Wednesday, December 2, 2009

City Winery's Klezmer Brunch w/Shtreiml

Last week my gang and I were visiting friends in Long Island and family in Connecticut. While in Long Island I was able to take a day and a visit Manhattan and meet up with musician Binyomin Ginzberg, of JewishMusician.com and the Breslov Bar Band, and Michael Croland, author of the Heeb'n'Vegan blog, ace air guitarist, and fellow fan of obscure Jewish punk bands. Two great guys I was happy to finally meet in person. Yay New York.

Binyomin had the brilliant idea of meeting up at the City Winery for their weekly Klezmer Brunch. (He keeps better kosher than I, so he drank coffee and watched me snack.) Yep, that's right. Klezmer brunch. Once again, Yay New York. It turns out that the City Winery has a klezmer band play every Sunday morning. The Winery an open airy restaraunt, with a nice menu, a reasonably sized stage with good site lines and acoustics. If you're in town, it's very much worth checking out.

Klezmer Brunch Banner











This week's band turned out to be Shtreiml. I've mentioned them a couple of times before, but this was my first chance to see them live. They play a hot klezmer, with some great Yiddish theater pieces getting center stage. They're also the only klezmer band I know with a harmonica. It was a bit surprising, but worked great. Here's their official bio...

"Founded in 2002, Montreal/Philly-based Shtreiml offers a high-octane mix of not-so-traditional Eastern-European Jewish and Turkish music. Led by harmonica innovator Jason Rosenblatt, one of the few people worldwide who can play the diatonic harmonica (a.k.a. blues harp) chromatically, Shtreiml's blues-rock infused set delivers a new look at some centuries old folk music. Joined by Rachel Lemisch (trombone), Thierry Arsenault (drums), Adam Stotland (bass) and Brooklyn-based freak Michael Winograd (clarinet) the group's set has been labeled "explosive" (Halifax Chronicle Herald) and "exhilarating" (Rootsworld)."

Here's a video of Shtreiml playing a slight larger venue, the 2003 Krackow Klezmer Festival.

Shtreiml - Sam Shpielt - Krakow Jewish Festival 2003


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