The clarinetist David Krakauer, the artistic director of Klezmer All-Star Bash at Carnegie Hall on Thursday, taking the stage to play a number with the Klezmatics, one of the evenings acts.
What comes after a revival? Thats the question that a generation of klezmer-loving, mostly Jewish musicians has been exploring for the last few decades, not least at Klezmer All-Star Bash, a concert on Thursday night at Carnegie Hall that was assembled by the clarinetist David Krakauer. Mr. Krakauers band, Klezmer Madness!, headlined the show, which also included other leading modern klezmer groups: Brave Old World, the Klezmatics and Mikveh.
Klezmer, the music of itinerant Eastern European Jews that was transplanted to America, has been thoroughly collected, studied and recharged by musicians not all of them Jewish who put old repertory and vintage musical styles back into circulation. But klezmer was never an insular tradition. It was always porous and cosmopolitan, assimilating what musicians picked up on their travels. The prime movers of the klezmer revival have turned to making music thats not primarily a re-creation of past glories but a style that recognizes the present without forgetting its roots. Most lyrics at the concert were in Yiddish.
Mr. Krakauer wrote in program notes that he modeled the program on Spirituals to Swing, the historic 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, and the lineup made its way from Old World songs to klezmer tinged with hip-hop. Every band had an accordion, and two, Brave Old World and the Klezmatics, included Eastern European hammered dulcimers, while Klezmer Madness! also had electronic samples and beats.
