The Klezmorim, founded in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, in 1975, was the world's first

klezmer revival Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...

band, widely credited with spearheading the global renaissance of

klezmer Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...

(Eastern European

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

instrumental music) in the 1970s and 1980s.Thompson, Suzy R., "The Klezmorim," in McGovern, Adam (ed.), ''musicHound World'', Visible Ink, 2000, , p. 398.Strom, Yale, ''The Book of Klezmer'', A Capella, Chicago, 2002, , pp. 208–209. Initially featuring flute and strings—notably the exotic fiddling of co-founder David Skuse—the ensemble reorganized into a "loose, roaring, funky" brass/reed/percussion band fronted by co-founder Lev Liberman's saxophones and founding member David Julian Gray's clarinets. As a professional performing and recording ensemble focused on recreating the lost sounds of early 20th century klezmer bands, The Klezmorim achieved crossover success, garnering a

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

nomination in 1982 for their album ''Metropolis'' and selling out major concert venues across North America and Europe, including

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

(twice in 1983) and

L'Olympia The Olympia (; commonly known as L'Olympia or in the English-speaking world as Olympia Hall) is a concert venue in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France, located at 28 Boulevard des Capucines, equally distancing Madeleine church and Opéra G ...

in Paris. The band performed steadily until 1993, regrouping in 2004 for a European tour.

Venues and audiences

The Berkeley, California street-busking duo of violinist David Skuse and flutist Lev Liberman grew in 1975 (with the addition of David Julian Gray, Laurie Chastain, and Gregory Carageorge) into a Balkan/Yiddish party and wedding quintet known briefly as the Sarajevo Folk Ensemble. Making their public debut as The Klezmorim in two concerts at the Berkeley Public Library in April 1976, the musicians soon landed a monthly gig at the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse. There they were discovered by folklorist and record producer

Chris Strachwitz Chris Strachwitz (born July 1, 1931) is a German-born American record label executive and record producer. He is the founder and president of Arhoolie Records, which he established in 1960 and which became one of the leading labels recording a ...

(himself a former refugee from Central Europe), who signed the band to

Arhoolie Records Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was founded b ...

and began recording them in the studio. Liberman spent months cataloguing the treasure trove of Yiddish records salvaged by Seymour Fromer, firebrand director of the Judah Magnes Museum in Berkeley CA and studying the music. But failing to connect with the organized Jewish community—which at the time regarded The Klezmorim's unique repertoire of long-forgotten Yiddish instrumental tunes as disturbingly alien—the band made its initial reputation performing at mainstream public venues such as folk clubs and dance halls. By 1979, with two record albums (''East Side Wedding'' and ''Streets of Gold'') receiving airplay on listener-sponsored and

college radio Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produced ...

stations, The Klezmorim had embarked on a rigorous touring schedule, disseminating their groundbreaking concept and repertoire throughout North America and inspiring a second wave of klezmer bands like Kapelye and the

Klezmer Conservatory Band The Klezmer Conservatory Band is a Boston-based group which performs traditional klezmer music; it was formed by Hankus Netsky of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1980. Originally formed for a single concert, they have gone on to release el ...

. For the next decade and more, The Klezmorim spent half of each year on the road, attracting sellout crowds to appearances at universities, concert halls,

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

s, and music festivals. Ticket sales were boosted by same-day live radio or TV broadcasts, or by unannounced appearances on streetcorners and in public plazas – which were sometimes, to the band's amusement, broken up by the police. Over time, The Klezmorim's prankish humor and spontaneous banter evolved into a semi-polished show inspired by the theatrically excessive

Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo was an American Surrealism, surrealist street theatre troupe, formed by performer and director Richard Elfman in 1972. The group was led by Richard until 1976, when his brother Danny Elfman took over. The g ...

. The Klezmorim acknowledged their own street-busker roots in a series of collectively written

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

stage spectacles melding New Vaudeville with

agitprop Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', "propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred to ...

