Put Some Salsa In Your Klezmer! - Was: Re: Meshuggenismo: a strange sort of salsa-klezmer hybrid

[R.A.S. <richards...>]

Couldn't wait for my next site update and thought I should post this here
anyway - it's exciting stuff!


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On 10/03/2003 at 12:21 Ted Kuster wrote:

>I want to introduce, if I may, a new band called Meshuggenismo. [snip]


The other day, Ted Kuster posted to the Jewish Music mailing list, drawing
our attention to his band, Meshuggenismo, and the availability of a demo.
Well, I certainly thank goodness (or whatever) that he did!

Meshuggenismo is a salsa band playing klezmer tunes, or a klezmer band
playing in Afro-Cuban style... depends on your point-of-view, really.
Either way, they're a damn fine band, judging from their demo. They're
based in San Francisco, and are essentially all Afro-Cuban jazz and salsa
veterans playing klezmer tunes and Yiddish songs in various Afro-Cuban
styles, including son, guaracha, merengue, cha cha, bolero, and more.

Stop and think about it for a moment or two. What could be a more natural
combination? Afro-Cuban music is itself a fusion of (sub-Saharan) African
and "Latin" (speak Spanish/North African) elements, and the "Latin" part is
after all largely a fusion of Arabic, Sephardic, and Gipsy music. And with
Cuba's once fairly substantial Jewish community of (originally mainly)
Sephardi refugees (the Caribbean was one of the earliest destinations for
them following the expulsion from Spain, and in fact the earliest synagogue
built in the Americas was a Sephardi one in Barbados, built around the
middle of the 18th century), the Jewish influence on the development of
Afro-Cuban music did not just rest with the origins of the music. Jewish
musicians also played a part in the development of what eventually came to
be called salsa. In the opposite corner, we have klezmer - a fusion of
Ashkenazi Jewish, Arabic/Turkish, Gipsy, and Eastern and Central European
elements. Thus, the two styles, Afro-Cuban and klezmer, are a natural match
for further fusion, with enough commonalities to facilitate a smooth blend
and enough differences to make the whole enterprise interesting and even
exciting, if done right. (Always a big IF, that - so much world fusion
sadly falls flat on its face and becomes an exercise in uninspired musical
mathematics.)

No fear here though, Meshuggenismo and their arranger/bassist Ted Kuster
hit the right note every time, as it were. This is truly exciting music,
and hugely enjoyable. Kuster's arrangements are outstanding on these six
tracks, with all the cliche "latin jazz" elements that most people would
expect, yet also never losing sight of the klezmer side of things. So,
putting some salsa in the klezmer is, in this case, a very good thing
indeed. A bit reminiscent of Trinidad soca great, David Rudder, putting
some samba in the
soca in his 1986 hit, "Bahia Girl" - no, not just in the phrasing here but
in the spirit of the thing.

"Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn" kicks off with a typically latin brass opening,
leading swiftly into a gutsy vocal, underscored by an unrelenting latin
piano and offset with crisp horns. Continuing in a similar vein, "Papirosn"
presents some fine sax soloing, a crisp trumpet solo, and some
finely-judged percussion where there must have been a huge temptation to
pull out all stops. "Hava(na)gila" is more than just a neat play on words.
The piano feels even more unrelenting than ever, while at the same time the
arrangement
is overall fairly subdued, almost minimalist in an Afro-Cuban context and a
little reminiscent of the Harry Belafonte version, though thankfully
lacking the latter's typical inauthenticity. The vocal hits just the right
balance between Yiddish and Afro-Cuban styles. "Araber Tanz" leads off with
a fine trumpet solo against a more subdued piano, and fine ensemble playing
alternates with excellent solos all round on this more sedate number, which
facilitates catching your breath a little. On "Tsena Tsena", the pace
inevitably picks up again with a lively vocal and and horns, with some
nicely understated percussion. Finally, "Shver un Shviger" offers a bit
more respite with its very finely judged, subtle horns.

Meshuggenismo's sound and style, one can't help feeling, would even sit
quite comfortably on something like the Cu-Bop label, especially with a few
extended improvs thrown in.

I understand that a CD album is in the offing for next year. Next year, in
this case, seems like an awful long time to have to wait. However, of this
I am sure and can assure the reader - it's certainly going to be well worth
waiting for! In the meantime, if you can't wait that long, you can always
go to Meshuggenismo's web site and download the demo in MP3 (high quality)
format, either to play on your computer or to burn to CD for playing on
your hi fi. Please do bear in mind though that this is only a demo, and the
mixes tend to be a tad on the rough side. But they're more than good enough
to give anybody a pretty good idea and certainly good enough to be
enjoyable, very much so indeed.

If this was an old-fashioned vinyl, I'd have worn out the grooves already!
Here's hoping we'll hear a lot more, a whole lot more, from Ted Kuster's
Meshuggenismo!


Renaissance Man
Richard

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