Word: klezmer
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...mischievous Chaim Rascal as well as the Chelmish sage Dopey Pretzel, when not stealing Shlemiel's latkas is doing the same with the stage. Comfortable and at ease with the silliness with the lyrics, he sings with the glee of a Puck and the energy to match the Klezmer Band's clarinet. Also exceptional are the buffoon Gronam Ox and his wife Yenta Pesha (Marilyn Sokol). Shlemiel himself (Will LeBow) is shlemiely enough and improves in the second act when his role becomes more dynamic...
...highlight of the ART's "Shlemiel the First" is truthfully the pit orchestra that will not stay put, The Klezmer Conservatory Band. This eight-piece ensemble grounds an over-the-top and shaky production on a solid yet raucous foundation. Providing more than enough energy to keep the musical moving while simultaneously sparking the audience into fervent rhythmic clapping, the Conservatory Band is the only element in the production which is successfully (and brilliantly) larger-than-life. Even taking time to march around and across the stage, the virtuosos never come off as contrived or absurd; they are the pulsing...
Under the direction of three conductors-Zalmen Motek, Evan Harlan and Timothy Steele-the orchestra pulls off the true to their style Klezmer songs and wildly outrageous parodies of Yiddish familiars with grace and ease. Particularly spectacular is Composer Mlotek's "Geography Song," a parody of a 1947 folk song by Aaron Lebedeff. Here Mlotek and musical adapter Hankus Wetsky are successful where Brustein fails; they masterfully adapt the familiar melodies and lyrical stories which are so much a part of Yiddish culture into vibrant and enjoyable pieces which augment and respectfully recognize their source. The music of "Shlemiel...
Unlike Gershwin, Bacharach, perhaps because he worked in pop-rock and pop-soul idioms, has not been taken seriously by devotees of the Great American Songbook. But Tyner's album, along with another new CD (Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach) produced by avant-garde composer and klezmer enthusiast John Zorn and featuring a number of musicians with jazz leanings from New York's Downtown school, makes the case that Bacharach's melodies are worthy of being standards. Tyner says he's "shocked" that more jazz musicians haven't taken them...
...Germany, the very heart of the Holocaust, so-called philo-Semitism is widespread. Berlin ranks just after New York City and Los Angeles as a center for klezmer music, the clarinet-based tunes traditionally played at Jewish weddings and gatherings. The Institute for Judaism, part of the Free University of Berlin, has 122 students, none of them Jews, enrolled in its classes on religion, history and Israeli politics. Some young Germans with no Jewish background are even choosing to convert...