, evoking the social turmoil that propelled 19th-century

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

an klezmer musicians into jazz-age America. A Parisian reviewer described the act as "a voyage on a Hell-bound train from Poland to Brooklyn via Mississippi which leaves the audience thunderstruck." The band members called it "a fast-moving, surreal

revue...

Vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

meets the Twilight Zone"MacDonald, Patrick, "Klezmer band offers lively, syncopated blend of styles." ''Seattle Times'', Seattle, Washington, 1985-02-01, p. T16. and admitted to borrowing dramatic

riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or accompani ...

s from

Grand Guignol ''Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol'' (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Quartier Pigalle, Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it spe ...

Kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

theatre,

tent revival A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using g ...

meetings, protest rallies, and

Betty Boop Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick.Pointer (2017) She originally appeared in the ''Talkartoon'' and ''Betty Boop'' film series, which were produced by Fleischer ...

cartoons. The Klezmorim's rowdy genre-bending reached its peak in a 1983 collaboration with

The Flying Karamazov Brothers The Flying Karamazov Brothers (FKB) are a juggling and comedy troupe that has been performing since 1973. They learned their trade busking as street artists starting in Santa Cruz, California, eventually going on to perform nationally and internat ...

, appearing jointly as a juggling/klezmer supergroup at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and San Francisco's

Palace of Fine Arts The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to ...

. "Rogueish swagger" aside, The Klezmorim were serious musicians who rehearsed rigorously and broke through formidable barriers in championing their obscure genre. Rejecting the music establishment's tendency to pigeonhole them as a "folk" or "ethnic" act, The Klezmorim asserted that they could play for anybody, anywhere, without commercializing their vintage musical style. They did attract a mixed bag of fans including devotees of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

, jazz, musical theatre, world music, and avant-garde

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

. Their audiences spanned the spectrum of demographic diversity, including small children, "screaming teenaged girls," prison inmates, "college students and white-collar workers in their 20s and 30s,"

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

African-Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

, and

Indian people Indians or Indian people are the Indian nationality law, citizens and nationals of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at over 1.4 billion people, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most p ...

. The Klezmorim's artistic credibility was secured by two standing-room-only concerts at

in February 1983. Throughout the 1980s, the band pursued media exposure through

public radio Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

broadcasts and appearances on television variety shows. Soundtracks or onscreen roles in documentaries, plays,Weiss, Jason
"The Klezmorim" (interview)
retrieved 2012-02-27. ''Jazz Forum'', Warsaw, Poland, Issue 99, 1986-04. and films helped The Klezmorim achieve recognition as upstart contributors to popular culture. The San Francisco rock glitterati honored the ensemble with Bammy Award nominations in 1978, 1979, and 1984, a distinction echoed when the

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences The Recording Academy (formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; abbreviated NARAS) is an American Learned society, learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous f ...

nominated The Klezmorim's album ''Metropolis'' for a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

. By the mid-1980s, the band had been discovered by

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

aficionados and rock'n'rollers on both sides of the Atlantic. European audiences, approaching klezmer music via familiarity with

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

musicians and traveling circus acts, responded to The Klezmorim's street-party vibe—particularly in The Netherlands, Germany, and France, where the band headlined at jazz festivals and achieved minor popstardom. In France, Belgium, and Switzerland (and occasionally in California), the band performed entire concerts speaking in French.

Repertoire and style

The Klezmorim's repertoire mostly consisted of pre-1930 Russian, Ukrainian, and Romanian Yiddish instrumental music –

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

y, moody

doina The doina () is a Romanian musical tune style, possibly with Middle Eastern roots, customary in Romanian peasant music, as well as in Lăutărească. It was also adopted into klezmer music. Similar tunes are found throughout Eastern Europe and ...

s or lively dances such as the ''joc'', ''sirba'', ''bulgar'', ''volakh'', ''freylekhs'', ''honga'', and ''kolomeyke'' – gleaned from 78-rpm discs and manuscripts made available by the Judah Magnes Museum, Professor Martin Schwartz of

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, and other collectors including jazz historian Richard Hadlock. The Klezmorim were largely responsible for re-introducing the repertoire of 1920s clarinetist

