The Klezmatics Albums (8)
'Wonder Wheel'
Release Date 7/25/2006
Tracks 12
Label JMG / Jewish Music
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Wonder Wheel isn't the first album created from completed but never recorded lyrics left behind by the late folk icon Woody Guthrie. In 1998 the British folk-punk singer Billy Bragg and American roots rockers Wilco jointly recorded Mermaid Avenue, which drew from the same pool of material. It was successful enough that a second volume was released two years later. In fact, Wonder Wheel isn't even the first time the Klezmatics have turned to Guthrie's leftovers for inspiration. In 2004, they issued Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanuka, which, like Wonder Wheel, found the musicians taking Guthrie's words -- which he'd never set to music -- and fashioning from them new compositions that adapted readily to their style. Significantly, the Klezmatics, like the Bragg/Wilco project, chose not to attempt writing as if they were '40s dust-bowl troubadours, but rather to place the poet's words into a contemporary folk-roots setting. That's what makes Wonder Wheel -- the title, incidentally, refers to the beautiful old wooden ferris wheel that has been part of the Brooklyn jewel that is Coney Island, NY, where Guthrie lived for several years on, you guessed, it, Mermaid Avenue -- such a complete joy. Also significant is that some of the interpretations on Wonder Wheel bear little resemblance to the klezmer music that has always (and obviously) defined the Klezmatics, and that all of the songs are sung in English, not the group's more customary language, Yiddish. Those decisions, naturally, make Wonder Wheel a more accessible Klezmatics album. The track "Mermaid's Avenue," for example -- curiously, neither of the Bragg/Wilco Mermaid Avenue volumes actually included the song -- might just as easily have worked on a Jonathan Richman record, with its playful lyrics ("Mermaid Avenue that's the street/Where the lox and bagels meet") and minimalist arrangement and instrumentation. Some songs lean closer to Celtic ("From Here On In," beautifully sung by guest vocalist Susan McKeown and chorus) and traditional folk ("Holy Ground") than anything in the Jewish canon, while "Condorbird" is punctuated with a horn chart that neatly peppers its quasi-klezmer rhythm with a southwestern accent. Lyrically, the Klezmatics choose to showcase as wide a range of Guthrie's interests as possible, from the vehemently antiwar "Come When I Call You" and "Goin' Away to Sea" to the children's song "Headdy Down" and the hopeful, optimistic "Heaven" and "Wheel of Life." Each of the bandmembers turns in exemplary performances here but the versatile lead vocalist Lorin Sklamberg is due for special consideration: the purity of his singing, and his acute sensitivity to the words he sings, is the chief reason that Guthrie's lyrics are transformed from dust-gatherers to living, breathing, vital pieces of music. Woody's Jewish in-laws would certainly have been proud. ~ Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide
'Brother Moses Smote the Water'
Release Date 1/10/2005
Tracks 11
Label Piranha
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What The Critics Say
The Klezmatics are arguably the most genre-bending performers on the klezmer scene today (and perhaps of any day). Here, they combine with an up-and-coming singer from the South. That singer just happens to be of an ancient order of Judaism and is African-American, and he attempts to fuse gospel soul with traditional Jewish works. Of course, they got along marvelously. The album focuses on the similarities and ties between Jews and blacks, particularly in the aspects of slavery, the shared songs from Passover and gospel services, and the vibrant cultures. There are notes of pure klezmer and of pure gospel, but the concert from which the album was recorded is really a masterpiece of fusion. The styles are crunched together nearly seamlessly, the languages used (alternately Hebrew, Yiddish, and English) being the only differential in some parts. Joshua Nelson (the gospel singer) tends toward a Mahalia Jackson sound, and the Klezmatics themselves do what they always do. Slapped together, it's a joyous, powerful affair. For fans of musical cross-pollination, this album is a godsend. It's cross-cultural fusion done right. For an added bonus, the CD includes a short bit of video footage from the Berlin concert. ~ Adam Greenberg, All Music Guide
'Rise Up! Shteyt Oyf!'
