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"Di Naye Kapelye is the band formed by American-of-Hungarian-ancestry Bob Cohen who headed off to visit the land whence came his parents many years ago, and never left.
The band consists of Bob, fellow American Yankl Falk to represent the Left Coast, and the best local musicians he can find. Given that Bob has been traveling through the wilds of Eastern Europe for decades, jamming and collecting songs, this makes for quite a wild, skilled ensemble. The repertoire, of course, is of the region—songs from all over Eastern Europe from folk tunes to Hasidic nigunim to Communist-era propaganda (hence the title and wonderful Soviet-style graphic on the front cover). This may be the only klezmer album ever recorded that includes Hasidic nign and 1950s Romanian communist ode to the Yiddish tractor—the title track.
Even as I try to put this music into some type of box to describe it, the boxes keep breaking. Listen to Michael Alpert wailing on "A briv fun Yisroel", another 1950s-era Yiddish communist ode, and then a few minutes later the kaval-like vioră cu goarnă. You got your wild hutsul music. You got your token 1915 Americanish klezmer tune (later a hit from Naftule Brandwein). You got cantor Yankl Falk's wonderful voice perfect on an Arkady Gendler tune, "Pirim." You have the gang—even 13-year-old Aron Cohen takes a solo— on "Az nisht keyn emine (one of the aforementioned hasidic nigunim). You have some of the most divine string ensemble playing, featuring an orchestra of instruments from tsimbl to viola, that you'll hear anywhere. Heck, one village band wasn't enough. They pull in whole village band of Tjaciv to supplement the regulars.
The repertoire leave no part of Eastern Europe unscathed. There is even yet another recording of "Mashke," one of the band's signature tunes, even better than the previous recordings—Meyshke and Yankl are in top form here. Then they return the favor and close the album with Alpert's "Chernobyl," one of my favorite contrafactas (a melody applied to new words; this one many of us know better by the chorus, "hu tsa tsa"), an absolutely brilliant bit of writing by Alpert first recorded on the first Brave Old World album (an album that I still travel with). In Yiddish, the lyrics equate the Chernobyl hasidim, and their radiance-based mysticism, with the radiance of the local nuclear power plant disaster of not so long ago.
I fear I slight the instrumentals, but only because I don't know where to begin. It's the band and their friends and amazing people they meet along the way. Especially notable is the "Hutsul Medley," which was, unfortunately, the last recording session for tsimbl player Misu Csernavec, who passed away only a few months later. And, as I mentioned caval earlier, there is a wonderful dance tune titled simply, "Modavian Caval," part of a medley attached to a doina-ish folk tune, "Pastekhl." The piece also features the cimpoi (Moldavian bagpipe).
Bob, Yankl, and the band create magic. There are other great bands playing music from this region, but Cohen has a sense of breadth and balance that make Di Naye Kapelye concerts and recordings always exciting, always breathtaking. This isn't just this week's amazing batch of hutsul music; it's this week's amazing batch of hutsul music in context … a wonderous melange of music that best represents the mixed up world in which we live and makes it better. If I call this a "must have" CD I am being redundant, but I'll do it anyway."
01. Nit Bay Motyen
02. Traktorist
03. Pastekhl Moldavian Caval
04. Schwartz's Sirba A Briv Fun Yisroel
05. Baj Van Medley
06. Az Nisht Keyn Emine
07. Hamanul From Dragomiresti
08. Uncle Arpi's Nokh A Bisl
09. Hoaderes
10. Sadegurer Hosid
11. Hutsul Medley
12. Mashke
13. Pirim
14. Moldvai Zhok
15. “7.40”
16. Chernobyl
Bob Cohen: violin, vocals, koboz, mandolin, Carpathian drum, vioră cu goarnă (Stroh fiddle), cimpoi (Moldavian bagpipe)
Yankl Falk: vocals, clarinet
Antal (Puma) Fekete: kontra, Carpathian drum
Gyula (Kosztya) Kozma: bass
Ferenc Pribojszki: cimbalom, caval, Carpathian drum
with special guests:
Michael (Meyshke) Alpert: vocals, violin, percussion (3, 4, 6, 12)
Aron Cohen: vocals (6)
Josh Dolgin: accordion, piano (4, 10)
Tom Popper & Imre "Kutyuli" Keszthelyi: chorus vocals (12)
The village band from Técső (Tjaciv), Carpatho-Ukraine:
Joska Csernavec: bayan accordion
Misu Csernavec: tsymbaly
Jura Csernavec: drum, plonka, voice
Ivan Popovics: violin
(5, 11, 15, 16)
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
"This recording developed over a period of several years, during which Di Naye Kapelye have continued scrambling around East Europe looking for conrtexts and traces of Jewish music, a good half century after the Holocaust nearly destroyed Europe's Jewish population and culture.