Naftule Brandwein Naftule Brandwein, or Naftuli Brandwine, ( yi, נפתלי בראַנדװײַן, 1884–1963) was an Austrian-born Jewish American Klezmer musician, clarinetist, bandleader and recording artist active from the 1910s to the 1940s. Along with ...

into the klezmer canon, along with big-band klezmer melodies of Abe Schwartz,

Harry Kandel Harry Kandel (c. 1885–1943) was an American clarinetist and klezmer bandleader of the early twentieth century. His recording career with the Victor Recording Company lasted from 1916 to 1927, during which he released dozens of Jewish music r ...

Art Shryer Abraham "Art" Shryer ( yi, אַבֿרהם שרײער ''Avrum Shreyer'', born 1883) was a Russian-born American Klezmer cornetist, bandleader, and recording artist who was active in the New York City area in the 1920s and 1930s. In the late 1920s h ...

, and

Joseph Cherniavsky Joseph Cherniavsky ( yi, יוסף טשערניאַװסקי) (c. 1890-1959) was a Jewish American cellist, theatre and film composer, orchestra director, and recording artist. He wrote for the Yiddish theatre, made some of the earliest novelty rec ...

. Much like the eclectic klezmer musicians of prior eras, The Klezmorim peppered their repertoire with

Balkan brass Balkan brass, popularly known by the Serbian name ''Truba'' ( sr-Cyrl, Труба, "Trumpet"), is a distinctive style of music originating in the Balkan region as a fusion between military music and folk music. In recent years, it has become p ...

or 1920s jazz tunes displaying some modal or historic affinity to klezmer and performed in a hybrid klezmer-jazz style. Yet the ensemble's aesthetic remained rooted in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

and Tsarist

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

in an ongoing attempt to recreate sounds from before the dawn of the recording era. Performances eventually grew to include klezmer-fusion compositions by band members

Ben Goldberg Ben Goldberg is an American clarinet player and composer. Career In the early 1990s, Ben Goldberg performed alongside electric bassist Dan Seamans and percussionist Kenny Wollesen as the New Klezmer Trio. They went on to produce three albums an ...

("Peggy's Rice Hill", "Stick Out Head"), Lev Liberman ("Mardi Gras in Minsk", "Lev's Czech", "Diary of a Scoundrel"), and Stuart Brotman ("Waltz Roman à Clef"). But little of this more experimental repertoire appeared on the band's six record albums. The Klezmorim's ensemble interaction was much noted by the press. A typical review praised their "flawless ensemble playing", "breakneck virtuosity", and "profound understanding of the complex harmonies and rhythms which underlie klezmer music." The band created dynamic variations on traditional klezmer melodies through collective improvisation, making each performance unique, and deployed instruments in unusual combinations to create the textures of a much larger orchestra. The Klezmorim's instrumental pyrotechnics inspired one French reviewer to call the band "a kind of hurricane, a dizzying maze of notes". A UK music critic remarked, "They must surely play more notes per minute than any other band, making rock 'n' roll appear positively snail-like in comparison."

Personnel and instruments

Early performances of The Klezmorim featured as few as four and as many as nine musicians playing a mix of band and orchestral instruments, plus Eastern European folk instruments such as the

gadulka The gadulka ( bg, гъдулка) is a traditional Bulgarian bowed string instrument. Alternate spellings are "gǎdulka", "gudulka" and "g'dulka". Its name comes from a root meaning "to make noise, hum or buzz". The gadulka is an integral part o ...

laouto The laouto ( el, λαούτο, pl. laouta ) is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family, found in Greece and Cyprus, and similar in appearance to the oud. It has four double-strings. It is played in most respects like the oud (plucked w ...

, tupan, contrabass balalaika, and tsimbalom. By 1979 the band had coalesced into a sextet featuring clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, tuba, and drums – with members sometimes doubling on additional instruments like xylophone, banjo,

Marxophone The Marxophone is a fretless zither played via a system of metal hammers. It features two octaves of double melody strings in the key of C major ( middle C to C''), and four sets of chord strings (C major, G major, F major, and D7). Sounding s ...

