Jewish klezmer
The Hot Kugel Klezmer Band performs klezmer music, a traditional form of Eastern European Jewish dance music with roots that pre-date the Middle Ages. Incorporating fragments of cantorial melody, snippets of ancient folk tunes, bits of Yiddish poetry, Hebraic ritual, and Greek and Ottoman influences, klezmer was established as the vernacular social/celebratory music of Eastern Europe's Jewish community from about 1880. The music came to the United States with the wave of Jewish immigration at the turn of the century. Since then it has been mixed with American jazz and popular music, and continues to evolve. Modern groups like Hot Kugel Klezmer are constantly innovating: composing new instrumentals with traditional inflections, writing Yiddish songs with contemporary themes, and applying modern jazz sensibilities to ancient Jewish melodies.
Based in Washington, D.C., Hot Kugel regularly performs for Jewish community events and has been featured at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress. Vocalist and group leader Jinny Marsh is an accomplished cantorial soloist with a background in theater and the New York cabaret scene. Violinist Vladimir Gamarnik, originally from Azerbaijan, holds advanced degrees in violin performance and worked with the Moscow Radio/TV Pops Orchestra. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1990. Bassist Sy Zucker performs at the National Theater, Kennedy Center, Fords Theater, Arena Stage and Carter Barron Amphitheater. The group's venerable trombonist Seymour Greene recorded with Jack Teagarden and the Andrews Sisters, and during World War II, traveled around the world with Irving Berlin's This is the Army show. He has played at every Presidential Inaugural since 1953. Clarinetist Seth Kibel is on the faculty at the Duke Ellington School for the Arts in Washington, DC. Pianist Andrew Zatman composes contemporary and classical music, some of which has been performed at the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall. Keyboardist Sharon Steinberg, a classical musician, also sings opera and oratorio and has sung leading operatic roles on three continents. Drummer Brian Choper is a versatile musician who plays ragtime, musical theater, Latin, blues, swing, jazz, rock and Balkan music in addition to klezmer.
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Music Sampler: "A Heymisher Bulgar"