klezroym

Music:

Member Since: 2/18/2007
Influences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIVnvebF0DM
Sounds Like:
KLEZROYM MUSICHE DELLA DIASPORA EBRAICA1) oi tate (tradizionale) 2) trokar kazal, trokar mazal (gabriele coen) 3) szol a kakas mar (tradizionale) 4) scenì scenì (pasquale laino) 5) yankele nel ghetto (klezroym) 6) ersthe valse (tradizionale) 8) papirosn (tradizionale) 9) fel shara (tradizionale) 10) danza immobile (andrea pandolfo) 11) ikh fur in keltser kant (yankele hershkowitz) 13) papir is doch weiss (tradizionale) 14) tsigaynerlid (david beyglman) 15) freilach (tradizionale) 16) shabbat day (tradizionale) 17) canzone dell'amore perduto (Fabrizio de andrè)Allo stesso tempo passionale e contemplativa, a volte selvaggia e frenetica, la musica Klezmer ha assorbito moltissimo dal folclore est-europeo e zigano, combinandolo con l'espressività tipicamente ebraica. Estremamente coinvolgente, il klezmer è un esempio di forma musicale tradizionale in continuo sviluppo, che interagisce con successo con sonorità più moderne.La musica Klezmer - e la musica ebraica più in generale - é la radice e lo spunto per una ricerca che ha portato i KlezRoym a scrivere brani del tutto originali ed a realizzare arrangiamenti in cui la matrice tradizionale è importante riferimento musicale ma soprattutto modello di libertà ed apertura alle diverse matrici culturali dei musicisti del gruppo.I KlezRoym, partendo dalla riscoperta del patrimonio musicale ashkenazita (ebraico dell’Europa Orientale) e sefardita (ebraico-spagnolo), propongono un continuo lavoro di incontro tra diverse culture musicali (mediterranea, mediorientale, italiana), costruendo un suggestivo ponte sonoro tra musica popolare e jazz contemporaneo.Dopo il disco d'esordio “Klezroym” (edizioni CNI), uscito nel 1998, con cui si sono fatti conoscere sulla scena internazionale guadagnandosi un posto tra i 10 migliori gruppi di musica klezmer del mondo nella speciale classifica redatta in USA da Ari Davidoff, il gruppo romano nel 2000 ha pubblicato il secondo album “Scenì” (CNI). In esso prosegue l'esplorazione nei territori della musica ebraica, senza trascurare le escursioni nel jazz contemporaneo e nelle sonorità est-europee, nella musica mediterranea e nella canzone d'autore italiana con la rilettura de la " Canzone dell'amore perduto" di Fabrizio De André.Nel 2002 è stato pubblicato il loro ultimo lavoro “ Yankele nel ghetto “(CNI), la rilettura originale ed inedita delle Canzoni del ghetto di Lodz, ritrovate e raccolte da Gila Flam - nel libro "Singing for survival, Songs of the Lodz Ghetto, 1940-45" - direttrice del Dipartimento di Musica e della Fonoteca di Stato di Gerusalemme. Questo progetto, affascinante e coraggioso, esalta la forza dei canti di Lodz che ci arrivano intatti, come messaggio e testimonianza. Sono le canzoni che la gente del ghetto di Lodz cantava negli anni durissimi dell'oppressione nazista della Polonia. Raccontano un umanità cui la fame e la morte, la disperazione e i soprusi non hanno tolto la capacità di sognare, di irridere i potenti e gridare all'ingiustizia. "Yankele nel ghetto" è dedicato a tutti i popoli che ancora oggi soffrono la perdita della liberta’ vedendo calpestati i loro più elementari diritti. Da "Yankele nel ghetto" i KlezRoym hanno ideato e realizzato con Ascanio Celestini lo spettacolo teatrale "Saccarina, cinque al soldo" che, insieme, hanno portato in tutti i più importanti teatri italiani nella stagione 2001/2002.Nel 2003 è stato pubblicata la compilation “Klezroym”(elleu, CNI) per la collana Sconfini.Nel 2006 sempre con le edizioni CNI hanno pubblicato il disco live “Klezroym, venticinque aprile live in Fossoli”.Fino ad ora, in Italia e nel resto del mondo, sono state vendute oltre 50.000 copie di dischi de i Klezroym.Due brani contenuti nell’album di esordio 'KlezRoym', sono stati scelti per la colonna sonora di 'Once We Were Strangers' , primo lungometraggio di Emanuele Crialese (Mostra Internazionale di Montreal e Sundance Festival '98).I Klezroym Hanno svolto centinaia di concerti in tutta Italia esibendosi nei contesti più disparati , dai centri sociali ai templi della musica classica come il Teatro Regio di Torino e la Cappella Paolina del Quirinale (per la rassegna di RADIOTRE i “Concerti del Quirinale”) nonchè all’estero (Spagna, Israele, Belgio), partecipando inoltre all’edizione 2003 del concerto del Primo Maggio da Piazza S.Giovanni in Roma. I Klezroym sono stati per tre anni – dal 2003 al 2005 - gruppo stabile della trasmissione televisiva di RAITRE “Dove osano le quaglie”di Marco Presta e Antonello Dose.GABRIELE COEN sax soprano, clarinettoANDREA PANDOLFO tromba, flicornoPASQUALE LAINO sax alto e baritonoRICCARDO MANZI chitarra, bouzuki, voce,ANDREA AVENA contrabbassoLEONARDO CESARI batteriaEVA COEN voce
