THIS CONCERT IS CANCELLED
Every so often the New England Conservatory – Boston’s counterpart to Juilliard – rounds up some of the formidable talent who’ve passed through their jazz program, arguably the first at one established at any major American music school. This year the celebration is at the Jazz Standard on March 18 and 19.
The NEC All-Stars quintet is bound to generate a lot of fireworks. The two-sax frontline of Miguel Zenon on alto and Donny McCaslin on tenor is incendiary by itself. Fred Hersch, one of the great lyrical pianists of the past couple of decades is joined by Jorge Roeder – who’s as at home with tango or other latin sounds as he is postbop – on bass, and Richie Barshay, drummer for the Klezmatics. It’s seldom that you get to see such vast stylistic influences on the same stage; cover is $30.
Then on the 20th there’s a rare New York performance by singer Dominique Eade, whose work with noir piano icon Ran Blake is spine-tingling (and often bone-chilling). Hersch is the rare extrovert pianist who absolutely loves playing with singers, so this is a serendipitous pairing. As with the show on the 19th, they’re less likely to play their own stuff than, say, Monk and other mutual favorites, but you never know. Cover is steep for this one, $35, but remember, at the Jazz Standard there’s no minimum.
For anybody looking for material to spin (virtually or otherwise) in advance of the show, how about Hersch’s most recent release, a six-disc retrospective streaming at Spotify and comprising his long-running trio’s most recent releases, from Whirl, to Alive at the Vanguard. Hersch has gotten into the habit of releasing anything he happens to have in the can which sounds good (which is A LOT). Several of these records, including Sunday Night at the Vanguard and Live in Europe have been covered here over the years.
March 11, 2020
Posted by delarue |
jazz, Music, music, concert | dominique eade, Donny McCaslin, fred hersch, jazz, jorge roeder, klezmatics, Miguel Zenon, Music, new england conservatory, richie barshay |
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Whether Roger Davidson knows it or not, he’s just released an elegant gypsy punk record. It’s not likely that the eclectic composer, whose previous work spans the worlds of jazz and tango nuevo, launched into his new album On the Road of Life with that idea in mind. But that’s pretty much what he ended up with. “Pretty much,” because there are no distorted guitars or pummeling drums here – and also because Davidson’s intent was to write an original album of klezmer tunes. Whether this is klezmer, or Balkan music, or gypsy music is really beside the point – whichever way it falls stylistically, it’s a collection of memorably simple themes bristling with the scary/beautiful chromatics and eerie minor keys common to all those genres. Here Davidson is backed by what he calls the Frank London Klezmer Orchestra, an eclectic group with the great klezmer trumpeter alongside another klezmer legend, Andy Statman on mandolin and clarinet, plus Klezmatics drummer Richie Barshay, Avantango bassist Pablo Aslan and Veretski Pass accordionist/cimbalom player Joshua Horowitz.
Some of these are joyous romps. Freedom Dance has solos all around and some especially rapidfire mandolin from Statman. Dance of Hope is sort of a Bosnian cocek with mandolin and clarinet instead of blaring brass, and a tune closer to Jerusalem than to Sarajevo. There’s Harvest Dance, based on a crescendoing walk down the scale; Water Dance, with an absolutely ferocious outro, and Hungarian Waltz, which in a split second morphs into a blazing dixieland swing tune fueled by London’s trumpet. Yet the best songs here are the quieter ones. The title track is basically a hora (wedding processional) that builds gracefully from a pensive, improvisational intro to a stately pulse driven by Aslan’s majestic bass chords. There’s also Equal in the Eyes of God, which reaches for a rapt, reverent feel; Sunflowers at Dawn, which klezmerizes a famous Erik Satie theme; The Lonely Dancers, a sad, gentle Russian-tinged waltz, Statman’s delicate mandolin vividly evoking a balalaika tone; and the epic, nine-minute Night Journey, glimmering with suspenseful, terse piano chords, tense drum accents, allusive trumpet and finally a scurrying clarinet solo.
