Klezmer Songbook
With close to 300 klezmer tunes, old standards and many newly discovered, in-depth discussions of the music and its history, plus an accompanying CD, The Absolutely Complete Klezmer Songbook, edited by Yale Strom, is amazing.
Klezmer songbook
The Absolutely Complete Klezmer Songbook expands the growing library of world klezmer music and captures melodies that otherwise may have disappeared. It belongs in the library of every dedicated klezmer musician and aficionado.
In his original group, John Zorn played saxophone alongside a trumpeter, bass player and drummer. But the catalog was designed to be played by any group of instruments, and Zorn's discography has since expanded to include renditions by klezmer bands, jazz combos and vocalists.
Showcase your clarinetists with this Yiddish-inspired section feature! Young musicians will experience the tradition and excitement of klezmer music, complete with tuneful melodies, modal harmonies and driving rhythms. Authentic klezmer with just six notes? You bet!
This is a wonderful collection of klezmer music, inspired by the Jewish dances and songs of the klezmorim from Eastern Europe - from the lyrical HORA to the fast, compelling FREILACH. Some of the...
Helmut Eisel is regarded as one of the best and most versatile klezmer clarinettists in Europe. There are only few musicians like him who are able to tell stories on their instrument, each of them...
Zorn used Hebrew titles for these compositions along with melodic themes and musical structures reminiscent of klezmer music, and Jewish imagery on album covers to explore Jewish identity within the Masada songbook and groups. He stated: "The idea with Masada is to produce a sort of radical Jewish music, a new Jewish music which is not the traditional one in a different arrangement, but music for the Jews of today. The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together."[3]
By the end of 2004, Zorn had composed over 300 new tunes for the "second" Masada songbook. Some of the new tunes were debuted at Tonic in December 2004, as a mini festival. Tzadik has released a series of CDs of these songs played by various ensembles, including the Masada String Trio, Marc Ribot, Koby Israelite, Erik Friedlander and others as the "Masada Book 2: The Book of Angels" collection.
The quartet performed together at Yoshi's San Francisco jazz club on March 12, 2008. The 8pm show featured music from the original Masada songbook and the 10pm performance featured songs from Masada Book 2: The Book of Angels.
The Masada String Trio performs selections from the Masada songbook in a classical-chamber jazz form. Personnel include Mark Feldman (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello), and Cohen (bass). With the addition of Marc Ribot (guitar), Cyro Baptista (percussion) and Joey Baron (drums), this same group has performed as the "Bar Kokhba Sextet".
One of Zorn's most active Masada projects of recent years is Electric Masada. Drawing on Zorn's wide-ranging stylistic influences, the band takes the Masada songbook into a whole new direction, reminiscent of jazz fusion and noise rock. The group, which includes Baron, Ribot, Wollesen, and Cyro Baptista, from previous Masada groups, as well as Trevor Dunn on bass, Jamie Saft on keyboards and Ikue Mori on laptop/electronics, continue to take the Masada themes and transform them into something entirely new.
This is a nice klezmerized tango composed by Reiner Oberbeck. You can findthe original of this as well as other compositions and arrangements athis web site. Note, that because ofthe interplay of the instruments, this is arranged with veryspecific parts for clarinet, violin and accordion. We can only do this if wehave a piano.
Available for the first time! Composed by klezmer great, Harold Seletsky, and winner of the 1997 American Society for Jewish Music Competition, this work fuses the unbridled joyousness of traditional klezmer with the complexity and demands of true chamber music. Also suitable for clarinet soloist with string orchestra. Award Citation from ASJM reads, "Seletsky has written an extraordinary work that pulls out all the stops for the klezmer player". Listen to excerpts below (Harold Seletsky on clarinet), or for complete audio, click here
On a trip to Thailand to visit one of my sons I found myself in a bagel shop owned by a transplanted New Yorker--I felt I just had to write some music to capture the moment. This is a klezmer freylekh but with a few quarter tones thrown in. It is performed here by my ensemble, Big Galut(e).
An original Doina and Freylekh by my Dad, the Prez of Klez, Harold Seletsky. It was his signature klezmer improvisation. I notated it as closely as I could from his recordings and offer it here to you.
Klezmer is the traditional instrumental music for weddings and parties of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe. Johan de Meij has masterfully arranged five classics from the klezmer repertoire in this colorful setting for wind band. Includes Mazltov, Dem Trisker rebn's nign, the traditional wedding dance Lomir zich iberbetn (Let Us Reconcile), the Chassidic dance Chosidl and the klezmer favorite Ma yofus.
The closest ties, however, have been with the Jewish wedding band music known as klezmer. So many tunes have traveled back and forth between the Hassidic and klezmer songbooks that it is hard to know where one repertoire ends and the other begins.
What's more, Hassidic singers employ the same sobbing, wailing inflections that make klezmer clarinet and violin so distinctive. You can hear precisely those effects in Yehudi Wyner's The Mirror, as well as in Hassidic Dance, by the great Yiddish theater composer Abraham Ellstein. (Visit the virtual museum to see a video interview with Wyner, along with concert footage of Hassidic Dance performed by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.) 041b061a72