"Opening with a few bars of "Vayl ikh bin a yidale" this tribute to the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto consists of songs collected by Gila Flam. KlezRoym manages to take difficult material and to present it in ways that we will all listen. Sometimes, as on the opening vocal, also by Yankele Hershkowitz, the words are more spoken than sung: "It is our grief, it is our problem!...." This magically intense album, including several pages of preface by Gila Flam, whose collection of songs from the ghetto, Singing for survival: Songs of the Lodz Gehtto, 1940-45 is the source of this material.Not since Ghetto Tango a few years ago have the words of the Ghettos under the Nazi occupation and extermination been presented as compellingly. Differently from "Ghetto Tango," where the material was presented as a cabaret, these songs are presented here in ways that try to make the words and melodies sear, while making the music almost transparent. It is like listening to master typographers (the point of good typography is to make the words clear while never distracting the reader with thought of the typography) at their craft, just working in music. Yet, sometimes, it is the music that conveys the emotion and mood, as in "Sakharin finf a marek" inspired by children selling sacharin on street corners, or at the end of "Ikh fur in kletser kant", or as on the "Yankele nel Ghetto 2," in which the constant clang clang clang of the muted cowbell create a sense of work work work and of striving to create from exhaustion and endless industrial labor, music.Klezroym is one of the few bands that I can imagine with the range of styles, and the musical skill to tackle such a task. (Another is Brave Old World. I wish that they, too, would release their Lodz Ghetto material.) In some ways, this material suits them more than the klezmer music, not so known prior to recent decades in their native Italy, with which they began performing and recording. At the same time, grappling with such material is one way in which an ensemble performing new Jewish music today can assimilate the past, make it part of who the band is and what it does, and face the future, never to forget. Part of the never forgetting is to read the words of the songs, to listen. The words are bitter, sad, wise in things that humans should not have to know. They describe life that is impossible to imagine. But they are not passive songs, nor are they songs of despair. From "Kalt: A lidl fin lodzer getto 1945", sung by the exquisitely-voiced Eva Coen:Cold. I see closed railroad cars speeding by all through the night, Where did they take you?This is a such a world....and then the music takes flight with a song written for a theatre review in the Ghetto, sounding almost like a Yiddish Pentangle (the British folk-rock group of the '60s) in "Tsigayner Lid". Before this sinks in, the group is playing "Vayl ikh bin a yidale," one of the most memorable songs arranged by Mlotek and Cooper on "Ghetto Tango." Here, however, the band makes the song their own and finds a different way to make the song powerful, and their own. Finally, having built up the tension, the two singers begin to work back and forth together on "Papirosn" and Ver klapt du azoy shpet bay nakht". Finally, the sad theatre song: "Nit kayn rozhinkes in nit hayin mandlen":No raisins and no almonds, your father has not gone out trading lu, lu, lu, my son, lu, lu, lu my son.Some bands have chosen to mix klezmer melodies with whatever, turned klezmer into something like a musical spice. Others have focused on the '78s and an imagined or researched Eastern Europe of yore, playing klezmer as it was, or it might have been. Other than their name, this album has everything to do with Jewish folk tradition and continuity, and very little to do with klezmer, per se. Klezroym make it clear here, more than ever before, that they are creating new Jewish music, and doing it with sublety and skill that put them in the first rank of the best of new Jewish music bands. In that sense, the band is also according this material the highest honor--carrying the words forward to be heard by new generations, lest they never forget, and lest that part of whatever Jewish means in our generation, or the next, be lost. This is an album that will be hard to find in the United States. The band is Italian. Liner notes are in Italian and English. The music is universal, sweet, and haunting. Make the effort. You will be richly rewarded."Ari Davidow - KlezmerShack"I posted this to the main KlezmerShack page last week, but it's still an exciting album that people should know about, even after it disappears "below the fold" on the KlezmerShack. Here's to a first listening (and second and third) to "Sceni," by Italy's "Klezroym," a band about whom I got very excited when their first release came out a few years ago. This second release, based on a quick first hearing, continued that Klezmer/Jewish-music based improvisational framework that caused the first album to stand out. Here, I think that they've gotten tighter. They also continue to feature the exquisite voice of Eva Coen. Despite some annoyingly bland English lyrics to something called "Klezmer Song," the band, and especially her voice take off on the rest of the recording. I draw special attention to a very well-done eastern-sounding "Morenica." Clearly influenced by the current high standard set by Israel's "Natural Gathering," (Ha Breira-Ha'tiv'it), KlezRoym still make it their own." [GRADE: A]Ari Davidow - KlezmerShack"This is a lesson that I find myself learning over and over again: Never, ever underestimate humanity's ability to reconfigure venerable art forms into new, often strange objects. Just when I thought I had klezmer pretty much pegged as a musical form, I get this CD in the mail. KlezRoym is a band out of Italy who combine the fervor and stylings of klezmer with the improvisation of Gypsy jazz and the feel of Mediterranean music. Sure, all klezmer, being the hybrid genre that it is, has a little Gypsy, a little jazz, and maybe a little Mediterranean harmony. But KlezRoym, a seven-person unit consisting of Gabriele Coen, Andrea Pandolfo, Pasquale Laino, Riccardo Manzi, Marco Camboni, Leonardo Cesari, and Eva Coen, add their own mixture of moxy, imagination, and excellent improvisational skills to the music. The absence of any fiddles or clarinets and the emphasis on saxophones, bouzoukis, and trumpets give the music of KlezRoym a distinctly forthright, sultry sound. From the beginning track, "Trokar Kazal, Trokar Mazal (Change Country, Change Fate)," a Latin-flavored song about an Spanish exile pining for his homeland, we know we're in for a treat. Eva Coen's singing is simultaneously sensual and mournful, which is echoed in the plaintive saxophones and trumpet of Gabriele Coen, Pasquale Laino, and Andrea Pandolfo. The song meanders into an extended instrumental, the arrangement of which easily recalls some of the 3 Mustaphas 3's best work. This is just the beginning -- literally. From here, KlezRoym prove how little they can sit still, moving from the ska-flavored klezmer of "To East," which ends with a wonderfully discordant guitar solo, to the melancholy Italian love song "Canzone Dell'Amour Perduto (Song of Lost Love)," written by Fabrizio De Andrè, then onto the Jewish-Hungarian hora "Szol A Kakas Mar (And the Cock Crow)." Interspersed between many of these tracks are snippets of "Radio Freylach"'s. A "freylach" (meaning "joy" in Yiddish) is a standard melody form in klezmer, like the czardas in Hungarian music and the jig in the music from the Isles. The half-minute freylachs that KlezRoym uses here to introduce their tracks are all traditional tunes, which they've recorded in mono, giving them an "old-time radio" sound. Guitarist and bouzouki player, Riccardo Manzi, gets to stretch his vocal chords in "Arum Dem Fayer (Around the Campfire)." Its haunting melody runs counter to the gaiety of the lyrics about the Gypsy life of song and dance. This ends abruptly to the klezmer and jazz hybrid sounds of the title track "Sceni, Sceni." Rather than just the almost standard sounds of Gypsy jazz that is often found within klezmer, one can also hear some strains of the cool jazz that was pioneered by Miles Davis back in the late '50's. KlezRoym fills the rest of the CD with just as various a selection of music from the dirge-like "Nostalgia," which is immediately lightened up by the up-beat jazz improv of "Regalo Di Nozze," to "Klezmer Song," KlezRoym's own celebration of klezmer music, and the foreboding Sephardic folk song, "Morenica." The CD "officially" ends with the lullaby "Oyfn Pripetshik (At The Fireplace)," a popular children's song which prisoners of the death camps of Europe would often sing to each other and thus has become a symbol of the Shoah. Rather strangely, there are two bonus tracks, old-style house versions of "Morenica" and "Oyfn Pripetshek." They're a bit of a shock after the traditional sounds of the previous tracks, but they are a transition back to more modern sounds. There really is no way any self-respecting klezmer or Gypsy jazz lover would