When I was about 3 years old, my parents took me to a klezmer concert by the old San Francisco group Klezmorim. And while those memories are receding like a train in the distance, I do believe that was the first — and possibly the only — time I ever heard music so full of life, so vibrant and energetic, I just couldn’t stay in my chair.
But I was not alone. The room was full of gray-bearded men and bespectacled women well past my parents’ age leaping and dancing with reckless abandon more befitting a toddler — or, perhaps, Steve Martin. To this day, klezmer music puts a smile on my face and takes me to a very happy place.
Which is why “Celebrate Klezmer,” the latest compilation album from Craig ‘n Co. Records — the same folks who brought you “Celebrate Hip Hop” and “Celebrate Yiddish” — is such a bittersweet little pill.
I can’t speak badly of the album; the tunes are solid and the musicianship is consistently good. But to call itself “the ultimate collection of klezmer tunes …” as it does on its back cover, is an overstatement akin to RC Cola labeling itself the ultimate soft drink or Stone Phillips declaring himself the ultimate newscaster.
This album is, to borrow the words of Dom DeLuise in “History of the World, Part I,” “Nice, nice — not thrilling — but nice.”
And it starts out a little less than that. Producers Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg chose to pitch a “get it in” fastball to start the album, slating five-straight solid but none-too-spectacular tracks before finally blowing the doors off with a sizzling number — by guess who? Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars.
“Wedding in Crown Heights” was everything I remembered klezmer to be — an ecstatic brass ball of oft-frenetic music wrapped in ribbons of screaming, trilling clarinets. In all my musical journeys, I’ve never come across a form so evocative of pure, unadulterated joy. Perhaps Jews’ appreciation of joy is enhanced by a history of misery and suffering, but I’ll leave the sociologists to argue that one out. One thing I do know, however, is London ought to give modesty a break and call his own number more often.
Following the three minutes of levity provided by London and Co., it’s three more somewhat head-scratching tunes, highlighted by one that sounds like a clarinet and hammer-dulcimer combo.
But then comes a blast from the past to put everything right. The crackling at the onset of the Harry Lubin Quintet’s “Erinerungen” sounds like it might be a clever studio effect, but, no, it’s the real deal. This 65-year-old track has more life in it than most of the contemporary songs. The muted trumpets, clipped notes and upbeat tempo make it sound ever so slightly like klezmer cartoon music, but don’t think that’s a pejorative. This is a cartoon I want to watch. This is a cartoon I want to own. This is a cartoon I want to live in.
On the heels of Lubin’s archival masterpiece is a ritzy number by Sam Shpeilt entitled “Shtreiml” featuring a klezmer harmonica that sounds a little bit like Blues Traveler meets Borscht Belt. Then the album closes out with the Klezmer Conservatory Band’s “Skotshne #60 a la Merlin,” the only slow number on the CD with both power and spirit.
I’m no record producer, but putting three of your four best tracks at the end of an album doesn’t seem like a winning game plan to me. But, then again, what do I know?
Here’s what I know: “Celebrate Klezmer” piqued my appetite for klezmer, but it wasn’t album enough to satiate it. So I went out in the garage and rummaged through mounds of discarded knickknacks and old tax returns, hunting for the copy of Klezmorim’s “Metropolis” my dad dubbed onto a tape 25 years ago.
And I found it.
“Celebrate Klezmer” (Craig ‘n Co. Records, $15). Information: www.celebrateseries.com.