After performing with the Klezmer Conservatory Band since its beginnings in 1980 and and performing with klezmer band leaders Margot Leverett, Frank London, Pete Sokolow, Andy Statman and Alicia Svigals, Jim has taken what he's learned about klezmer music and recorded an album that successfully threads klezmer music through his work in other musical genres.
From the shtetls of Eastern Europe, through the emigration to America, from the jazz clubs of cities and the stages of Yiddish theater comes the music of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. Klezmer music began in medieval Europe, where bands of itinerant Jewish musicians went from town to town playing for Jewish festivals and special events. By the 19th century, klezmer music had become a well-developed musical style, taking its inspiration not only from the synagogue, but from the non-Jewish culture that surrounded it.
Fascinatin' Rhythm, built around the trio of guitarist Jon Damian, Jim on bass and drummer Grant Smith, expands to a quartet or quintet at your request. The group plays jazz standards, bossa nova and be-bop from the heart of the jazz tradition. Burnin' in a club or swinging politely in your home.
Cajun, Zydeco and New Orleans R&B, with or without old world spices. Featuring fiddler Mimi Rabson, accordionist Evan Harlan, drummer Grant Smith and Your Neighborhood Sax Quartet's tenorsaxophonist Joel Springer.
In the mid-1990's the ever musically restless Itzhak Perlman began his ongoing exploration of kezmer music by recording and touring with ther Klezmer Conservatory Band and three other leading proponents of the klezmer music revival, the Klezmatics, with KCB alumnus Frank London, Brave Old World, led by KCB alumnus Alan Bern and Andy Statman.
With what we eventually learned was Art Bailey's can do attitude, he auditioned for the Klezmer Conservatory Band having never played accordion until two weeks before the audition. A true musical omnivore, he continues to learn all he can about the accordion and has since moved to New York to be in the heart of the creative music scene and learn all he can about Afro-Cuban, modern classical and contemporary rock music. This album reflects his appreciation for the klezmer tradition.
Led by Boston violinist Mimi Rabson, with violinist Eric Bindman and violist Melissa Howe, RESQ explores and adds to a world of music not traditionally intended for string quartet. The quartet plays fiddle music from around the world, jazz & Afro-Cuban standards and some original compositions.
A collaboration between trumpeter Frank London, Art Bailey's Orkestra Popilar and the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education's program bringing the performing arts into schools.
Jeff Warschauer's first outing as a band leader. I originally met Jeff at the Springfield Street Saloon, Cambridge's country music emporium in the late 1970s, when he was playing with Columbus East and I was playing with the legendary Cheap Trills. What a surprise it was to run into him years later as we were both beginning to explore klezmer music.