, or

baritone horn The baritone horn, or sometimes just called baritone, is a low-pitched brass instrument in the saxhorn family.Robert Donington, "The Instruments of Music", (pp. 113ff ''The Family of Bugles'') 2nd ed., Methuen, London, 1962 It is a piston-val ...

, and occasional guest artists adding piccolo, piano, or violin. The sextet lineup—not unlike a traditional New Orleans jazz combo—remained the band's template for the rest of its career. In the span of an estimated twelve hundred performances, The Klezmorim experienced substantial turnover of personnel; this musical evolution gave a distinct character to each of the band's record albums. About 30 musicians are believed to have been official members of the band at one time or another. Sitting in on various gigs, broadcasts, or recording sessions were another two dozen players, including violinists Miamon Miller and Sandra Layman, Bob Cohen of

Di Naye Kapelye Di Naye Kapelye is a Hungarian klezmer music group. The band formed in Budapest in 1993, and perform frequently throughout Europe. Their lyrics are primarily in Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is ...

, clarinetist Marcelo Moguilevsky, and

Terry Zwigoff Terry Zwigoff (born May 18, 1949) is an American filmmaker whose work often deals with misfits, antiheroes, and themes of alienation. He first garnered attention for his work in documentary filmmaking with ''Louie Bluie'' (1985) and '' Crumb'' (1 ...

and

Robert Crumb Robert Dennis Crumb (; born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contem ...

of the

Cheap Suit Serenaders R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders are an American retro string band playing songs from, and in the style of, the 1920s: old-time music, ragtime, "evergreen" jazz standards, western swing, country blues, Hawaiian music, Hawaiian, hokum, vaudev ...

. For over a decade The Klezmorim's core sound and repertoire was defined by a collaborative quartet of players: reedmen Liberman and Gray, trombonist Kevin Linscott, and tuba player Donald Thornton. Other members also influenced the band's direction. Multi-instrumentalists David Skuse and Stuart Brotman set high standards of klezmer authenticity; Brotman produced The Klezmorim's Grammy-nominated album ''Metropolis''. New Orleans one-man band Rick "Professor Gizmo" Elmore and trumpeter Brian "Hairy James" Wishnefsky introduced streetwise theatrics early in The Klezmorim's career. Drummer Tom Stamper and trumpeter Stephen Saxon contributed solid jazz musicianship. Clarinetist

and percussionist Kenny Wollesen shared a

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

avant-garde eclecticism (which they subsequently developed further in the New Klezmer Trio). After the last of the original founding members moved on in 1988, Thornton continued to tour as The Klezmorim with leading players of the klezmer revival until 1993. In 2004, co-founder Liberman resumed leadership of The Klezmorim and performed in Europe with a crew composed of band alumni Brotman, Thornton, and Charlie Seavey, plus new member Mike van Liew and guest clarinetist Yankl Falk (of Hungarian roots-klezmer band

). Co-founder Skuse died of brain cancer in 2010, months after a final reunion jam with Liberman. Although the band remains on indefinite hiatus, bootleg recordings and rumors of new releases continue to circulate. Listed here are members of The Klezmorim, roughly in chronological order of joining:Thompson, Suzy R., "The Klezmorim," in McGovern, Adam (ed.), ''musicHound World'', Visible Ink, 2000, , pp. 397–398. *Lev Liberman (alto saxophone,

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

C-melody saxophone The C melody saxophone, also known as the C tenor saxophone, is a saxophone pitched in the key of C one whole tone above the common B-flat tenor saxophone. The C melody was part of the series of saxophones pitched in C and F intended by the ins ...

, taragot, flute,

frula The frula (, sr-Cyrl, фрула), also known as svirala (свирала) or jedinka, is a musical instrument which resembles a medium sized flute, traditionally played in Serbia. It is typically made of wood and has six holes. It is an end-blown ...

tin whistle The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. ...

