CREATIVES: Frank London of the Klezmatics [AUDIO and TRANSCRIPT]

TRANSCRIPT

Felix Teitelbaum:
Joining me today on the creatives on WRFI is Frank London. He's a trumpeter, and composer and co founder of the Klezmatics. The Klezmatics will be performing at Cornell in Bailey Hall on Saturday, April 13. At 7:30. Frank, welcome to the program.

Frank London:
Thanks. Thanks for letting me be on it, Felix. Looking forward to talking and looking forward to the show up, you know, up there Ithaca.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Absolutely, as are we all, so I'm going to start out with one very, extremely basic question. For the uninitiated. What is klezmer music?

Frank London:
Okay, so if you go if we're going there, I'll start with, you know, it's like if someone said, What is jazz or almost anything? I'll give really the textbook answer, but the textbook answer is just, you know, technically correct. And then we'll talk about sort of the practical answer. Great. Klezmer music is the instrumental music of the Ashkenazic East European, Yiddish speaking Jews. There you go. That's your definition.

What does this mean? What does this mean, in practical sense, and what does this mean, in terms of the Klezmatics and what we do and what other people do and everything like that? Simply this. So Jews living around the world in the diaspora, 19th century, 18th century, 19th century, the Jews in mostly East Europe are called Ashkenazic Jews. And they speak a language called Yiddish, which, if people don't know, is sort of a syncretic language between the Hebrew of the of the prayer books and the Torah, and the sacred texts, and the Germanic and Slavic local languages, every sort of diasporic people tend to develop these kinds of syncretic languages, whether it's Haitian Creole, or you know, different patois.

So that's, that's what Yiddish is, but Yiddish for me and for many of us, goes beyond the language itself. It kind of denotes the culture of these people. As a culture, it's decidedly Jewish. But it also strongly reflects the place where Jews live for 1000 years and from Germanic world and East. And it's really it spreads out into language, song, cuisine, dress, it's a whole world literature theater, everything. And, and then, like, when I gave you the definition of klezmer as an instrumental music, there are other musics of the East European Yiddish speaking Jews, their songs there's religious music, there's folk song, there's this there's that. The point is all those musics are related, and almost every band that calls themselves a klezmer band, now... Now we're getting into sort of the on the ground definition, the realpolitik.

Almost every band that calls themselves a klezmer band, including the Klezmatics also does Yiddish vocal music, which technically, technically isn't klezmer, but it's the same music of the same people. It's just the vocal traditions. So and then, some people in the same way that jazz overgeneralize is a term, klezmer tends to be overgeneralize for kind of anything that sort of sounds like it denotes or evokes this this world of East European Jews, many of whom, even though many of them were urban, and very intellectual and very, you know, modern in their worlds. Many of them lived in these small towns called settles, which is like, if you know the languages, the "L" is a diminutive so it means a little stock a little city shtetl. And and so, kind of anything that that that kind of gives the whiff of chicken soup with with garlic, you know, can be called klezmer even though that's not the definition.

Felix Teitelbaum:
This is creatives on WRFI. If you're just joining us today we're speaking with Frank London trumpeter, composer and co founder of the Klezmatics. They'll be performing Saturday, April 13. At 7:30 at Cornell's Bailey Hall. The Klezmatics have been called revivalists. What does that mean to be revivalist in a form that, in fact has picked up many traditions and many influences? Is that a departure? Or is it an ongoing process of adding and picking up influences?

Frank London:
Oh, man, Felix, you're on it. You've done your homework. And you're asking good, cool questions.

Let me let me just break your question into two parts. I mean, we could break it into 10 parts, just first of all, this whole idea of other elements, so to speak. And what you said is absolutely correct. But I really need to make this sort of political point here. You know, because when people talk about Jewish Yiddish music, and they talk about how it picked up Slavic elements and Russian elements, and then Greek and Turkic, and this is all true, absolutely. 100%.

But we're faced with a world where Jews are maligned. We've been maligned, anti semitism is not a new thing. And it's, you know, I know a pervasive myths and one of the pervasive myths is that Jews are so called "rootless cosmopolitans" that we actually have no culture of our own, that everything we do, is somehow taken from other people. Interesting. This is a horrible, horrible myth. This is a horrible aspersion to say that a group of people a group has no culture of their own. You know, it's like, oh, we're just animals and thieves? This is horrible.

