The Klezmatics
High-energy brass and soaring violins that pull traditional Yiddish music into the modern age. It is a celebratory, defiant, and deeply soulful dance party.
High-energy brass and soaring violins that pull traditional Yiddish music into the modern age. It is a celebratory, defiant, and deeply soulful dance party.
The Klezmatics sound like a frantic, beautiful collision between a 19th-century shtetl wedding and a 1980s East Village jazz club. Their music is anchored by the 'krechts' (the sob-like moan of the clarinet and violin) but propelled by a rhythm section that understands the urgency of punk and the complexity of jazz. It is music that feels ancient and immediate all at once.
What truly sets them apart is their intellectual and political fearlessness. They do not treat klezmer as a museum piece; they use it as a living language to talk about labor rights, queer identity, and spiritual ecstasy. By collaborating with everyone from Woody Guthrie's estate to Palestinian virtuosos, they have transformed a specific ethnic tradition into a universal cry for justice and joy.
Start with 'Jews With Horns' to hear them at their most explosive and brass-heavy. If you want something more lyrical and folk-oriented, 'Wonder Wheel' showcases their incredible ability to set Woody Guthrie's lost lyrics to haunting, evocative melodies that feel like they have existed for centuries.
The Klezmatics are an American klezmer music group based in New York City, who have achieved fame singing in several languages, most notably mixing older Yiddish tunes with other types of more contemporary music of differing origins. They have also recorded pieces in Aramaic and Bavarian.
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