Music
For video’s please check the VIDEO SECTION of this page:
http://www.3smusic.eu/wordpress/videos-amsterdam-klezmer-band/
Over the past few years they have performed at many prestigious venues around the world in 28 countries, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and important festivals such as North Sea Jazz, Ashkenaz, Sziget and Lowlands.
Songlines (UK) about Zaraza (2009) - ”this is another solid, impressive release from one of the best in the business.”
KYTEMAN:
“Now here’s a group I won’t easily forget. Their extraordinary skills combined with their sense of composition stands for a sound unmatched by any other group I know. I’ll vouch for them any day, AKB for life! “Colin Benders/Kyteman (actually the most promising new talent from the Netherlands)
The story started in 1996. A few Amsterdam boys with a Jewish background got inspired by the catchy sounds of Klezmer and Balkan music and started busking. Since that time the band has evolved into a seven-strong line-up, representing one of the finest among the Klezmer and Balkan music scene in Europe. It is 2011 and the AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND is blessed with an enthusiastic following in the Netherlands, the whole of Europe and even in Brazil! Their refreshing approach to Klezmer and Balkan music transcends the traditional aspects of this music and results in a very lively mix of Eastern-European sound. Their strength lies in their ability to appeal to a remarkably broad audience across all age groups; they play clubs or theatres, festivals, parties, weddings or formal functions. AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND can both fire up a crowd and create pure listening pleasure with the vibrancy of their playing.
Popular AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND tunes are being covered and AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND remixes are found in many clubs from Berlin to Sydney. Over the past few years the band has performed all around the world. Their years on the road have shaped this band into a strong and highly prolific collective.
Two statements sum up their undogmatic approach to the Klezmer genre:
”This group has very little to offer to ‘Klezmer-purists’ since Klezmer was never meant to be polished and perfected for concert halls. With their exuberant approach they take the music out of the conservatory corridors into the street.” (from renowned Dutch daily paper NRC)
“Amsterdam Klezmer Band are my favourite group. They know what it’s like to play in bars. They sound like a Klezmer version of The Pogues. They are giving Klezmer music street credibility”. (Joann Sfar, French comic star, who recently invited them to perform the soundtrack for his animated movie “The Cat of the Rabbi”).
Now the unmistakeable AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND sound is optimally encapsulated once again in 14 brand new tracks which are all original compositions written by the band members themselves. “Katla” is their 9th album. Sirba, Turbo Polka and booty shaking Cocek, Oompah and motley rhythms, all with the characteristic and inimitable AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND virtuosity, are to be found on this album. Of course no AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND album without front men Alec Kopyt (aka the nightingale of Odessa) and Job Chajes, singing and rapping their way through this new treasure trove of highly infectious and original Amsterdam Klezmer style repertoire.
“KATLA” is the name of the biggest volcano in Iceland. This title possibly implies this new album’s explosive character. We all know that volcanoes are usually not to be messed with. But no worries: listening to AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND’s “Katla” will just cause uncontrollable eruptions of joy!
STAN RIJVEN, a JOURNALIST WORKING FOR DUTCH TV, RADIO & PRESS on AKB
Mix a helping of Klezmer with a portion of Ska, add a liberal dash of Balkan and a pinch of Gypsy. Garnish with a tablespoon of Jazz and a pinch of Punk. Throw it all in the blender and the recipe for the Amsterdam Klezmer Band is complete. Serve immediately!
Their vette (throbbing) Klezmer/Balkan style never fails to leave the audience well and truly ‘klezmerised’. As the wind instruments, double-bass, accordion and percussion join battle with pulsating grooves full of raw refinement, you know you are in for a long and sweaty evening; be it in a small club in Canada or Turkey or at large festivals such as Sziget in Hungary or Lowlands in the Netherlands. According to saxophonist and band leader Job Chajes, it’s all about the “age-old cross-fertilisation of Hassidic, Balkan and Turkish influences, but in a modern context”.
The band members have been plucked both from the street and the conservatory, and have paid their dues within a range of other styles such as Jazz, Funk and Latin. “That’s why the wind section can switch so effortlessly between Jamaican Ska and Serbian Bleh music” according to Chajes.
Their secret lies in the surprisingly natural mix of deep-seated tradition and contemporary avant-garde. Trumpet player Gijs Levelt: “Some purists think that we’re not nearly traditional enough, and yet the early Klezmorim themselves incorporated the hits of the day into their own repertoire”.
It is precisely this ‘omnivore’ approach which allows the band to embody the true spirit of Klezmer. Klezmer is nothing more or less than 19th Century Eastern European dance music for weddings and parties, as played by travelling Jewish musicians who incorporated the musical traditions that they came across into their music.
The Amsterdam Klezmer Band has been based in Mokum (Yiddish for Amsterdam), itself once the ‘Jerusalem of the North’, since 1996 and is now celebrating the Klezmer tradition on a Global scale. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the brushing aside of the Iron Curtain, Amsterdam has once again become a magnet to musicians from Eastern Europe. Singer Alec Kopyt, who came to Amsterdam from Odessa, is a good example: “If someone had told me 28 years ago back in the Ukraine that I, a 19 year old rock freak, would end up performing the traditional music of my fatherland and would actually learn to love it, I’d have laughed in their face”. This was his comment in 2006 on the release of the album ‘Remixed!’. Kopyt is still the front man for the new album, acting as a bridge between the two harbour cities of Odessa and Amsterdam. Now and again Chajes takes over the microphone to sing lines such as: “I was born in a town that was built on stilts and where you can eat gefilte fish”.
This much is clear: They may be based in Amsterdam, but together they form an international outfit that stands for much more than Klezmer alone. The new CD is a boisterous testimonial to this. In fact, they might as well have been called the Amsterdam Klezmore Gang: Thanks to them, the whole mishpocha now laughs when it used to cry.
LINE UP:
Jasper de Beer: double bass, guitar banjo, backing vocals
Job Chajes: alto saxophone, vocals
Alec Kopyt: vocals, percussion
Gijs Levelt: trumpet, backing vocals
Joop van der Linden: trombone, percussion
Janfie van Strien: clarinet, backing vocals
Theo van Tol: accordion, davul
Artist homepage: www.amsterdamklezmerband.com