So here's the truth. Yes, Jewish music, Yiddish music, klezmer music does have elements of all that. Guess what? Any music you can name and we could just go through it. And I've lived my life with many musics has elements of what you might call the source music from the people that developed it. And it has elements of different what we call "co-territorial musics," musics where those people live. That's the nature of music. That's the nature of the world. That's the nature of humanity, which is that we listen to each other. We appreciate each other. We borrow, we use we adapt. We change things to fit our narratives. That's what that's what life is as music is. So I'm agreeing with you. But with this big caveat to say that that process you mentioned is not in any way unique to Jewish or Yiddish or klezmer music. It's just, you know, we're just listing the specifics of the influences in this, but every music is like that.

And which is the flip side of that is that klezmer and Yiddish music are decidedly distinctly Jewish musics, and the fact that they include elements of other musics. That's what everything does. To say that jazz is not African American music is a lie. Even though of course, there are European musical elements and is Irish elements from you know, an English and also elements of course there are, that's how the music develops. But that does not in any way, take away from being an African American music. And to go a step further on the jazz thing and then we'll drop that, you know, the fact that there were non African Americans who are pivotal in the creation of the music does also doesn't change the fact that it is an African American music. Okay, so there you go. So that's the bit about the influences now the you brought up the revival and you asked if the like what the Klezmatics do if "is that revivalism?"

Felix Teitelbaum:
Right. I guess my question is, is it is this a continuation of the picking up new influences and an evolving music that's just a living breathing thing, okay. Or is this a departure from something that may have been perceived as calcified or made, you know, a canonical form.

Frank London:
Right? Man I love I love talking to you.

Yeah, you. You're absolutely right. That is the question. I think I again, I would really love to separate the sort of academic discussion from the, from the real, the real just the music and what it is discussion in a funny way. So yes, when something develops, at a certain point, it gets labeled. At a certain point, it becomes canonical, as you say, even though it is still living, breathing and growing. I mean, we, in my household, we talk about art, a lot visual art, or even dance. And it's so funny. So there was a thing, maybe 100 years ago, called "modern Art," and "modern dance." All that meant was, oh, this is the new stuff. It's modern. But then that term, became associated with the art made at that time. So now, modern art is actually art that's about 100 and whatever years old, that is, modern art has become a label for art 100 years ago, an art that's made now is not called Modern Art, even though it's modern, it's called contemporary art. And I wonder if, in 60 years, contemporary art will be the art of the early 21st century, you know what I'm saying?

So, so this question of when things become you used all these words, "ossified," "canonical," it's real. I think, from the Klezmatics point of view, now, I'm sort of shifting to us. We are very aware when we talk, like you and I talking now about exactly what it is we do. You know, yes, we sometimes talk in many different ways, whether it's overt, or very subtle. We interpolate different musics, different styles, different forms into what we do. We don't justify it by saying, well, that's how the music developed, therefore, this is all traditional.

I don't need to justify it. It's just more that we are being authentic to who we are, as 20th and 21st century, American Jews or even, a lot of the band, the Klezmatics is not Jewish, but you know, as as contemporary musicians, we interpolate things of who we are, because that's what we do. If we sat down and we took any one song or anything from the Klezmatics, I could, we could if we really cared to do so, which I probably don't, break down: "Well, this kind of idea comes from this background, this kind of idea goes back more to 19th century klezmer music," you know, we could kind of break it all down. But in a general sense, it's like we're aware of when we try to play something to sound—because also, as you probably could figure out there's not one ossified calcified, set canonical type of klezmer music even without bringing in all sorts of other influences, like jazz or anything, because you have klezmer music from Europe klezmer from the shtetl klezmer from the cities, klezmer from the Jews who brought it to Argentina, klezmer from the Jews who brought it to New York? you know, and so when people say do you play traditional klezmer music, and I want to be a little bit of sort of a provocateur, I say, well, which tradition? Do you mean 1930s New York klezmer? Do you mean 1910 European klezmer? There are many traditions. And then what's happened is that what the Klezmatics have done, has become yet another has itself become another tradition of of klezmer that people copy.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Indeed. If you're just joining us today, we're speaking with Frank London trumpeter, composer and co founder of the Klezmatics. There'll be performing Saturday, April 13, at 730 at Cornell's Bailey Hall. For more information, you can find Cornell Concert Series at cornellconcertseries.com, a sponsor of this radio station

I have a special treat for you. Joining us in this conversation is former host of "Fellow Traveler" here on WRFI, baker, friend and extraordinary Jewish music aficionado, Aron Gutman welcome, Aron.