There are still Jewish communities in East Europe and in the memories of this aging population lives a sense of Jewish culture - Yiddishkeit - that developed strong local expressions of faith and music. Furthermore, the memory of Jewish culture is often maintained by non-Jews, those who choose to cherish the legacy of neighbors lost but not forgotten.
Whether live or on recording, Di Naye Kapelye blow me away. This is roots klezmer in the best way, played in the style that would have had folks dancing madly all night a hundred years ago, just as it compels us to do the same, today.... It is hard to imagine anyone else playing such a diversity of music, not only authentically, but with such heart and skill.... This is a band that makes klezmer sexier than blues or jazz."
01. Drey dreydele
02.Meron tune
03. Oyvey rebbenyu
04. 999/Yom ha-shabbes
05. Spoken introduction
06. Platch evrei
07. Goldenshteyns bulgar
08. Jidancutsa and zsidó tánc
09. A mezeldiker yid
10. S´iz shoyn farfaln
11. Wedding processional
12. Goldblatt´s freylakhs
13. Yearning time
14. Borey olam
15. Borey olam be kinyan
16. Jewish hora
17. The Bosnian nign
18. The Bosnian nign
19. L´chaim jo testverek
20. Bride´s dance from Leud
Bob Cohen: violin, mandolin, vocals
Christina Crowder: accordion, vocals
Jack "Yankl" Falk: clarinet, vocals
Gyula Kozma: bass, cello
Ferenc Pribojszki: cimbalom, drums
With
Mihály Sipos: violin
Péter Éri: 3-string kontra, drum
Link
Yiddish culture in east Europe today is but a dim shadow of its history and legacy, but it is not dead. Jewish communities exist - in diminished numbers - and Jewish life continues, not the least in the memories of an older generation who remember a world which spoke Yiddish. Di Naye Kapelye means The New Band in Yiddish. Di Naye Kapelye play old time Yiddish music from not so long ago. The klezmer music which defines modern Ashkenazic Jewish existence is the klezmer of America - especially New York. Old gramophone recordings document changes in instrumentation and repertoire as immigrant Jewish musicians adapted to new lives in the new world. In east Europe, however, folk traditions are strong, and Jewish music thrived as long as Jews had weddings. Di Naye Kapelye's music takes its character from east European kapelyes (yiddish for a small band) like the Bughici family band in Iasi, Romania, the Markus family band in Hungary, the Lantos Orchestra in Maramures, Romania, and other Jewish village bands who played in distinctively non-commercial, local styles. In many cases the Jewish musicians played alongside local Roma (Gypsies), and today in Hungary and Romania Gypsies are the main source for living practitioners of Jewish music. Some, like the Transylvanian fiddlers Samu Cilika Boross and Ferenc Arus, played for Jewish weddings when no Jewish band was available. Some, like Andras Horvath of Tiszakorod, Hungary, and Gheorghe and Vassile Covaci in Maramures, Romania, worked in Jewish bands before the war and learned the musical nuance of the local Hasidic courts (hoyfn). Hungary, is Di Naye Kapelye's home, and they come together through a surprising set of circumstances, many of them soaked in palinka - Hungarian plum brandy.
01. Dem Rebns Tants (trad., from Art Shryer's Orch., 1929)
02. Ani Maamin/Wedding March from Transylvania (trad.)
03. Hangu and Freylachs from Podoly (trad., Bughici family, Moldavia)
04. Kotsk/Dem Trisker Rebns Nigun (trad., Dave Tarras
05. Shloimke's Russian Dance (Shloimke Beckerman)
06. Naftule's doina (Naftule Brandwein)
07. Moldav-O-Rama (trad.)
08. Bet Zikh ibert un Geyt a Tentsl (Tarras, in Greek style)
09. Ono B'Choach - Slow Hora/The Odessa Bulgar (trad., Mishka Tsiganoff)
10. Jewish Tunes from Szatmár (trad.)
11. Yismekhu/in Ades/Áron's Chosid Tants (Belf Orchestra/trad./J.Frankel)
12. Bobover wedding march (trad.)
Bob Cohen: vocals, violin, mandolin
Christina Crowder: accordion, drum
Géza Pénzes: bass, cello, koboz, drum, background vocals
Janos Barta: clarinet, background vocals
Jack "Yankl" Falk: metal and wood clarinets, vocals
Guest:
Róbert Kerényi: Moldavian caval and flutes, drum
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
