★★★★★
Klezmer music has come a long way in the past quarter century and a group of downtown New York musicians have played a big part in boosting its visibility. Klezmer has been called "Jewish jazz": It often involves a fast, complex melody line over a steady, aggressive tempo with some improvisation on the theme. The Klezmatics have strong connections to traditional Jewish music and a knack for musical experimentation...
- jazztimes.com
2011-12-19
★★★★★
The Klezmatics have long been the most open-ended of the many bands reviving the clarinet-based Yiddish party music called klezmer, reaching out to an Israeli pop diva, a gospel singer, Muslim mystics from the Tunisian outback. But here, interpreting a handful of the 3,000 lyrics folk godfather Woody Guthrie left behind when he died in 1967, their catholicity increases their accessibility...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
Lorin Sklamberg and his wondrous band found only eight Hanukkah lyrics by the Scotch-Irish Okie, who got interested in the subject while raising a family with his Jewish wife, and most of them were in Guthrie's silliest kiddie style: "Honeyky Hanuka" is a typical title, "Dinga lingle lingle, I ring your bell" a resonant line. And from this they create as upful a holiday album as I can recall...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2010-06-11
★★★★★
What a treat to have Lorin Sklamberg singing in English, with the gentleness and precision non-Yiddish speakers sense in him elaborated and specified by the dozen Guthrie lyrics Sklamberg and his cohort turn into music. He's cheery for the neighborhood pep rally, transported for the mystic prophecy, tenderly humorous for the lullaby, delicately feminine for the tale of two rings, a wedding singer when the music gets Balkan (or is that Middle Eastern...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Like the Lord God Jahweh, gospel-klezmer collaboration can be awesome or awful ("Elijah Rock," "Didn't It Rain").
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
If I was a maven, maybe the hodgepodge of influences would grate, but more likely they'd just delight more. Conceptually, the pleasure here is how subtly a free and easy universalism animates a style that's often provincial on purpose and sometimes culture-bound in spite of itself. And musically, it's how unassumingly these folks show off their endless chops...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Modern klezmer obviously celebrates Jewish roots and identity--often mixed in with Jewish eclecticism, usually with Jewish secularism, occasionally with Jewish avant-gardism, and always with Jewish celebration itself. The Klezmatics assume all that and then intensify the Jewishness as they transcend and/or escape it...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Their first true album in six years would have arrived in 2002 if the release date had survived whatever squabbles delayed it. But with only violinist Alicia Svigals gone her own way, blame the mood shift on history rather than personality--lots of slow ones to go with lots of grief...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
While the Klezmatics' cheeky name smacks of irreverence, the players have shown themselves to be both serious musicians and respectful of Jewish culture, even if they have been unafraid to tweak some traditions. In a sense, the group's name does them a disservice since the band's repertoire has always leaned more toward plaintive than partying...
- www.globalrhythm.com
2009-06-12