You don't have to be Jewish

The Klezmatics show at St. Ambrose University in Davenport was even better than I'd hoped it would be. It was one of the most amazing shows I've ever heard in my life! They are one of the most skilled groups of musicians in the folk music world, in my opinion. It blew my mind how seamlessly they moved through the songs as a group while working with all of the virtuosic improvisation of the individual members. The band members were mostly old and familiar - Lorin Sklamberg and Frank London, of course, Matt Darriau, Paul Morisset and Lisa Gutkin. And then they had a guest drummer, whose name I can't remember, but he's from the Herbie Hancock Quartet. He was GREAT.

I was worried that they wouldn't play enough klezmer and would play mostly stuff from their newest album, "Wonder Wheel," which is more acoustic folk (I love that album, but I come to the Klezmatics because I want to hear Klezmer). It was actually the opposite. They played a very good mix of klezmer and the Guthrie projects. They played the most klezmery tunes from "Wonder Wheel" - "Goin' Down To Sea" and "Wheel of Life" - and then three non-klezmer ones, "Gonna Get Through This World," "Mermaid's Avenue," and "Holy Ground." "Holy Ground" was beautiful. They sang it together as a group. I never liked the song "Mermaid's Avenue," but hearing it live really turned me around -- they played it with such an enthusiastic energy that it made me think, "Well, gee, it really is kind of a nice song." And "Gonna Get Through This World" was fine. Susan McKeown sang it on the album, but in concert it was sung by the fiddler, Lisa Gutkin, who did just as fine a job as McKeown. And then they played lots of my old favorites -- "Yo Riboyn Olam," "Man In A Hat," "Klezmorimlach meine libinke," "Davenen," "Katz un moys" (with stunning solos from London, Darriau and Gutkin)...lots of others. AND they played a new one, with lyrics by Michael Israel Wex, about the hangover you have the day after Purim. That was great. Lorin Sklamberg, aware that he was in front of perhaps the least Yiddish audience ever, sang the song with a lot of head-clutching and staggering body language that communicated the meaning of the lyrics quite adequately. And of course, they played their anthem "Ale Brider" when screamed out for an encore.

And then there was the audience! I was so worried when I came in, because it was a very sparsely populated auditorium (it was great for us, because we were in the THIRD ROW - I could almost touch Lorin's accordion). And speaking to people who were coming in, we found that most of the people - mostly local seniors - were there because they had year-long subscriptions to the University's concert series. Most of the people hadn't even heard of the Klezmatics! I guess they're huge in the world music and Jewish music camps, but they're not too widely known here in Iowa. So I thought, "Oh, no, these people aren't going to appreciate it enough, the band will be disappointed by the tiny audience," etc...well, those were just silly and stupid worries, because the thing about the Klezmatics - and modern klezmer in general - is that there's something there for everybody. They encompass so many world traditions that there's something in there anybody can hold onto. The fiddler, for example, also has experience in celtic music (and from the sound of it, bluegrass), and that comes out in her improvisation. And people hear that, and hear something familiar. Klezmer shares ancestors with German music. If anyone has polka in their blood, it's central Iowa farm ladies. And while at first it seemed strange for a klezmer band to be giving a concert at a Catholic university, their songs of praise really brought home the fact that they both worship the same God - there's just different fine print. And as an agnostic, I love them for their anti-fundamentalism and human rights messages. Songs like Guthrie's "Holy Ground" can touch everybody - it's a religious message for some, and a spiritually environmentalist message for others, like me. They are really a band that absolutely anybody can love.

And boy, did they! The audience was quiet and maybe a little bit bemused by a sound they hadn't heard before during the first song. By the last song, everybody was dancing, clapping, singing, yelling for an encore. And they positively flocked around the CD table afterwards. The Klezmatics got some new fans last night, for sure!

The band was really funny about the extremely goyish territory they were in. At the beginning Frank London announced that they were making their debuts this tour in Estonia...and Davenport. One of my favorite jokes was --

LONDON: We're learning a lot about the roots of Davenport...you know...DAVEN-port. [Daven means pray in Yiddish. Maybe 25% of the audience laughed at this.]
SKLAMBERG: Is that some kind of local joke here?
LONDON: Yes - both Jews call it that.

At the end, when they came out for an encore, Lorin Sklamberg said, "Okay -- the first rehearsal of the Davenport Yiddish Choir begins right now." Because you have to sing along with "Ale Brider!" All we had to learn was "Oy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy, oy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy-yoy..." And EVERYBODY was singing it. It was a great experience. I was really proud of our tiny, colossally goyish Iowa audience for the enthusiasm with which they greeted this band most of them had never heard of, and for the volume of our appreciation - we may not have had a full house, but we made it sound like one. And I hope they'll find their way back to the midwest one day - to Chicago if not li'l old Davenport again. Thank you, Klezmatics, for making my LIFE!

The Klezmatics changed my life

Went to Davenport last night with work to be an "IPR Ambassador" at the David Sedaris show. It was fun! He read all new stories -- stuff he's working on, and stuff from his diary. I didn't go get a book signed because I really have had enough of standing in that line, and I've gotten three books signed, so like, leave the guy alone. We gave away lots of IPR pens, but we didn't have any banner or anything at our table so people were like "What do you guys do?" "What are you selling?" "Who ARE you?" Kind of a lack of forethought on the part of the mgmt., I thought. Also, they had us show up two and a half hours early to set up. Except that the bosses actually got there early, set everything up in five minutes, and went back to their hotel room to chill, without letting us drudges know about it. Oh well, there's been a sort of communication problem between the stations ever since the merger. I don't know when it will get sorted out. Everyone was really nice, though, and we had a dinner out at a really fancy place after. More on that in my food blog...

In two weeks, I'll be going back to Davenport for the Klezmatics -- one of my favorite, favorite, favorite bands of all time, who hardly ever come to Iowa -- in fact I've never seen a show in Iowa on any of their tours. They usually stick to the coasts and maybe hit Chicago. But they're coming! It's going to be a real quasi-spiritual experience for me. When I first heard their music in middle school, it started me off on a long and endlessly enjoyable journey of discovery about klezmer, Jewish music, Jewish culture, and generally turned me into the great big embarrassing Yiddish-spouting Tanakh-reading philo-Semite I am today. And I'd like to thank them for all the cultural and intellectual enrichment they have given me.

I love klezmer because I am turned off by the purity and rigidity of strictly-western music (and don't take that the wrong way, because there are plenty of long-dead Germans on my CD shelf). Eastern music has so many great qualities that I can't understand why Western music never used them, or worse, wrote rules forbidding them -- quarter-or-less tones and unusual time signatures and all that. klezmer music has never rejected any influence it's come across. It's still changing. It just keeps moving across the globe, picking up any sound it touches, and incorporating it beautifully into a whole.

I love traditional klezmer music but I think people who say "Oh, the Klezmatics aren't really klezmer" or "The Cracow Klezmer Band isn't strictly klezmer" or "X isn't actually klezmer" are forgetting something very important about the nature of this music. Of course, klezmer has a strict tradition based on devotional music, but it's always been different depending on where it was geographically located. There are Russian and Romanian and Turkish and Bulgarian folk songs in its traditional repertoire. It works with what it's got. That is how it has managed to communicate with people and touch people wherever it goes. And there is no reason it should not continue to do that. Keep on fusin', klezmer.