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Klez-X -
Harbst
Reviewed on Ari Davidow's Klezmershack
They
used to be known as the San Francisco Klezmer Experience: a brassy,
energetic Bay Area reincarnation of the spirit of the Klezmer Revival
pioneers, the Klezmorim. Years later, they've shortened the name
to something appropriately cryptic. The music is astonishingly diverse,
a fusion of klezmer, Yiddish folk song, liturgical soul, Yiddish
art song, and jazz: a West Coast Flying Bulgars, but different.
Put this CD on the changer and listen to the opening "Klezville"
with its jazz and scat. Or consider their version of "Shma
koleynu" from the Yom Kippur service, here titled "Oy
Tate" (Oh Daddy, hear our voice). This isn't your klezmer experience
of yore.
Like newer bands klezmer-based bands such as Khevre or Shtreiml,
Klez-X features excellent musicians. I never thought of the San
Francisco Klezmer Experience as "tight" (that being one
reason I always considered them a reincarnation of the Klezmorim).
This band is tight. Violinist Daniel Hoffman is well known as both
a klezmer and as 1/3 of the new Jewish ensemble, Davka. Jeanette
Lewicki has been turning heads for years with her Yiddish singing,
as well as with her accordion playing. Stephen Saxon's horn and
voice have never sounded better. Sheldon Brown's clarinet and saxes
are wonderful. The whole ensemble sounds damn good.
It isn't just that the band is playing tighter than ever before.
The diversity is also stunning. Of course they do Yiddish without
compare. Lewicki's "Harbst" or "In torbe funem vint"
take Yiddish poetry and folk to art song. Listen to her read the
English translation to Moyshe-Leyb Halpern's "The Street Drummer"
to a hipster backdrop, then, as the drums get faster and more insistent,
she sings the song in wonderful Yiddish a la Molly Picon. (Molly
get's hers with a dynamite "Oy, s'iz git".) The band hasn't
forgotten how to play Klezmer, either, as displayed on a new piece
by Daniel Hoffman, "a horkisher nign" or on Hoffman's
breakneck violin bringing "Al's Dances" to a close. But
how do you characterize Saxon's take on traditional nusakh, as applied
to Genesis in "Our Father's Children" which uses Ashkenazi
nusakh for verses on Abraham, then twists to the Middle East to
sing about Ishmael, and on to a klezmerized show singing for Isaac?
This is one of the most inventive, exciting, tight new Jewish
music albums I've heard. The rest is commentary. Get your copy now.
Personnel this recording:
Sheldon Brown : clarinet, alto & soprano saxophones
Daniel Hoffman : violin
Jeanette Lewicki : Yiddish vocals, accordion
Kevin Mummey : drum kit, dumbeq
Richard Saunders : bass
Stephen Saxon : trumpets, alto horn, Hebrew & scat vocals
Charlie Seavey : trombone
Featuring
Stuart Brotman : tsimbl ("in torbe funem vint")
Songs
Klezville (D. Hoffman) 5:34
Accordion farshpil (J. Lewicki) 1:30
Harbst (Music: D. Hoffman; Poetry: Itsik Manger) 5:19
Oy tate (trad., arr. D. Hoffman) 5:25
Hulye kabstn (trad., lyrics after Aaron Lebedeff; arr. J. Lewicki)
3:34
Der gasnpoyker (Music: D. Hoffman, Poetry: Moyshe-Leyb Halpern)
7:14
A horkisher nign (D. Hoffman) 6:01
Our father's children (Music: S. Saxon; Text: Genesis) 6:48
In torbe funem vint (Music: D. Hoffman; Poetry: Abraham Sutzkever)
4:16
Schwartz doina (Abe Schwartz) 1:43
Al's dances (D. Hoffman) 2:42
Oy s'iz git (Music: Jacobs/Ellstein; Lyrics: Molly Picon) 3:00
Yom-pom-pom (after Molly Picon) 3:52
Such a Klezmer
Experience
It might not have been a deliberate misrepresentation,
but a San Francisco Performances family matinee Saturday in Herbst
Theater was far more than the exotic-ethnic funfest for kiddies
you might have expected. Mommies, daddies, and the little tykes
crawling around on both sides of the stage and elsewhere —
without interfering with the concert — had a riotous good time,
to be sure, but that was not the real point of the event.
The San Francisco Klezmer Experience, a newish group of young artists,
presented a very special musical performance. The six-year-old organization
swings and dazzles with sheer virtuosity, presenting "shocking"
rhythmic changes and rich Bartokian dissonances at the drop of a
yarmulke. Founder-bandleader-violinist Daniel Hoffman and clarinetist
Sheldon Brown handled the klezmer's wicked syncopation and wild
dynamic changes. They were joined by singer-accordionist Jeanette
Lewicki (who learned Yiddish — wait for it! — at Oxford
University), Stephen Saxon, on trumpet,cornet and cantorial/Broadway
vocals, Richard Saunders (bass) and Kevin Mummey (drums).
Often a Yiddish pasteurization of the music of Jews from Lybia,
Egyptian songs with Hebrew text, Moroccan liturgy, Arabic and Turkish
lute, and sacred music from ancient cantors,(WHAT? -DH) klezmer
can be a unique, integrated musical form. In the presentation of
SFKE, it surpasses its elements, goinge beyond the domain of ethnomusicologists
on the one hand, kitschy "wedding music" on the other.
Next time you see a concert announcement by this group, don't be
fooled by the "family matinee" come-on, attend an important
musical event. Although the word comes from "klei zemer"
(musical instruments), SFKE plays from the heart, making the instruments
transparent.
-SF Classical
Voice Dec 10, 2002
Those who think
klezmer all sounds the same should check out Zing. The San Francisco
Klezmer Experience must be commended for the storybook track sequencing
of the album, which goes something like: happy, festive, contemplative,
sorrowful, nutty, abstract, then happy again. Trust me, one minute
you'll be kicking up your heels and laughing at "Hash,"
the next sobbing at the epic "Di Terkishe Khasene/Dodi Li."
–Erin Hawkins,
EYE, Toronto.
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