Time Out New York
The Klezmatics: Rise Up! Shteyt Oyf!
By Sara Marcus
The Klezmer revival of the 1980's was still young when the Klezmatics exploded onto the scene, shaking up Eastern European Jewish folk with jazz and world-music influences. Seventeen years later, it's impossible to imagine the genre without them, and despite the departure of longtime violinist Alicia Svigals, their music remains as deeply compassionate as it is invigorating, as accessible as it is virtuosic.
One third of the songs on Rise Up! will make you feel holy; one third will make you feel like whirling around frantically at a Jewish wedding; and a few insistent calls-to-arm may make you feel like smashing capitalism. (In superb "Barikaden," sparse, nervous rhythms and bass-clarinet blats complement lyrics envisioning the opening moments of a workers' revolution.) The sprightly dance songs (hora, not disco) are enlivened by salsa piano and Indian classical string sections that never carry the pieces too far from their traditional roots.
Several other songs are religious, either through their lyrics or by dint of being nignim---wordless songs that funciton as ecstatic prayers in some mystical traditions. But this band is not about to ask you to turn your stereo off for Shabbes: the album's conceptual centerpiece, and the source of its title, is a bilingual version of Holly Near's anti- fundamentalist "I Ain't Afraid." These formidable pioneers are still the fearless standard-bearers in their field, and they show no sign of relinquishing that role.
05/29/03
