Wholesale Klezmer Band, Berkshire Museum, 4/18/98

by Seth Rogovoy

(PITTSFIELD, Mass., April 18, 1998) -- The auditorium at the Berkshire Museum was packed to overflowing on Saturday night with audience members lining the aisles and spilling into the main lobby, dancing to the festive, poignant melodies of the Wholesale Klezmer Band.

The Pioneer Valley-based ensemble did double duty as a functional, Jewish wedding band and as a performing group dedicated to the revival and perpetuation of Yiddish culture.

Mixing traditional, instrumental wedding music with original Yiddish songs, the group played a marathon, three-hour show, including a lengthy intermission to allow the three-hundred-plus attendees -- who ranged in age from newborns to their great-grandparents -- to enjoy slices of wedding cake and coffee in adjacent gallery space amidst gems, fossils and models of dinosaurs.

Yiddish, the language of Eastern European Jewry, has been called a dinosaur -- as in extinct -- but you could not tell that from the crowd's exuberant response to the Yiddish phrases tossed off by the band's frontman, Yosl Kurland, throughout the evening.

The language itself and the preservation of the culture surrounding it was the subject of several of the group's songs, including "Redt Yiddish (Speak Yiddish)," an original Yiddish tune that Kurland translated simultaneously via subtitles on cue cards.

Another humorous song, "Oy Mama, Shmir Me," explored the connection -- linguistically speaking -- among cream cheese, suntan lotion and bribery.

But all was not levity. The Wholesale band replicated the style of the classic Klezmer outfit, playing a variety of bulgars, freylekhs and other march-like dance tunes that play important roles in fulfilling the mitzves, or commandments, of the traditional Jewish wedding ceremonies.

Kurland introduced one selection as the stately processional of escorting the bride and groom to the khupe, or wedding canopy. A Rumanian hora provided the soundtrack to the ritual whereby the bride traditionally circles the groom seven times. Finally, a lively dance tune meant to bring the crowd of wedding guests to their feet in honor of the newly wedded couple had its intended effect on the audiences, with a line of dancers circling the hall several times.

The seven-piece Wholesale band was a pleasant, effectively versatile ensemble. Musical director and clarinetist Sherry Mayrent handled the bulk of the melodic leads with an evocation of the familiar ornaments and krechts, or cries, so beloved of Klezmer aficionados. Trombonist Brian Bender provided occasionally apt counterpoint to Mayrent, and lent a bit of jazz flavoring to the mix. Accordionist Owen Davidson and bassist Lynn Lovell laid down a solid foundation for the group, and Kurland and David Tasgal doubled on fiddles that provided occasional accents.

Drummer Richie Davis was perhaps the most enthusiastic performer of the group, adding great color and wit through a variety of non-traditional percussion instruments including pans, blocks, bells and whistles. He also played the role of class clown of the group.

Overall, experimentation and virtuosity took a back seat to tradition and ensemble playing, making for a pleasantly nostalgic experience for the sold-out crowd. This was the second such museum-based, standing-room- only Klezmer event in the Berkshires in as many months -- off-season months, no less -- a fact suggesting that there is a demand for more of this sort of programming and room for experimentation within the tradition.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 20, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]