Davidson may be a limited pianist, but he’s self-aware – his raw chords and simple melody lines only enhance the edgy intensity of the tunes here. That he’s able to blend in with this all-star crew affirms his dedication to good tunesmithing, keeping things simple and proper, as Thelonious Monk would say. Fans of moody minor keys, gypsy music and the klezmer pantheon will find a lot to enjoy here.
August 23, 2011
Posted by delarue |
gypsy music, Music, music, concert, review, Reviews, world music | album review, andy statman, Avantango, balkan music, eastern european music, folk music, frank london, gypsy music, hungarian music, jewish music, klezmatics, klezmer, Music, music review, Pablo Aslan, richie barshay, roger davidson, roger davidson on the road of life, roger davidson on the road of life review, russian music, veretski pass, world music |
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Every day, our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Sunday’s album is #534:
New York City: Global Beat of the Boroughs
This 2001 Smithsonian Folkways release may be a long series of ludicrously bad segues, but multicultural party playlists don’t get much better than this. It’s predominantly latin and Balkan music played by obscure but frequently brilliant expatriate New York-based groups, although other immigrant cultures are represented. While the tracks by Irish group Cherish the Ladies and klezmer stars Andy Statman and the Klezmatics are all excellent, it’s surprising that the compilers couldn’t come up with the same kind of obscure treasures they unearthed from Puerto Rican plena groups Vienta de Agua and Los Pleneros de 21; or Albanian Besim Muriqi’s scorching dance tunes; or stately theatrical pieces by the prosaically titled traditional groups Music From China and the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Association. There are also rousing Greek and Bulgarian romps from Grigoris Maninakis and Yuri Yunakov, respectively; a soulful suite of Lebanese songs by crooner Naji Youssef; and even a spirited if roughhewn version of the Italian theme for the Williamsburg “Walking of the Giglio,” a big wooden tower paraded through the streets by a large troupe of hardworking men every August, among the 31 fascinating tracks here. Mysteriously AWOL from the usual sources for free music, it’s still available from the folks at the Smithsonian.
August 14, 2011
Posted by delarue |
folk music, gospel music, gypsy music, irish music, latin music, lists, middle eastern music, Music, music, concert, New York City, world music | andy statman, asian music, best albums, best albums all time, best albums alltime, best albums ever, best albums list, best albums lucid culture, best music, best music ever, best obscure albums, best obscure albums all time, best obscure albums alltime, best obscure albums ever, best underrated albums, best world music albums all time, best world music albums alltime, best world music albums ever, bulgarian music, cherish the ladies, folk music, greatest albums all time, greatest albums alltime, greatest albums ever, greatest obscure albums, greatest world music albums all time, greatest world music albums alltime, greatest world music albums ever, greek music, grigoris maninakis, gypsy music, klezmatics, klezmer, latin music, lebanese music, middle eastern music, most underrated albums, most underrated albums all time, Music, musica plena, naji youssef, new york city global beat of the boroughs, plena music, top albums all time, top albums alltime, top albums ever, world music, yuri yunakov |
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Happy 5771 everybody! Every day our 1000 best albums of all time countdown continues all the way to #1. Thursday’s album is #873:
The Klezmatics – Possessed
The most celebrated if not exactly the first of the klezmer revival bands, the Klezmatics brought a gentle but firm punk rock sensibility to ancient Jewish songs that frequently got them in hot water in more conservative circles but won them a wide following outside the klezmer shtetl. This 1997 album is their darkest, a mix of gypsy-inflected dances, jazzy improvisation and a long suite which served as the score to the popular Tony Kushner drama, The Dybbuk, based on the famous ghost story of the same name. There’s a mournful forebearance to most of this, although the group raise the ante when least expected, particularly on a rousing, klezmer-jamband ode to marijuana: every day is Shabbos when you’re stoned. The individual Klezmatics: reed player Matt Darriau, drummer David Licht, star trumpeter Frank London, bassist Paul Morrisett, frontman/accordionist Lorin Sklamberg and fiery violinist Alicia Svigals all went on to do great things as solo artists and sidemen/women after the band broke up; they recently reunited, with a Brooklyn show coming up on 9/19 at Galapagos. This album was reissued in 2005 as a twofer with their far more upbeat debut Jews with Horns. Here’s a random torrent.