want to miss this CD. Actually, anyone with a passing interest in traditional European music will find plenty to enjoy on this CD."Brendan Foreman - Greenmanreview"The klezmer revival continues unabated throughout the world, and this Italian entry into the scene is a notable one.. Singer Eva Coen leads the songs with a natural, open style, the reed/horn section is tight, with arrangements that defy categories, and the strings (violin, guitar, bouzouki) lend a dry authenticity, augmented by an often funk-driven electric bass. Leonard Cesari is superb in his use of both traditional percussion and kit drum. A clear, winning example of the band's ability to do it all at once is 'Danza Immobile', a moody soundtrack piece that reaches deep into the tradition and comes out far removed from it, punched up by a distant sounding flugelhorn and a contemporary rock groove. They play old freylachs with verve, traditional slow dances with grace and energized originals with passion"Cliff Furnald - RootsWorldHere are three interesting "elsewheres" from Italy that have arrived recently. Well, two arrived recently, one has been sitting here, on the changer more often than off, for far too long. Klezroym's debut CD, an eponymous CD from 1998, is wonderful, almost psychedelic klez at times. At its best, it reminds me of the Shirim/Naftule's Dream album, with a near-perfect mix of traditional klezmer and the rest of the musician's rivers, now fused into something new and expressive of our time. The opening New York/Sirba slowly reveals a psychedelic doina, seguing into a folky introduction to singer, Eva Coen (whose voice adds considerable credibility to the already interesting musical mix) and then the band takes off in a langorous speed klez/scat sirba. The album only gets better from there, with a gentle first waltz and more traditional (and untraditional!) klezmer fare. And then there is the Jewish music that doesn't happen to be klezmer, Sephardic songs such as "Fel Shara", or the wonderful improv of "Al-Andalus" to the Spanish guitary "Eléna Tantz." This is one of the first bands to do a cover of the Klezmatics version of "Shnirele Perele," and while the band would suffer from the comparison, the wonderful six minute improv is quite a good, and appropriate, album closer on its own merits. (Actually, there is a surprise remix at the very, very end of the album, but this is the official end. That's an encore.) This is the sort of album I expect to be pulling off the shelf 20 years from now, just as tonight I listened to my favorite Pentangle disk.Ari Davidow - KlezmerShack"KlezRoym's music is beautiful, earthy, lively and at times amusing, with noteworthy Arabic influences, highly rhythmic"Laura Putti - La Repubblica"These dances with a gypsy flavour, invented by gypsies and genial wanderers, live once more in the intriguing KlezRoym atmospheres veined with jazz, without making you feel the weight of centuries "Giuseppe Videtti - TrovaRoma, La Repubblica"In the heart of the rhythmic ravine you suddenly feel a melody as soft as caress: a result of the influences from the Sephardites, the Arabic areas of Spain, from North Africa. And when to the group is added Massimo Coen, and his violin flies like a Chagall character, the tremendous power of this music becomes explicit".Sandro Cappelletto - La Stampa"Islamic influences, jazz arrangements, gypsy vibrations, jerky Balcanic movements, minimalist approaches: with KlezRoym the strong remote Hebrew matrix is strongly felt and breathes in a world which is looking for new identities and greater bewilderment"Pinotto Fava - RaiTre"Sounds like an ancient underground vocation, whether the voice or the musical instrument, of the heart's memory. Sounds of words which caress the Mediterranean waves with talk of mothers, lands, birth, deat, silence, life-beats. Eternal".Simona Marchini"The first notes of the first CD of this Klezmer formation are so destructive that the listener remains attached to the sounds as if in a dream".Giuseppe Videtti - Musica di Repubblica"The musical debut of one of the most important klezmer formations hovering between destructiveness and unstoppable joy, this piece of work alternates instrumental tracks with songs in Yiddish and Spanish-Hebrew"Segno nel Mondo 7" A route of intense instrumental energy in which there are strong feelings of the community (Shabat Day), dances of urban possession (Doina, Freylekhs), solemn rites (Cerimonia Nuziale) and effective original tracks. The ethnic groove reveals harmony, a happy interchange to shoo rhythmic demons and chromatic fantasies."L.P. - Mucchio Selvaggio
Record Label: CNI
Type of Label: Indie