Re: essential klezmer cds

[Susan Lerner <meydele...>]

I would add either Khevresa or Budowitz for "old-timey" klezmer, 
Chicago Klezmer Ensemble for excellent, straight-ahead 
"traditional" klezmer at a high level of musicianship and 
understanding of the style, Flying Bulgar's Tsirkus album, which I 
am much fonder of than anything by Shirim, which I've never really 
gotten into.  I agree that Klezmer Nutcracker is more of a novelty 
than a "must include."

Shira Lerner


> From: Ari Davidow <ari (at) ivritype(dot)com>
> Date: 2004/01/20 Tue PM 03:26:03 EST
> To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-
music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Subject: essential klezmer cds
> 
> 
> >If you were to recommend 10 CDs to a budding klezmerologist 
that 
> >accurately represent the best of the various strains over the 
past 25 
> >years--traditional, modern, and so on--which 10 would you 
choose?
> 
> ...
> 
> >Mine includes Izhak Perlman, Shirim's "Klezmer Nutcracker,"....
> 
> 
> As much as I love the Klezmer Nutcracker, I think of it more as a 
curiosity 
> (albeit wonderfully done and performed) that distracts attention 
from the 
> first two Shirim CDs, which are very different, and each quite 
essential. 
> The second CD, "Naftule's Dream" (later chosen by the band as 
the name for 
> their avant garde, post-klezmer band-name) was one of the 
original 
> "essential" klezmer CDs with which the KlezmerShack was 
begun - in support 
> of an article for the Whole Earth Review which needed the 
obligatory (in 
> 1995) "support webpage".
> 
> The other five CDs that seemed to represent the diversity of that 
time 
> still stand up as worth listening to (or better), although the world 
> continues to expand:
> 
> Brave Old World / Beyond the Pale (but, as with the Klezmatics, 
below, I'd 
> have no trouble suggesting the new album, "Bless the Fire")
> Kapelye / On the Air (the precursor to Henry's wonderful Yiddish 
Radio 
> Project - this, too, shouldn't be forgotten)
> Klezmatics / Jews with Horns (today I would happily suggest the 
latest: 
> "Rise Up!")
> Klezmer Conservatory Band / Yiddish Renaissance (which I 
think =has= been 
> overshadowed, especially by albums in the last five years, but is 
still 
> wonderful)
> Andy Statman-David Grisman / Songs of our Fathers (never my 
personal 
> favorite, but an album that people continue to mention to me)
> 
> ari
> 
> 
> 

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