Klezmer
Klezmer ( 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 listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions. The musical genre incorporated elements of many other musical genres including Ottoman Empire, Ottoman (especially Greek music, Greek and Romanian music, Romanian) music, Baroque music, German and Slavic people, Slavic folk dances, and religious Jewish music. As the music arrived in the United States, it lost some of its traditional ritual elements and adopted elements of American big band and popular music. Among the European-born klezmers who popularized the genre in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s were Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein; they were followed by American-born musicians such as Max Epstein, Sidney Beckerman (musician), Sid Beckerman and Ray Musiker. After t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Klezmorim
The Klezmorim, founded in Berkeley, California, in 1975, was the world's first klezmer revival band, widely credited with spearheading the global renaissance of klezmer (Eastern European Yiddish 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 nomination in 1982 for their album ''Metropolis'' and selling out major concert venues across North ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dave Tarras
Dave Tarras (c. 1895 – February 13, 1989) was a Russian Empire, Ukrainian-born American klezmer clarinetist and bandleader, who was instrumental in the Klezmer revival. Biography Early life Tarras was born David Tarasiuk in Teplyk, Ukraine and later moved to Ternivka (Vinnytsia), Ternivka, a village which was then in Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire and which is now in Teplytskyi Raion, Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine.Shulamit Shalit"Король клейзмеров Дэйв Таррас (1897-1989)" ''Evreyskaya Starina'', no. 4(79), 2013; ''Quote'': "Родом мы из Теплика, это на Украине. Потом уже в Терновку перебрались" ["We hail from Teplyk, and only later moved to Ternivka"] His exact birthday is disputed; it is often given as March 15, 1895, but other credible accounts give it as 1898. He came from a klezmer family; to the family of Rakhmil Tarasyuk, who was a klezmer trombonist, and Sheyndl, his grandfather was a fiddler ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Andy Statman
Andrew Edward Statman (born 1950) is a noted American klezmer clarinetist and bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist. Life and career Statman was born in New York City and grew up in the borough of Queens. Beginning at age 12, he learned to play banjo and guitar, following the example of his older brother Jimmy, and then switched to mandolin, which he studied briefly under lifelong-friend David Grisman. He learned to play R&B and jazz saxophone, for a time under the tutelage of Richard Grando, who played saxophone in Earth Opera. As a teenager Statman was already performing in public in Washington Square Park and with local string bands. In 1969 he attended Franconia College in Franconia, New Hampshire, but eventually dropped out to pursue a musical career. He first gained acclaim as a mandolinist as a sideman with David Bromberg and Russ Barenberg, as well as in the pioneering bluegrass bands Country Cookin' and Breakfast Special. During the course of exploring a wide range of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Naftule Brandwein
Naftule Brandwein, or Naftuli Brandwine, (, 1884–1963) was an Austrian-born Jewish American Klezmer musician, clarinetist, bandleader and recording artist active from the 1910s to the 1940s. Along with Dave Tarras, he is considered to be among the top klezmer musicians of the twentieth century, and has a continuing influence on musicians in the genre a century later. Along with Tarras and other contemporaries like Israel J. Hochman, Max Leibowitz and Harry Kandel, he also helped forge the new American klezmer sound of the early twentieth century, which gradually gravitated towards a sophisticated big-band sound. Biography Early life Brandwein was born on September 20, 1884, in Przemyslany, Austro-Hungarian Galicia (now Ukraine). He was born into a dynasty of klezmer musicians, part of the Stretiner Hasidic dynasty founded by Rabbi Yehuda Hirsch Brandwein of Stratin. His father Peysekhe (Paul) played violin, clarinet, and was an improvising wedding poet ( Badchen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sidney Beckerman (musician)
Sidney Beckerman (1919–2007) was an influential klezmer clarinet player. He learned the style from his father Shloimke (Sam) Beckerman, Shloimke, who was himself a well known klezmer soloist. Sidney played Jewish weddings and celebrations in New York City and the Catskills throughout the 1930s. After World War II ended, he returned to New York and started working for the US Postal Service. Upon his retirement in 1982, he was convinced by fellow klezmer musician Pete Sokolow to join the band Klezmer Plus!. A recording of this band in 1989 (with Howie Leess) was named an Outstanding Folk Recording by the Library of Congress Sidney was also a founding member of the klezmer music camp Klezkamp. He was inducted into the ''People's Hall of Fame'' in February 1994.[] See also * Dave Tarras * Henry Sapoznik * Naftule Brandwein * Margot Leverett References External links * Obituary in ''Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine'', Autumn, 2007 by Henry Sapoznik 1919 births 2007 dea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cimbalom
The cimbalom, cimbal (; ) or concert cimbalom is a type of chordophone composed of a large, trapezoidal box on legs with metal strings stretched across its top and a damping pedal underneath. It was designed and created by József Schunda, V. Josef Schunda in 1874 in Budapest, based on his modifications to the existing hammered dulcimer instruments which were already present in Central and Eastern Europe. Today the instrument is mainly played in Hungary, Slovakia, Moravia, Belarus, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The cimbalom is typically played by striking two sticks, often with cotton-wound tips, against the strings which are on the top of the instrument. The steel treble strings are arranged in groups of 4 and are tuned in unison. The bass strings which are over-spun with copper, are arranged in groups of 3 and are also tuned in unison. The Hornbostel–Sachs musical instrument classification system registers the cimbalom with the number 314.122-4,5. The name “cimbalom” ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yiddish Language
