Brown Bread and Latkes – Elebash Recital Hall – City University of New York Graduate Center – April 28, 2004
By Alice Farrell in New York

Living in a city as diverse as New York, there is a broad spectrum of music to draw from, and last night saw the convergence of a group of musicians, schooled in the Irish and Jewish traditions for a musical celebration of these rich cultures. Featuring 2/3 of the renowned Klezmer band The Klezmatics : Lisa Gutkin on fiddle, Matt Darrieau - flute, whistle, clarinet, sax, kaval, Greg Anderson - guitar, bass and Lorin Sklamberg on piano, guitar, songs and accordion, along with Irish musicians Patrick Ourceau on fiddle, John Redmond on box, and Isaac Alderson on pipes. Many of these musicians have played Irish music together in various venues and bands around the New York traditional scene, and they are all known for their forward thinking approach to the interpretation of tunes.

One of the most refreshing things about the evening was the lack of amplification, given the vibrancy of the room, it wasn't necessary to mic them, and the warmth and tone quality that ensued was brilliant. Starting off with a set of reels John Brady's, Ah Surely, and Jack Maguire , the power and versatility of the Irish side of the spectrum was well established. They then ventured onto the Jewish side of the scale with a klezmer wedding tune known as a khasene called Fun der Khupe Tants , which roughly translates to dancing under the traditional Jewish wedding canopy. The rising build of the music, first with accordion and fiddle and then joined by the clarinet, with the music speeding up, you could almost see the dancers whirling around the floor.

The show also featured solo turns by Isaac Alderson on the pipes with a haunting slow air and the firebrand finger work of John Redmond on the box with an original Michael McGoldrick reel, Laskey McCaskel and another that he learned from Solas, all with his wonderfully individual syncopation.

Songs also played an integral part in the show, from the rich harmony of the Yiddish song Loshin Koydesh, and the feverpitch ebullience of the traditional Khosidl tune called Tepel which got the audience clapping along, both featuring the clear and endearing voice of Lorin Sklamberg , who gave a stirring rendition of the Irish traditional song Fear a bhata later in the program. And the producer of the event, CUNY Doctoral student in Ethnomusicology Meg Farrell, was asked up by the artists to sing a heartfelt and lyrical Níl Sé'n Lá

The second half of the program brought a stirring set of marches from Patrick Ourceau and Greg Anderson , joined by John Redmond on the box The Battle of Auburn and Bonnie Crossing the Alps . These segued nicely into a majestic piece from the Klezmatcs called Davenen , written by their trumpet player Frank London for a collaboration with the Pilobolus dance company. It featured Lorin on the piano now, with Lisa on fiddle and Matt on the Bulgarian Kaval, an endblown flute with a sound somewhere between a flute and an oboe, that figured nicely for the rolling waterfall feel of the piano accompaniment.

The evening continued with a discourse back and forth between the two musical genres, and even some tunes which segued from one style to the other nicely and featured a Yiddish tune Oy Avrom , played in and Irish style, which Lorin included after hearing it performed by the Irish band Lúnasa . And finished off with a rousing set of klezmer tunes that brought some of the audience out to dance in the aisles, and the entire audience to their feet at the end of the show.

Both the musicians and the audience came to the same conclusion that this was a combination of styles and vocabularies that went very well together and I hope to hear a lot more of it in the future. If you want to hear more of the music mentioned here, you can check out the Klezmatics at www.klezmatics.com , John Redmond's debut CD East to Northeast at http://www.cdroots.com/jr-east.html and look for a review of the new album Live from Mona's featuring the playing of Patrick Ourceau and Eamon O'Leary in the weeks to come.