8 May 2020 – Shabbat is almost here
I must confess that, around 20 to 16 years ago, klezmer music was my favourite music style of the world. When you grow and learn, you stop doing that kind of categorical assertions…
I discovered this piece when it was released in 2003 and I have to accept that, 17 years after, it still blows my mind.
Meshuge means crazy in Yiddish. And Meshuge Klezmer Band is a band from Verona, Italy. After many years without news, I got to find the violinist, Maria Vicentini (grazie!), in Facebook, to check if the band is still active. Yes, they are. I am linking her profile in her portrait, in case you wanted to contact them (By the way, there is a Meshouge Klezmer Band too, from Bordeaux, France, also active. They are two different bands).
Find below the link to listen their Der Alternative Bulgar. It is their outstanding rendition of the very popular Der Alter Bulgar (the bulgar of the old time), of which you can find many other approaches by artists like Itzkhak Perlman, Quartet Klezmer Trio or Hester Street Troupe.
But, what is “bulgar”?
Bulgar is a danceable klezmer music style. It’s background must be traced from the Bessarabian dance style under the name of bulgărească, documented in the first half of XIX Century. The style would develope after the contact of professional klezmorim from hereditary caste with Gypsy professional musicians. From there, it spreaded as the klezmer bulgarish to parts of Eastern Ukraine.From the last decades of XIX Century, many klezmorim emigrated to the USA and the style started to be identified as a danceable klezmer style shared between musicians from different regions. It took its definite shape in New York between 1920 and 1950, with the work of professional musicians (like Naftule Brandwein, that was our star two weeks ago) and the term bulgar finally epitomized the repertoire of dance music at the USA (but not at all in Europe), according to Walter Z. Feldman (after his work of 1994, that is really advisable, Bulgărească/Bulgarish/Bulgar: The Transformation of a Klezmer Dance Genre, and I just made a super reduced summary).
Back to Meshuge Klezmer band, they released three albums: Dreild (2003), Treyf 1929 (2005) and Musiker! (2008). They were chosen by David Krakauer for his compiltaion Music from the Winery. Der Alternative Bulgar is in their first album. Listen by clicking below. And have a great Pesach Sheni Shabbat!
Clic the picture to enjoy the music of Meshuge Klezmer Band
I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up
Shabbat Shalom.
Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música
The band is active and I have just asked them what is this piece about. So, Lidiya is the mother of the clarinetist of the band, Gal Klein (in the picture, without glasses, the other man is the co-founder, Amit Peled). He made the piece for her 50th birthday.
Before ending, I want to announce the initiative of the restless team of Sephardic Stories: Sephardic Collection, in which they are producing new contents and interviews, that you can find in their 
Over there, as he was unable to read music, it was difficult to enter in an orchestra, so he made his living playing mainly in weddings. Soon he became known for his eccentricities, like wearing extravagant clothes (sometimes he dressed like Uncle Sam with christmas lights or even with his pants down) and playing back to the audience to hide his fingers’ technique. He raised an earned reputation of gambler and a drinker and his behaviour would prevent him for keeping a regular job in any band. So, from 1920, he worked under his own name, he proclaimed himself as the King of Jewish Music and in 1926 he recorded one of my favourite pieces of the History of klezmer: Von tashlach / New Year’s Prayer at the River. Enjoy it here below.
Madam Gaspard went to market.