September 8, 2010
Posted by delarue |
folk music, lists, Music, music, concert, world music | album of the day, alicia svigals, balkan music, best albums, best albums all time, best albums alltime, best albums ever, best albums list, best albums lucid culture, best bands new york, best bands nyc, best klezmer albums all time, best klezmer albums alltime, best klezmer albums ever, best klezmer bands, best klezmer records ever, best music, best music ever, david licht drummer, david licht drums, easter european music, frank london, greatest albums all time, greatest albums alltime, greatest albums ever, greatest rock albums all time, greatest rock albums alltime, greatest rock albums ever, gypsy music, jewish music, klezmatics, klezmatics possessed, klezmer, klezmer band, klezmer music, lorin sklamberg, Music, paul morrisett, top albums all time, top albums alltime, top albums ever, world music |
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Perhaps the greatest thing about Jewish music is that it’s so well-traveled. In a sense, it could be said that it embodies the best of all worlds. The new collaboration between the “legendary trumpeter of the klezmer underground,” as one recent concert flyer described Frank London, and former Klezmatics accordionist/frontman Lorin Sklamberg certainly could be categorized as such. With contributions from ex-Psychedelic Fur Knox Chandler on guitar and effects, Ara Dinkjian adding gorgeously clanging, plinking and plunking textures on Middle Eastern lutes including the oud, saz and cumbus, and world music percussionist Deep Singh on tabla and dhol, the cd – recently out on Tzadik – alternates between boisterous and haunting reinterpretations of traditional Jewish liturgical music. Is this klezmer? Folk music? Jazz? Rock? Well, it’s all of the above: the melodies are as rustic as would be expected, but the playing, the arrangements and the production all draw deeply on what’s happened in the hundreds or maybe even thousand years since these tunes first saw the light of day. This is a beautiful and plaintive album and it also really rocks from time to time.
A couple of the tracks here turn worship into slinky, undulating Levantine dances, bouncing along on the beat of the tabla. Another couple have an upbeat dance feel and a Celtic tinge to the melodies. Still a couple more could be called shtetl ska, even if they go back long before ska was invented. The album’s twelfth track, a lament about being overrun by invaders, showcases London’s facility for channeling diverse moods both with and without a mute. After that, Sklamberg gets to breathlessly rattle off a Hasidic acrostic for a lyric while the band scrambles to keep up – and then Chandler throws in a big blazing arena rock solo where London then picks up the melody again, seamlessly yet exhilaratingly as middle-period ELO would do. The ambient final cut nicks the intro from Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, an expansive showcase for the whole band and especially Sklamberg’s rapt, incantatory vocals.
London’s playing is characteristically soulful, whether swaying through a sly muted passage or with half-balmy, half-ecstatic clarity. It’s also particularly pleasant to see how well Sklamberg’s voice has aged: it’s lower than it was in his Klezmatics days, the petulance of that era replaced with an unaffected, very welcome gravitas. This album ought to appeal to a vastly wider audience than your typical collection of traditional Jewish ngunim, while providing a decisive answer to the age-old question, does Rabbi Saul of Mozditz really rock? Answer: an emphatic ja.
November 8, 2009
Posted by delarue |
Music, music, concert, review, Reviews | ambient music, ara dinkjian, cantorial music, deep singh, deep singh tabla, folk music, frank london, jewish music, klezmatics, klezmer, knox chandler, lorin sklamberg, middle eastern music, new music, tzadik records, world music |
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