Klezmer Conservatory Band at Williams College (1/14/01)
By Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., January 15, 200) - The audience for the Klezmer Conservatory Band's concert in Chapin Hall at Williams College on Sunday afternoon was treated to much more than a concert of old-time Jewish wedding music, the more restrictive definition of "klezmer."

Over the course of the band's two-hour performance, listeners were exposed to a wide selection of music from the Yiddish tradition, including songs from the Yiddish theater, folk songs, pop tunes, novelty numbers, big-band swing, co-territorial folk dances and, yes, a healthy smattering of Yiddish wedding-dance tunes done up in several different styles, including Old World, immigrant-era and swing-era.

Probably only the Klezmer Conservatory Band could pull off such an ambitious and eclectic program with the apparent ease that was demonstrated by the 11-piece ensemble on Sunday. It was perhaps the first time that the modes of the khazn, or synagogue cantor, have resounded in this august concert hall. But if hearing Jewish music in Chapin Hall made for some slight cognitive or aural dissonance, it was worth the momentary loss of equilibrium.

The KCB, as it is known, was a versatile ensemble, and over the course of the concert every musician had his or her moment in the spotlight. Breaking off into Old World-style solos, duos, trios, and morphing from a rowdy, immigrant-era brass band to a slick, swinging backup band for the group's eminent and entertaining vocalist Judy Bressler, the KCB was a treat for the eyes, ears and feet, many of which got up and danced through the aisles at various parts of the program.

That the group was able to achieve a balance with so many different things going on was a tribute to the group's able bandleader, Hankus Netsky, who history will surely rank as one of the great klezmer bandleaders of all time, alongside the likes of immigrant-era bandleaders like Harry Kandel, Abe Schwartz and Lt. Joseph Frankel.

The group kicked off the concert with a big-band version of "Bukharester Bulgar (Bulgar from Bucharest)," a Rumanian-style bulgar, or wedding-dance tune, perhaps what people most think of when they hear the term "klezmer." Since the group's founding in 1980, Bressler has been the voice of the KCB. On Sunday, she touched many bases of Yiddish vocals, from novelty numbers that highlighted her comic vocal acrobatics to serious Yiddish art song like Chaim Towber's "Mayn Ershter Vals," as cosmopolitan a cabaret number as anything Piaf every sang.

Bressler touched on the Yiddish folk tradition with a version of "Der Rebbe Elimelech," the Yiddish Old King Cole, and "Di Mekhutonim Geyen (The In-Laws Are Coming)," one of several songs the group did off its wonderful new recording, "Dance Me to the End of Love" (Rounder). This latter tune was based on a popular folk song by Kiev-born composer Marek Warshavsky, one of many from the Yiddish repertoire that playfully exploits the ambivalence the in-laws feel about each other on the wedding day.

The band's rendition of "Bublitchki (Bulkie Rolls)" was an example of how Yiddish musicians, in this case Benny Goodman's trumpeter Ziggy Elman, typically took folk material, in this case a Russian folk ballad, and transformed it into dance music, in this case an Eastern European-flavored swing hit. The KCB's version featured cornetist Mark Berney, who did a marvelous job bending the notes to give them that Yiddish tam, or flavor. The group stripped down the Benny Goodman big-band hit, "And the Angels Sing" - also derived from a Yiddish folk melody - and performed it for jazz trio, featuring the group's bassist and co-founder, James Guttmann, joined by pianist Art Bailey and drummer Grant Smith.

Clarinetist Ilene Stahl was given her moment in the spotlight on several tunes, including "Rumenishe Doina," based on a Rumanian shepherd's lament, and "Der Gasn Nign," a popular street processional which she invested with great moodiness, before the tune broke into the double-time strut of "Biz In Vaysn Tog Arayn," sort of the klezmer version of New Orleans marching-band music.

Flutist Robin Miller was also featured on an Old World-style doina, accompanied by Netsky on piano, playing the role of an Old World tsimblist. Miller filled her solo with a breathy vibrato and plenty of grace notes that, again, gave her melody its Yiddish accent.

By the end, most of the crowd was up on its feet parading through the aisles while Bressler pulled all stops for the Aaron Lebedeff classic, "Rumenye, Rumenye." For a brief while, as Netksy joked at one point, Chapin Hall - which by the way is an unforgiving space, acoustically speaking, for amplified music of any kind -- took on the aspect of Jewish catering hall. Tsevishen yidn vert men nit farfalen.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Jan. 16, 2000. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]