Levity, gravity, eclectic exuberance... Approaching tradition with irreverence and respect, Metropolitan Klezmer plays Yiddish music from all over the map, including lesser-known gems and genre-defying originals. Our four CDs thus far include dance frolics, trance chants, plus hard-swinging Second Avenue classics and retro tango, from delightfully rambunctious to ethereally exquisite. Based in NYC, the group is known for its virtuosic versatility and relaxed, hard-swingingly tight performance. Originally formed as a quintet in 1994 with the late great Howie Leess on clarinet and tenor sax, Metropolitan Klezmer has grown to an octet performing an imaginative array of gorgeously arranged traditionals, originals, and unexpected adaptations, both vocal and panoramically instrumental.
Broadcasts with Metropolitan Klezmer in performance have aired on CNN Worldbeat's Crazy for Klezmer, ARD German TV's Rhythms of New York, and live on-air for WFUV's CityFolk, WFMU's Trans-Pacific Sound Paradise, and WVBR's Bound For Glory. More band radio airplay has appeared around the globe, including a feature on PRI's Sound & Spirit. Metropolitan Klezmer discs on Rhythm Media Records are distributed worldwide by Stern's Music Ltd, and here are CD Baby links for hearing clips from all tracks, reading more, and buying these online:
.. METROPOLITAN KLEZMER: Traveling Show (2007), live! plus Klezbonus--
.. METROPOLITAN KLEZMER: Surprising Finds (2003) --
.. METROPOLITAN KLEZMER debut disc: Yiddish For Travelers (1998) --
Our CDs have won Outmusic Awards and made Top Ten lists internationally, including Best of 2007 lists in Jewish Week NYC, Jewish Journal LA, Detroit Jewish News and Boston Jewish Advocate. Tunes from these releases have also been heard in such shows as the Royal Ballet's First Drafts at London's Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and SITI Theatre Co.'s Score Off-Broadway and on national tour. All Rhythm Media Records releases by Metropolitan Klezmer and Isle of Klezbos are distributed worldwide by Stern's Music Ltd (offices in NYC and London). In addition, Metropolitan Klezmer tracks are featured on compilations including Tzadik label's "Music from the Winery," live from Tonic's klezmer series, curated by David Krakauer on the Radical Jewish Culture imprint.
Metropolitan Klezmer has performed at venues from the legendary Bottom Line cabaret to full houses at the concert halls of the 92nd Street Y, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the World Financial Center's Festival of Sound & Light, as well as multiple appearances onstage at Makor, Tonic, The Jewish Museum, The Knitting Factory, joe's pub at The Public Theater, and Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction. Our bandmates also play in styles from Albanian to Zydeco, funk to classical to reggae to Latin jazz as well as klezmer. For full bandmate bios, including everything from world tours to conservatory training, see: http://metropolitanklezmer.com .
Our new album, TRAVELING SHOW, includes a variety of tunes from recent live shows, including gorgeous traditionals, hot arrangements of folk-based swing, Yiddish/Latin charmers, and beautiful new compositions. Jewish Week's George Robinson gave it five stars, one of only eight CDs to receive this year's top rating. "Originality, expert musicianship and a keen world music sensibility" - All About Jazz "Feisty NYC-based octet, encyclopedic Yiddish sound"- Curve MagazineOur latest video is a quick clip of trumpeter Pam Fleming soloing on her latest horn with the band: a kudu (antelope) shofar! Riff arranged by bandleader Eve Sicular:Outdoor concert videos include three full tunes of live band show footage from the Summer on the Hudson pier stage this July, plus some revealing archival movie clips and fascinating subtexts in the tango number. Drummer/bandleader Eve Sicular also lectures on "The Celluloid Closet of Yiddish Film" (vintage soundtrack music in unexpected adaptations is one of our specialties).
Here's "Ot Azoy Neyt A Shnayder," a Yiddish swing vocal number based on a folk tune (also heard on our Traveling Show and Surprising Finds CDs):
This one below's a medley of wedding dance tunes ("C Minor Bulgar & Ken O'Hara Freylekh" ... Ken is not a real person, by the way; that's just a play on the Yiddish phrase for 'keep the evil eye away' ~ keyn ayn hara; and 'freylekh' means happy, joyous, gay; from the same root as 'frolic'!) These two instrumentals are heard as this very medley on the new Traveling Show CD, and also as separate tracks on our debut disc Yiddish For Travelers. And yes, all klezmer groups play parties too:
Here below you'll find Yiddish film footage and much more, together with Metropolitan Klezmer's live octet performing "Muzikalisher [Musical] Tango," our very special Yiddish Celluloid Closet montage... more at http://metropolitanklezmer.com/celluloid.html . We love this tune so much it's on three of our recordings -- Mosaic Persuasion [full liner note explication], Traveling Show [live in concert], and as "Shadkhn Tango" on Surprising Finds [live show version] -- and even on our sister sextet's CD, Greetings from the Isle of Klezbos. Enjoy: