USA Klezperanto: Klezperanto

"When Eastern Europe's Jews began flocking to the United States around the turn of the last century, they brought along their music - a hybrid of Romanian, Ukranian, Greek, Turkish, Polish and Gypsy music traditionally played at weddings by wandering Jewish musicians, or Klezmorim.

By World War Two, when the American children of that immigrant generation developed more mainstream musical tastes, Klezmer practically disappeared. That changed in the 1970s, when their children began digging through the old sheet music and 78RPM records. Klezmer revival bands sprang up across the country. Couch.

Now the next generation of Klezmer bands is taking Jewish roots music into uncharted territory. One of them is Klezperanto.

Led by clarinet player Ilene Stahl, Klezperanto is in the vanguard of a movement intent on retooling Klezmer music for the 21st century. While their spiritual great-grandparents would be mystified by their use of the electric guitar, the members of Klezperanto say it's "a natural outgrowth of the klezmer tradition, an ever evolving form of lively, accessible dance music." From Brazilian samba to Louisiana Zydeco the band plants Yiddish and Mediterranean melodies in unlikely New World settings. On the last cut of their new album Klezperanto Re-Grooves Klezmer, instead of Americanizing a traditional Klezmer tune, the band Klezmerizes an American classic - Dizzy Gilespie's "A Night in Tunisia. The members of Klezperanto were all trained by Hankus Netsky of the new England Conservatory of Music. Professor Netsky's own Klezmer Conservatory Band pioneered the Klezmer revival in America. Netsky's enthusiasm - not to mention energy - is evident in the work of his students. Klezperanto leader Ilene Stahl says that in addition to being able to play good danceable wedding music, klezmer musicians in the OLD world "were expected to know all manner of popular music." Klezperanto stays true to its klezmer roots, by taking old world music and giving it a new world edge."
(The World Online)

Klezmer is, at its root, dance music from the Eastern European Jewish wedding tradition. But klezmer musicians were expected to know all manner of popular music and the tradition took shape at cultural crossroads where it was influenced by Gypsy and Greek music, as well as other European styles. These styles were blended with cantorial music from the synagogue to create a decidedly secular and distinctively Jewish music.

Klezperanto now updates that traditional sound by tossing into its melting pot a lively mixed-bag of dance music from around the world. The Boston-based group has set its Yiddish and Mediterranean melodies in original arrangements that dip into zydeco, rockabilly, funk, New Orleans jazz, cumbia and Balkan brass surf music. The result is an irresistible set of grooves all graced by a uniquely Klezperanto touch.

As with anything involving Jewish tradition, there are many opinions about what is and is not klezmer. They run the gamut from a strict preservation perspective through the most avant-garde contemporary music. In this context, it is understandable that Klezperanto resists being defined simply as a klezmer band. Its music is a natural outgrowth of the klezmer tradition, an ever-evolving form of lively accessible dance music.

The members of Klezperanto all come from a tradiitonal klezmer background. Klezperanto leader Ilene Stahl (clarinet), Evan Harlan (accordion, piano, musical director), Mark Hamilton (trombone), and Grant Smith (drums) all play in one of the most prominent klezmer revival reperatory ensembles, the Klezmer Conservatory Band, led by preeminent music scholar Hankus Netsky. Mike Bullock (bass) and Brandon Seabrook (banjo, guitar, mandolin) are also two of the exceptionally talented members to emerge from Netsky's Jewish Music Ensemble at the New England Conservatory of Music.

On their Naxos World debut, the six-member Klezperanto demonstrates that this is also fun music. With solid klezmer roots, spectacular technical vituosity, and a wry sense of humor, they remind us all that this exuberant music is for dancing and celebration. Included is a wild new version of Dizzy Gillespie's jazz classic, A Night in Tunisia.

As leader Stahl explains of her clarinetist life before klezmer, "I knew there had to be more to life than orchestral obscurity or trying to be Benny Goodman. Then I heard klezmer and my dreams went from black and white to Technicolor. With the first swooping gliss, krekhts and pyrotechnic trill, I realized what a clarinet was made for! But that wasn't even the whole story. It wasn't until my first klezmer gig that people got up and danced to the music I was playing. This had never happened in any chamber music recital I had seen. It thrilled me!"

Tapping into the urge to move and dance that is so primal, with solid musicianship and an innate sense of cultural and musical history, Klezperanto speaks in a language that is undeniably universal.

The same goes for Klezperanto's name. Yiddish, with its elements of Hebrew, Slavic, and German, was a lingua franca for Jews in the Diaspora. Dr. Ludwig Zamenhoff, a Yiddish-speaking Jew from Bialystok, expanded this idea with the invention of Esperanto, a pan-European language which he hoped would bring understanding between people spanning national boundaries and cultural distinctions. Klezperanto is a new universal language. The one you speak with your feet.