Aron Gutman:
Well, thank you. What an introduction. Frank, it's good to hear your voice.

Frank London:
I haven't spoken you in...days! [Laughs] All right, so Aron you just jumping in in the middle, Let me just let me just throw in one little anecdote. I don't know if you know that Klezmatics are the only sort of consciously Jewish music group that's won a Grammy. We did it in World Music for our recording "Wonder Wheel," which is where we took Woody Guthrie's lyrics and wrote our own music to it. And the irony about this for me, is that that particular recording, we consciously chose not to worry about whether it's something was klezmer music or not, whether it was Yiddish, we just tried to make really good music. And there is, if you looked at it through a very didactic lens, there's almost zero klezmer or Yiddish music on Wonder Wheel. And that's the one for which the Klezmatics won the Grammy. It's the least klezmer of anything we've ever done. And who cares? It's a good record. We love the music. .

Felix Teitelbaum:
Indeed. So you know, Guthrie is has had a real lasting influence on music that takes on issues—protest music. Your website describes the Klezmatics as taking on issues such as Human Rights. What issues have been most pressing for the band? And and how does a band of multiple people come together around issues like that? Or do you?

Frank London:
[Laughs] Well, no, no, it's, again, a great question. Aron, haven't you over the years? I'm sort of going to avoid the question for one second. Aron, haven't you lived in like, sort of or worked in group houses in co-op situations? You've you've been involved with that. And you're aware of the complex process of trying to achieve commonality, right.

Aron Gutman:
Certainly, I mean, I lived on a kibbutz back way back. But so that was, you know, 100 people trying to figure out how to live together, and what directions to go. But I think anyone who has been involved in any kind of collective venture...humans are messy. And especially when when aiming to, you know, to go in one direction together.

Frank London:
And we try to focus on the fact. Whenever possible, we try to focus on the fact that everyone is trying to do something positive. And it's just that we have radically different ideas of what that might mean. But not to not to lose sight of the commonality, at least in the intention, before you dive into the weeds of how it gets expressed. It sloppy as Aron said, it's a sloppy, messy process. But you try really hard to deal with it. But when it gets...recently, I mean, we on our last tours in the last year, how do we address what's going on? Why do we even have to address what's going on in the Middle East right now? What, you know, is this, you know, is there some sort of prejudicial thing that says, "Well, you're a Jew, you have to talk about that?" Well, we problematize that question. But we also are aware that it's an expectation. It's a lot of discussion. It's a lot of hashing things out between each other and talking. And it's not easy and it's sloppy, but uh, you know, you do your best, and you try not to avoid it and you stay committed to trying to figure it out.

Felix Teitelbaum
If you're just joining us, we're speaking with Frank London trumpeter, composer and co founder of the Klezmatics. There'll be at Cornell's Bailey Hall Saturday, April 13. At 7:30. Frank, you've been involved in a huge range of musical projects over the years, including African and avant garde music pop music, how did you... can we get a personal take on on how you came to klezmer and and how that fit in with all the other music you've been involved in?

Frank London:
I grew up as a suburban kid in Long Island will only listen to the rock and pop and funk music and soul and Motown the bass is a popular music of the 1960s and 70s. That was my world. I went to Boston. Well, first Providence, but then the Boston study music school. And it was I had my big Dorothy in The "Wizard of Oz" moment where it goes from black and white Technicolor and I realized there were infinite other musics in the world, and I wanted to learn them all. That, I just like, overwhelmed. And in the most beautiful way, Afro Cuban music, salsa, music, African music, Balkan music, Roma, music, contemporary, classical, free jazz, just, you know, Italian. Just..everything.

So went from one little world to this huge universe. And I did that by basically saying "yes" to every offer that came my way, so that I could learn something new. I got invited by my teacher at the time Hankus Netsky to be part of a new Jewish music ensemble he was putting together that became the klezmer conservatory band. This is like 1979, 1980 that was my introduction, this music. I never heard it. Growing up, I didn't know anything about it. And then I got involved with the music there. Then I moved to New York, and I said, Oh, I have this good skill, and I could probably make some money. So I came together with other New York musicians to play klezmer music, and that became the Klezmatics. And quickly we decided to not do what everyone else was doing. But to do it our way. So that's that's my really brief story. But I never stopped being involved. My curiosity about other world's musics never went away. In fact, it just keeps on growing. My latest two fixations in the last year are Korean music and polkas. But that's it. That's how it happened. So that's that's it.

