Re: I have just beem exposed to klezmer and need more!

[TLevy <tlevy...>]

I saw a live performance by Brave Old World last year at a Hanukkah music
festival called Klezmermania in San Francisco. They do play some jazz
influenced music, but it's all great as far as I'm concerned. This new
album (called Brave Old World on Flying Fish Records 1990) contains two
originals by Alpert, one called Chernobyl, a song in Yiddish, with
traditional music, about the Chernobyl disaster in Russia. The album
contains a lyric sheet in Yiddish and English. It's recorded by Flying
Fish Records, 1304 W. Schuber, Chicago, IL 60614. For more info on Brave
Old World they also include an address of their own: Mr. Mitch Greenhill,
Folklore Productions, 1671 Appian Way, Santa Monica, CA 90401.
They were wonderful in concert. Talked about playing a lot in Europe,
particularly in (ironically) Germany, at Jewish culture festivals.

Don Byron is a fascinating character. He's a black American (USA) jazz
musician with a very strong interest in being an iconoclast. He got
interested in the music of Mickey Katz, who played a klezmerish music of
his own. Katz played with Spike Jones for a time in the 40s before going
out on his own. For example, he recorded a parody of Home on the Range,
called "Haim Afen Range". Needless to say, Katz's music and Byron's
interpretations of it, are controversial with Klezmer purists. Personally,
I find Byron and Katz intriguing. They're examples of the USA's "melting
pot" (which is really more of a stew, flavors mingling and mixing) theory
applied to music. The Don Byron disc is called "Don Byron plays the music
of Mickey Katz" on Elektra/Nonesuch.