Of all the Jewish holidays, none is so firmly rooted in the home and so joyously celebrated with song as Passover. This simple fact would lead you to expect an avalanche of Passover records, but this year the avalanche is more like a mild rain of pebbles, at least in the quantity department.
\”There was level of musical sophistication that goes with the kind of music you can play on the mandolin, and my intention was to start a new acoustic-fusion thing, with an emphasis on string and wind instruments,\” said Eric Stein, who went on to form Beyond the Pale, a klezmer-fusion band.
Neil Sedaka has had a noteworthy place in American music for four decades; he became a comfortable perennial who did not let himself turn into a tortured titan like Sinatra or a forgettable one-hit wonder like The Imperials, Haircut 100 or Luscious Jackson.
\”I came to klezmer quite by accident,\” said virtuoso clarinetist David Krakauer.\n\nHe was a noted classical musician around 1987 when a chance encounter on a Manhattan bus changed the direction of his career.
A single album, inherited from his late father, led disc jockey Max Reinhardt to rediscover his Jewish musical roots. The recording was \”Mish Mosh,\” by comedian and klezmer clarinetist Mickey Katz: \”He does a version of Dean Martin\’s \’That\’s Amore\’ as \’That\’s Morris,\’ which my father, Morris, was forever playing for his Jewish friends,\” Reinhardt, 52, recalled from London.
As a member of the South Coast Simcha Band, 44-year-old Chattler brings those traditional Yiddish melodies to the Southland.
This is not your grandmother\’s halftime show. Unless of course, Grandma grew up in a kibbutz or shtetl with a 145-piece marching band in residence.
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