Los Angeles Klezmer Band 1
This Los Angeles Klezmer Band is a quartet and sometimes a quintet of Los Angeles based musicians that play traditional Jewish wedding music from pre-1917 Eastern Europe as well as contemporary original progressive Klezmer Music.
Los Angeles Klezmer Band style
The word Klezmer, loosely translated, means “an instrument of song”. Each of us sing the “music of Klezmer” through our unique musical backgrounds. The leader of this Los Angeles Klezmer Band was into classical, American folk, Indian, Middle Eastern, pop and jazz music. Dan was into blues, R & B and jazz. The other Dan was a bluegrass guy and Jamie was a Middle Eastern percussionist.
This Los Angeles Klezmer Band was an outgrowth of the “Klezmer Band Workshop” the leader of the band taught at McCabes Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, CA from 2004 to about 2010. All instruments and all levels were welcome the music came from the array of klezmer books and CDs newly published during the “Klezmer Revival”. They had saxophones, flutes, clarinets, violins, bass, accordion, harmonica, piano etc.
The accordionist suggested we get together outside of the workshop and play some tunes on Monday mornings. She invited Middle Eastern percussionist Jamie to join them. She met Jamie at the Middle Eastern/Western Music Fusion orchestra called Mesto. The three of them met Monday mornings and had so much fun that they decided that this Los Angeles Klezmer Band needed a bass player.
She put up an ad at McCabes and in an entire year they got one call: from Dan, a bluegrass stand up bass player. That was the beginning. This Los Angeles Klezmer Band first gig was at a Rotary Club silent auction in Malibu, California. They alternated sets with Steve Shapiro’s Irish band and competed with announcements of successful auction bids for vases, tablecloths and antiques.
Soon this Los Angeles Klezmer Band got calls for weddings, anniversary parties, bar and bat mitzvahs. They needed a string player and invited violist Novi to play with them. She recorded their first CD with them. Since their beginning, they have had multiple string players and percussionists but the core has always been Dan, Dan the other Dan and herself. Ross played violin on their 2nd CD and Alan, Tom and Yvette were their violinists for their final years.
Los Angeles Klezmer Band repertoire
This Los Angeles Klezmer Band gathered traditional tunes from performing bands like “Veretski Pass”, the “Burning Bush”, Andy Statman’s bands and the early klezmer books like “The Complete Klezmer” by Henry Sapoznik, “The Absolutely Complete Klezmer Songbook” by Yale Strom, “From the Repertoire of German Goldenshteyn” published by Living Traditions and “The Music of Veretsky Pass” by Cookie Segelstein.
Klezmer has always been a melding together of the melodies and modes of Jewish Cantorial Music, Eastern and Western European folk music, Gypsy, Greek, Turkish and Persian Music. This Los Angeles Klezmer Band felt that they were continuing the tradition of our Eastern European predecessors, by assimilating the music of our cultural surround into older Jewish music traditions. They goal was to bring joy to cultural celebrations, document life and uplift our community through song.
The band has played at homes, backyards, rec centers, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Skirball Center, McCabes Guitar Shop, Boulevard Music, the Culver City Summer Festival, the Santa Monica and Brentwood Farmer’s Markets, Senior Centers and Rehabs, the UCLA Hillel Center, the Last Bookstore, and many Synogogues around Southern California. This Los Angeles Klezmer Band made two CDs, recorded several videos and brought a lot of joy and music to their community.
They were all sad when the band seemed to break up in 2014, but they came to life again this year on June, 5th, 2016 when they got a call to play for a benefit for IKAR, a relatively new progressive Jewish community in Los Angeles. This Los Angeles Klezmer Band is back.