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew language, Hebrew (notably Mishnaic Hebrew, Mishnaic) and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages.Aram Yardumian"A Tale of Two Hypotheses: Genetics and the Ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry".University of Pennsylvania. 2013. Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet. Prior to World War II, there were 11–13 million speakers. 85% of the approximately 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers,Solomon Birnbaum, ''Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache'' (4., erg. Aufl., Hamburg: Buske, 1984), p. 3. leading to a massive decline in the use of the language. Jewish ass ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ivan Lipaev
Ivan Vasilievich Lipaev (, 1865–1942) was a Russian music critic, composer, writer, social advocate, pedagogue, and trombonist active in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. He played trombone in Russia's first brass quartet starting in around 1888, and in the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra from 1893 to 1912 and from 1924–31. He was also dedicated to the modernization of music pedagogy in the Russian empire and advocated for better conditions for music students and orchestra members. He was made Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1925. Biography Lipaev was born on 16 May 1865 in the village of Spiridonovka, Bobrovskaya Volost, Samarsky Uyezd, Samara Governorate, Russian Empire. Starting in 1882 he studied trombone and composition at the School of Music and Drama of the Moscow Philharmonic Society and at the Moscow Conservatory. In around 1888 he was a founding member of a new brass quartet at the Bolshoi Theatre, the first such quartet in Russia. The quartet became very pop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Romanian Music
Romania has a multicultural music environment which includes active ethnic music scenes. Traditional Romanian folk music remains popular, and some folk musicians have come to national (and even international) fame. History Folk music is the oldest form of Romanian musical creation, characterised by great vitality; it is the defining source of the cultured musical creation, both religious and lay. Conservation of Romanian folk music has been aided by a large and enduring audience, also by numerous performers who helped propagate and further develop the folk sound. One of them, Gheorghe Zamfir, is famous throughout the world today and helped popularize a traditional Romanian folk instrument, the panpipes. The religious musical creation, born under the influence of Byzantine music adjusted to the intonations of the local folk music, saw a period of glory between the 15th and 17th centuries, when reputed schools of liturgical music developed within Romanian monasteries. Western ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moisei Beregovsky
Moisei Beregovsky (1892 – 12 August 1961, ; ) was a Soviet Jewish folklorist, musicologist and ethnomusicologist from the Ukrainian SSR who was a key figure in the study of Jewish music. He collected, studied and published about klezmer music, Yiddish song, wordless nigun melodies, and the music of Purim plays. His published collections, mostly only released after his death, remain important sources of Jewish music from the late Russian Empire and early Soviet period. Most of his research was done during the period of 1927–1949, during the Stalin era, during which he was faced not only with ideological restrictions, but a period of imprisonment in a forced labour camp from 1950 to 1955. He was rehabilitated after 1955 and continued his work in his final years during the Khrushchev-era. Biography Early life Beregovsky was born in 1892 in hamlet, Radomyshl district, Kiev Governorate in the Russian Empire (today in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine). Conflicting dates exist for his exact ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historically it could also refer to a wider area consisting of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the List of Bohemian monarchs, Bohemian kings, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, in which case the smaller region is referred to as Bohemia Proper as a means of distinction. Bohemia became a part of Great Moravia, and then an independent principality, which became a Kingdom of Bohemia, kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire. This subsequently became a part of the Habsburg monarchy and the Austrian Empire. After World War I and the establishment of an History of Czechoslovakia (1918–1938), independent Czechoslovak state, the whole of Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia, defying claims of the German-speaking inhabitants that regions with German ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Punk Music
Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles with stripped-down instrumentation. Punk rock lyrics often explore anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian themes. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent labels. The term "punk rock" was previously used by American rock critics in the early 1970s to describe the mid-1960s garage bands. Certain late 1960s and early 1970s Detroit acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges, and other bands from elsewhere created out-of-the-mainstream music that became highly influential on what was to come. Glam rock in the UK and the New York Dolls from New York have also been cited as key influences. Between 1974 and 1976 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |