KLEZMATICS The
Live at Town Hall

MWCD 4067

8712618 406724
Music & Words
USA Stati Uniti

 

wenty-five years ago a group of curious musicians with diverse backgrounds in world music, jazz, classical and the avant-garde
answered an ad in New York’s Village Voice seeking players for a klezmer band. Craving new creative avenues, they infused the centuries-old traditional, celebratory Jewish music with elements of several other genres.
Today The Klezmatics are virtually synonymous with klezmer itself. To mark their silver anniversary, the band is releasing Live at Town Hall, a guest-studded, retrospective commemoration of a remarkable NYC concert that salutes their remarkable history and hints at tantalizing future possibilities.
Live at Town Hall is the Klezmatics’ second live album (the first, Brother Moses Smote the Water, was released in 2004). It reaches all the way back for material to the Klezmatics’ 1988 debut, Shvaygn=Toyt and also includes a tune from the album on which the Klezmatics crafted new music from previously unknown Woody Guthrie compositions, 2006’s Grammy-winning Wonder
Wheel.


Twenty-five years ago a group of curious musicians with diverse backgrounds in world music, jazz, classical and the avant-garde
answered an ad in New York’s Village Voice seeking players for a klezmer band. Craving new creative avenues, they infused the centuries-old traditional, celebratory Jewish music with elements of several other genres.
Today The Klezmatics are virtually synonymous with klezmer itself. To mark their silver anniversary, the band is releasing Live at Town Hall, a guest-studded, retrospective commemoration of a remarkable NYC concert that salutes their remarkable history and hints at tantalizing future possibilities.

Live at Town Hall is the Klezmatics’ second live album (the first, Brother Moses Smote the Water, was released in 2004). It reaches all the way back for material to the Klezmatics’ 1988 debut, Shvaygn=Toyt and also includes a tune from the album on which the Klezmatics crafted new music from previously unknown Woody Guthrie compositions, 2006’s Grammy-winning Wonder
Wheel.
Most of Live at Town Hall, however, consists of the songs and sounds that have made the
Klezmatics a huge success worldwide for the past two and a half decades.
“We wanted to celebrate with everyone who has been part of our family,” says London. “It was impossible to bring some of those who live far away, but we managed to have just about everyone important who has ever been in or played with the Klezmatics on stage with us. The energy was incredible, the love and mutual respect. We are blessed to be part of such a wonderful
community.”
The guest list includes Joanne Borts (on the title song from The Well), Adrienne Cooper and Sklamberg recreating their duet on “I Ain’t Afraid”, Joshua Nelson in a smoking “Elijah Rock” and Susan McKeown’s passionate take on “Gonna Get Through This World.”
But Live at Town Hall is more than a peek in the rear view mirror. The Klezmatics went
overboard to make the gig and resulting album extra special, with some songs making their first appearance and some great vocal moments, particularly a new Russian choral-inspired arrangement on ‘Dzhankoye’.
Formed in New York in 1986, the Klezmatics quickly built a devoted following that expanded outward once word spread about this exotic new band that was bringing klezmer back from the abyss. They have performed in more than 20 countries and released 10 albums to date. On their Grammy-winning 2006 album Wonder Wheel (MWCD 4064), the Klezmatics set a dozen previously unsung Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, widening their stylistic base by largely diverging from klezmer.
During their quarter-century existence the Klezmatics have collaborated with such
brilliant artists as violinist Itzhak Perlman, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner and Israeli vocal icon Chava Alberstein, plus many other prominent artists working within multiple genres.
* “The Klezmatics aren’t just the best band in the klezmer vanguard; on a good night, they can rank among the greatest bands on the planet.”
Time Out New York

“The Klezmatics have owned klezmer and Yiddish music for the past 25 years. Universally regarded as the genre’s most innovative band.”
Wall Street Journal – USA