in a city with more Jewish flavor, but he also arrived on a
more developed music scene. When he and London met,
Sklamberg was playing accordion in a brass band.
When the Klezmatics started, the goal was to express
a music they loved, says London. That ran counter to
the current at the time of treating Yiddish culture and
klezmer music as a thing of nostalgia or kitsch. Instead
of seeking to make the music hip by modernizing it, they
FACING PAGE: The Klezmatics (clockwise from top left): Paul
Morrissett, Lorin Sklamberg, Matt Darriau, Frank London, Richie
Barshay, Lisa Gutkin.
TOP: Frank London ABOVE: Lorin Sklamberg
details
The Klezmatics will perform Thursday, May 3, at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, followed by
a dessert afterglow, as part of the Detroit Jewish News
Legacy Gala. General admission is $75; $36 for those
36 and younger. Event begins at 7 p.m.
(248) 351-5108; djnfoundation.org.
sought to let it stand in its own right.
“We said, ‘This culture is already hip; we don’t need
to do anything. All we have to do is strip away layers
of kitsch or sentimentality that people have put on it
because it already has everything,’” he says.
Klezmer music is fun and accessible even if it’s in
a language many people don’t understand, London
says. Building off of their passion for the music, they’ve
mixed it with others over the years, like a recent kosher
gospel tour with Joshua Nelson that had people danc-
ing in the aisles. They’ve collaborated with violinist
Itzhak Perlman, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Tony Kushner and Israeli vocal icon Chava Alberstein.
They’ve worked with folk singers Theodore Bikel and
Arlo Guthrie, poet Allen Ginsburg and Neil Sedaka.
Choreographer Twyla Tharp incorporated their music
into a new work to celebrate the 100th anniversary of
Martha Graham’s birth. And the list goes on.
But that’s not because audiences anywhere in the
world can’t enjoy klezmer on its own, London empha-
sizes, adding that at heart, they’re traditionalists. “It all
adds to it, but it also shows the strength and durability of
the thing itself,” he says. “I think what it comes down to
is that core trust in the tradition itself.”
Over their time together, the band has deepened its
connection to the Jewish, Yiddish and klezmer elements
at its core and built a rapport as a group — their newest
member has been with the band about a decade — while
also continuing to learn and transcribe new material. “It
means with every project we do we can bring more to it;
we can infuse it more with its roots,” London says.
What’s the secret to continuing to write and play with
broad appeal after 30-plus years? Playing quality music
without trying to play to an audience or figuring out
what most people want to hear, London says. They also
try to “keep it fresh,” he says, and take on each project on
its own terms. From embracing Americana as they work
on Woody Guthrie material to taking a “very modern,
almost Philip Glass-approach to Jewish music” as they
work with an avant-garde Hungarian filmmaker to play-
ing thriving dance music at weddings, they come to all
of their projects with integrity and bring to it the highest
quality level they can.
Mixing the music, at the end of the day, he adds, is less
important than the people they meet along the way. The
music creates a context for reaching people by bring-
ing something familiar to them alongside something
unfamiliar, and opens a dialogue and communication
between people. “We are emissaries and ambassadors
of Jewish and Yiddish culture,” he says, “and we can walk
anywhere and meet anyone and find common language.”
The band hopes its music can be a vehicle for change
in local communities, breaking down walls and stereo-
types. Music helps create openness for dialogue, London
says; activism is an important part of their work. “Our
reason to be together is not only to make music, but to
work for social change and to try to make the world a
better place — it’s kind of a Jewish thing.”
Along that vein, the diversity within the group is also
one of its strengths, London says. There are Jews and
Quakers, for example, and members hailing from dif-
ferent musical disciplines, including classical, folk and
rock. “The thing that keeps us together is the focus on
klezmer and Yiddish music,” he says. “But because we’re
so diverse, we bring lots of different attitudes to it, and I
think that’s another thing that keeps our music alive.”
They play klezmer because they love the music, he
explains. “I love what the songs have to say, and I love
the idea that we’ve been able to also create new songs, or
to kind of modify existing songs to say what we want to
say, or to be able to bring songs that one doesn’t think of
as Jewish songs into the Yiddish world.”
He says he’s also honored to be part of the movement
to make sure the tradition of klezmer lives on. “I want
people to love this music, I want them to love this cul-
ture that we’re a part of,” Sklamberg says.
The Klezmatics’ music can also help people as they
navigate their lives and the world, he adds. “We can
make a community with our audience, at least for a
couple hours, and we can make people dance and make
people think and make people sing along, and I think
that’s really fulfilling.” •
jn
April 19 • 2018
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