, percussion, vocals) *David Skuse (violin, accordion, mandolin,

, clarinet, vocals) *David Julian Gray (B-flat clarinet, E-flat sopranino clarinet, mandolin, violin,

mandocello The mandocello ( it, mandoloncello, Liuto cantabile, liuto moderno) is a plucked string instrument of the mandolin family. It is larger than the mandolin, and is the baritone instrument of the mandolin family. Its eight strings are in four paire ...

, banjo, banjolin, bugarija, piano, percussion, harmonicas, electric guitar, alto saxophone, vocals) *Gregory Carageorge (bass, contrabass balalaika) *Laurie Chastain (violin, mandolin, tambourine, vocals) *Rick Elmore (trombone, tuba, percussion) *Nada Lewis ( tsambal mik, accordion,

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...

, tupan) *Brian Wishnefsky (trumpet) *Lew Hanson (

, tenor saxophone, clarinet, accordion) *Stuart Brotman (bass, tuba, peckhorn, tsimbalom, baraban,

tilinca The telenka ( uk, Теленка) (telynka, tylynka) is an overtone flute, a primitive form of dentsivka without fingerholes. The pitch produced from the instrument is changed by placing a finger into the open end of the pipe, and covering this ...

) *Kevin Linscott (trombone, vocals) *Suzy Rothfield (violin) *Miriam Dvorin (violin, vocals) *John Raskin (drums,

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in the ...

) *Donald Thornton (tuba, piano) *Tom Stamper (drums) *Stephen Saxon (trumpet,

flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B, though some ...

, piano) *Christopher Leaf (trumpet, vocals) *Ken Bergmann (drums) *Ben Goldberg (clarinet) *

Kenny Wollesen Kenny Wollesen (born 1966) is an American drummer and percussionist. Wollesen has recorded and toured with Tom Waits, Sean Lennon, Ron Sexsmith, Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, John Lurie, Myra Melford, Steven Bernstein, and John Zorn. He is a foun ...

(drums, percussion) *Sheldon Brown (clarinet, saxophones) *Andrew Marchetti (percussion) *Charlie Seavey (trombone) *

Paul Hanson Paul Hanson is an American bassoonist, saxophonist, duduk player, and composer with roots in jazz and classical music. Music career Paul Hanson was born in San Francisco, CA, in 1961. His parents were both musicians: his mother a classical pi ...

(clarinet, bassoon) *Mara Fox (trombone) *Al Bent (trombone) *David Barrows (saxophones) *Dennis Cooper (percussion) *Mike van Liew (trumpet, piano,

, baraban)

Discography

*''East Side Wedding'' (Arhoolie LP 3006) Recorded 1976–77, released 1977. *''Streets of Gold'' (Arhoolie LP 3011) Recorded and released 1978. *''First Recordings 1976–78'' (Arhoolie CD 309) Anthology of tracks from ''East Side Wedding'' and ''Streets of Gold''. Recorded 1976–78, released 1989. *''Metropolis'' (Flying Fish LP FF 258; CD FF 70258) Recorded and released 1981. *''Notes From Underground'' (Flying Fish LP FF 322) Recorded and released 1984. Released 1986 in Europe as ''The Klezmorim'' (Le Chant du Monde LDX 74854). *''Jazz-Babies of the Ukraine'' (Flying Fish LP FF 465; CD FF 70465) Recorded 1986, released 1987. Released as LP 1987 in Europe (Le Chant du Monde LDX 74867). *''Variety Stomp'' (MW CD 4020) Recorded 1990, limited cassette release in U.S. Released as CD 1999 in Europe.

References

External links

The Klezmorim: official siteAllMusic entryDavid Julian Gray's websiteStephen Saxon's websiteKlez-X
(Formerly known as the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, this band included ex-members of The Klezmorim – Sheldon Brown, Stephen Saxon, and Charlie Seavey – from 1996 through 2007. Stuart Brotman also played and recorded with Klez-X.)
Brian Wishnefsky's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Klezmorim Klezmer groups Musical groups established in 1975 Musical groups disestablished in 1993 Musical groups from Berkeley, California Arhoolie Records artists