Television freylachs... and other klezmer madness

[Ed Sieb <esieb...>]

Jewish World Review Oct. 22, 2002 / 16 Mar-Cheshvan, 5763
Television freylachs... and other klezmer madness
 by Paul Wieder

Excerpt only.  For the complete article, please visit Jewish World Review,
http://jewishworldreview.com/jewish/jukebox.html


"John Coltrane, Trouble Funk, Yossele Rosenblatt..." This is the sound of
David Krakauer listing his influences. The sound of his clarinet is closer
to that of an envelope being pushed, or a roof being raised.

After earning his master's degree at Juilliard, Krakauer played with
orchestras in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, but also with the groundbreaking
Kronos Quartet and troublemaking John Cage. After discovering klezmer- "some
musicians were rehearsing in my neighborhood, and it just grabbed me"- he
has risen to the heights of the form; for instance, Krakauer accompanied
Itzhak Perlman in his "In the Fiddler's House" appearance on David
Letterman.

In September, Krakauer fronted his new band, Klezmer Madness!, as one of the
headliners in Chicago's World Music Festival. He powered his half-rock
(guitar, bass, drums) half-not (accordion, clarinet, bass clarinet)
ensemble, his first as bandleader, through the tracks of their new album,
"The Twelve Tribes." Klezmer Madness! sped through many of the album's
genre-bending numbers- one marries a bulgar with a 12-bar blues; one
explores the vagaries of electronic communication ("Queen of the Midnight
Fax"); one raucously klezmer-izes old TV theme songs. And one, "The New Year
After..." commemorates the cataclysm of September 11, using the clarinet as
a plaintive shofar.

Technically, he is fleet-fingered, able to slide several notes into one
seamlessly, and a master of circular breathing, making one note extend for
an entire minute if needed. In Chicago, he matched his Ivan-Lendl precision
with John-McEnroe passion, inspiring the disaffected twenty-something bar
crowd into whirling horas and even breakdancing... until a couple of their
grandparents showed them how to really cut a rug and make it kosher.

Introducing "Television Freylachs," Krakauer explained that he was looking
for an American Jewish "folklore," and came to the realization that the one
unifying force our culture may have is that one-eyed idol, with its stories
and songs. With more albums like "The Twelve Tribes," perhaps today's Jews
will start collecting a genuinely Jewish folklore instead of a borrowed one.

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