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Oy Chanukah!
(more) »rank: 17899by: Klezmer Conservatory Band
: :Oy Chanukah! is vigorously entertaining and always instructive, with lively musical pieces interspersed with stories and explanations of Chanukah traditions and memories from a host of sources. And as the liner notes illustrate, the expression 'oy!'--like klezmer music itself--can be 'a lament, a protest, a cry of dismay, a reflex of delight.' Here the Klezmer Conservatory preserves the singular beauty and breadth of Jewish culture and Yiddish expression associated with the festive holy days of Chanukah. Highly recommended. --Martin Keller
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The Rough Guide to Klezmer
(more) »rank: 115716by: Various Artists
:Album Description:Klezmer, the exuberant Jewish music traditionally played at weddings and other celebrations, is charted on this Rough Guide from its eastern European roots to its North American resurgence. At times soulful, at times frenetic, this selection conveys the dignity and beauty of klezmer music, and combines for the first time archival tracks alongside contemporary versions of the same tunes. Artists include: The Klezmatics, Klez Conservatory Band, Naftule Brandwein, Budowitz, Kroke, Brave Old World, Harry Kandel's Orchestra and Alicia Svigals :The Rough Guide couldn't have gotten this klezmer anthology off to a better start if it offered free clarinet lessons with every disc. ...
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Rhythm & Jews
(more) »rank: 46041by: The Klezmatics
:Album Description:The Klezmatics play soul-stirring Jewish roots music for our time, recreating klezmer in arrangements and compositions that combine Jewish identity and mysticism with a contemporary zeitgeist and a postmodern aesthetic. Rhythm + Jews, originally released in 1991, reached the top ten of the Billboard magazine World Music chart, the European World Music, and the College Music Journal charts, and was awarded the prestigious Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik.
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The Barry Sisters Sing
(more) »rank: 68637by: The Barry Sisters
:Album Description:The Klezmatics play soul-stirring Jewish roots music for our time, recreating klezmer in arrangements and compositions that combine Jewish identity and mysticism with a contemporary zeitgeist and a postmodern aesthetic. Rhythm + Jews, originally released in 1991, reached the top ten of the Billboard magazine World Music chart, the European World Music, and the College Music Journal charts, and was awarded the prestigious Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik.
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Shalom: Music of the Jewish People
(more) »rank: 60006by: Various Artists
:Album Description:The Klezmatics play soul-stirring Jewish roots music for our time, recreating klezmer in arrangements and compositions that combine Jewish identity and mysticism with a contemporary zeitgeist and a postmodern aesthetic. Rhythm + Jews, originally released in 1991, reached the top ten of the Billboard magazine World Music chart, the European World Music, and the College Music Journal charts, and was awarded the prestigious Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik.
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Pincus and the Pig: A Klezmer Tale
(more) »rank: 65057from: Tzadik
: :John Zorn's Tzadik label is known for putting out, among other things, a variety of radical Jewish music projects, but there is nothing radical about Pincus And The Pig. Here the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra teams up with noted illustrator and children's book author Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are) for a decidedly Yiddish retelling of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter And The Wolf. The band (which also did Klezmer Nutcracker) plays a fun style of traditional klezmer with original instrumentation, but it's Sendak who really ups the ante by rewriting the story and narrating it with the hammed-up flair of a favorite Jewish uncle ...
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Well
(more) »rank: 12195by: Klezmatics, Chava Alberstein
: :Loneliness, loss, displacement, and death loom large among the topics covered in the 15 Yiddish poems set to melodies by popular Israeli folksinger Chava Alberstein, and arranged by New York's exploratory Klezmatics, on this deeply sad and beautiful album. Anyone familiar with the Klezmatics' more rambunctious side will be impressed by the inventive delicacy and subtlety they bring to these elegant vestiges of fading Yiddish culture, virtually reanimating it with tangos, Hasidic melodies, polkas, and festive freylekhs that recall its vibrant past. Alberstein's low voice meshes beautifully with Lorin Sklamberg's high tenor, adding extra emotional resonance to a series of poems in the ...
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A Folksinger's Choice
(more) »rank: 60755by: Theodore Bikel
:Album Description:This 1964 Elektra release boasted 16 songs, and they were indeed choice, not to mention eclectic in typical Bikel fashion!
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Azazel: Book of Angels, Vol. 2
(more) »rank: 99292from: Tzadik
:Album Description:This 1964 Elektra release boasted 16 songs, and they were indeed choice, not to mention eclectic in typical Bikel fashion!
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Tchorba
(more) »rank: 89212by: Les Yeux Noirs
: : Founded by the violin-playing Slabiak brothers, Erik and Oliver, Les Yeux Noirs has explored the common ground between Jewish and Gypsy music for more than a decade. Here on the septet's fifth album, tChorba, which is a French perjoritive for 'soup,' the band continues to refine its Jewish/Gypsy stock while adding in plenty of herbs and spices to make it the band's richest-sounding effort yet. The title cut opens with a funk groove riff before ompapa-ing to rock and back. The band gets its flamenco on for 'O'Djila,' sounding like they could give the Gipsy Kings a run for their money. Most ...