Release Date 9/17/2002
Tracks 15
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
One thing about the Klezmatics, they're not afraid of a little controversy with their klezmer music. Here they stir the ashes a couple of times, with an English-Yiddish cover of Holly Near's "I Ain't Afraid" that comes twice on the disc, and points out the pitfalls of what people do in the name of religion, and also in "Loshn-Koydesh," an unusual tale of a Hebrew lesson with an appropriately seductive melody to match the words. This time around the emphasis is most definitely on songs, rather than instrumentals, and for the most part they keep their fire quite restrained, rarely letting the instrumental work fly into the stratosphere as they have in the past. Where they do, on "Katz Un Moyz," for example, the results are spectacular, a reminder of how good players like Steven Greenman and Matt Darriau truly are. But Lorin Sklamberg has rarely sounded better singing with the band, as he proves on "Makht Oyf." That said, the annoying chorus of children on "Tepel" overdoes what could be a pleasantly kitschy piece, and highlights the heavy production used on the record, generally to its benefit, but sometimes too heavy-handed. They might be more serious and focused this time around, abandoning the free joy of the past, but they're still damn good. ~ Chris Nickson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
When Israeli singer Chava Alberstein produced a documentary film on 20th-century Yiddish poets in 1995 (Too Early to Be Quiet, Too Late to Sing), the writers' stories provoked Alberstein to set some of their poems to music. The results are gathered on The Well, with vocals by Alberstein and music performed by the Klezmatics. The compositions reflect Alberstein's wide range of influences, from klezmer and traditional Jewish music to French chanson, German cabaret, American folk, and Middle Eastern styles all popping up. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Much of Possessed is a collaboration with Tony Kushner (the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning playwright of Angels in America). He contributes lyrics to two songs, and the second half of the album was designed as a musical score for his play A Dybbuk: Between Two Worlds (an adaptation of Jewish folk tales by S. An-ski). The marriage of artistic sensibilities is perfect. The Klezmatics' ethos is at once deeply traditional and deeply progressive. Their music is a lively engagement with Jewishness itself, inflecting Eastern European klezmer music with other genres so seamlessly that it seems misleading even to name the other influences (classical, Dixieland, bebop, Middle Eastern folk, modern rock...). Their song catalog includes religious traditionals, but it also includes original Hebraic odes to marijuana and homosexuality. All of which is very much in line with Kushner's endless quest to sort out his own disparate influences as a gay, Jewish, democratic-socialist, Louisiana-born, New York-adopted artiste. The collaboration has afforded the Klezmatics an opportunity to expand their palette. While there is plenty of their familiar frenzied spiritual party music, there is also some goregeously evocative minor-key mysticism. The titular theme of possession is, on its face, a reference to the ghost story in A Dybbuk, but it's best explained by Kushner in his smart, funny, gushing liner notes. "Are we not possessed," he asks, "by the multitudes we contain, not only multitudes of observant and unobservant brave martyred ancestors...but of all the cultures through which we have wandered, which we have helped to shape, in which we were at home and never at home?" That's a pretty good description of the Klezmatics' music, which is itself a singularly Jewish assimilation of multitudinous influences. ~ Darryl Cater, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Picture the Reverend Horton Heat with a yarmulke, if you like. Or "Fiddler on the Roof" with Coltraneian complexity. Just don't expect somber religious music. The Klezmatics' brand of Jewish klezmer is as spirited as it is spiritual. The fast numbers, which dominate their third album, are frenzied celebratory drinking songs -- a true revival of the community spirit which spawned this eastern European brand of folk music. All that happiness poses a sequencing challenge: Where do you put the few downbeat stylistic diversions (a Yiddish labor song from 1889; a thunderously moving, jazzy clarinet improvisation; an eerie poem with a classical arrangement)? Jews With Horns suffers a little for hiding most of its variety at the end of the album. But that's a quibble in the face of such top-notch musicianship. The Klezmatics have proved they can play with the best in any genre (including classical music's top violinist, Itzhak Perlman). This album includes a rock guitar cameo by Marc Ribot, who also has played with a host of goyish hipsters (including Sam Phillips, Peter Case, and T-Bone Burnett). Ribot is not the only source of modernity on the record -- the Klezmatics' stuff has been called post-modern because of its blend of genres. That label, however, suggests that this is something new under the sun, and it isn't. Klezmer itself was born of genre fusion, as Jews assimilated into Europe. Whatever the stylistic frills, though, the heart of the Klezmatics' music can be summed up in this loopy lyric: "Oy oy oy oy, live it up kids, that's the way!" ~ Darryl Cater, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
One of the great things about klezmer is the fact that while it is a product of Jewish musical traditions, it has also reflected the Jewish-American experience. When American Jews in Brooklyn and Queens were digging Artie Shaw's clarinet in the 1940s and '50s, you'd hear it in klezmer recordings. The Klezmatics' Rhythm & Jews is a lively, energetic date that reflects Jewish tastes in both "the old country" and in the U.S. While many of the songs are traditional (including "Di Sapozhkelekh," "Violina Doyna," and the Hasidic "Shnirele, Perele"), the Klezmatics provide arrangements of their own and -- like jazz artists -- aren't afraid to take liberties and do some interpreting. Jazz is an obvious influence on the Klezmatics, who have very spirited improvisers in clarinetist David Krakauer and trumpeter Frank London (who shows some Miles Davis influence on "Fun Tashlikh"). This disc boasts some consistently invigorating music, as well as an amusing title. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Unafraid of shameless schmaltz when it suits the cause of raising an aorta-busting ruckus, these New Yorkers recognize the bent nature of the tunes they cover, playing up the hokey woodblock percussion on the galloping "Tantst Yidelekh" or altering the last verse of "Ale Brider" (We're All Brothers) to "We're all gay, like Jonathan and King David." Making fun of tradition can be a means of honoring the past -- but lest one still think they're sentimentalists at heart, the Klezmatics uncork a healthy dose of rage in an anarchic rendition of the Israeli song "Bilvovi" that will send the relatives running from the room. ~ Bob Tarte, All Music Guide