So Aron, I'm curious, what, what do you thinking? And you have any comments or questions or thoughts to bring in here?

Aron Gutman:
I have a couple of thoughts. The 40th anniversary is a big deal. And congratulations.

Frank London:
Thank you.

Aron Gutman:
And I'd love to hear just some reflections about how things have changed for the band in terms of both your the process of how you relate to the music as a band, but also the the environment that you're in, that we're all in. But especially in terms of the development of, of kind of the Yiddish, Yiddish culture. And and just, it's kind of exploded and in its in its small world.

Frank London:
Okay, great. When we first started, Yiddish music was still...contemporary Yiddish music, which starts in the mid 70s, was still in its infancy. In the mid 70s, there starts to be a movement of interest in it, and people bring it back. And then we get together in 1986. So less, you know, less than 10 years...it was still early on. And then we sort of became one of the principal voices of it. And now there is so much going on! I gotta say back then, it was really easy to be the superstars of klezmer music, because there just wasn't that much happening. Now, there is so much happening at such a high level. There are so many interesting artists, there's so many different ways of performing it. It's it's thrilling. It's a thrilling scene. It's a thrilling moment. And, and where do we other than our, you know, historical laurels? Where do we fit in this? How do we become part of this much bigger pool of people doing all sorts of interesting things. I think that challenge keeps us on our toes and keeps us you know, working hard to still be not only I wouldn't say irrelevant, but actually you know, progressive and really moving things forward. Because there's so much going on.

The earliest "klez-camps," which is where Aron and I met each other a long time ago. There were a bunch of queer Yiddish-ists and there's many theories about this. Some people like to say, and I like this I don't know if it's true. That Yiddish is An alternative to sort of the Hebrew-centered, Israel-centered Jewish identity and and linguistic and cultural and political And Yiddish. language and culture is a queer identity within the Jewish world. So it attracted people whose entire identities were of that sort. So that's just one theory why there's always been sort of this very strong alternative queer substring in Yiddish music.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Hmm. Fascinating. So, you know, nearly 40 years in what's on the horizon for the Klezmatics?

Frank London:
I think what we're trying to do is figure out how, in the next couple of years, because I guess it's, we're still a year or year and a half out from our 40th anniversary, while we do something, which both really celebrates our legacy, but also shows that we're still moving forward and that we, we haven't we're not just stuck. There's a term that oh, this became a big joke in the band about a year or two ago. Hell help me out, you guys. What's it called? "Legacy bands" or something like that? You know, AC/DC, and Jay and the Americans and, you know, all these bands?

Felix Teitelbaum:
"Classic klezmer"?

Frank London:
Yeah...But they call them something. And there was a whole, like, big article I remember reading was like an argument with alll these kinds of bands I wish, I could remember the term...Are they allowed to do new music? Or should they just do their greatest hits? Which is all the fans want to hear? You know, Can...can a legacy band still be relevant? Or should they stop kidding themselves, and just play their old hits? And, and, you know, go slowly towards the grave? And it's, and sometimes when we want to, like, be sort of comically self deprecating, we, we joke about this, but the truth is, you know, we're working on both figuring out how to celebrate our legacy. And you know, what our next recording project is going to be? And how does that reflect what's going on? With both us now and with the world these days?

Felix Teitelbaum:
Far out. I mean, with apologies to James Murphy, and maybe it's "played the hits and don't shut up."

Frank London:
[Laughs]

Felix Teitelbaum:
Frank, I really appreciate you joining us on "Creatives on WRFI." Any final thoughts?

Frank London:
We're looking forward to the concert. We hope folks come out. You know, it's gonna be a party, I hope and it'll just be great to be there. I mean, you know, what we didn't mention is that Ithaca has a strong klezmer scene that Aron has also been a part of, and, and, you know, it's part of the extended community. And that's been a fun development over the last 25 years or so. There's all these different local bands and communities, and it really connects so we're looking forward to coming up there, seeing old friends, new fans, new friends, and having a great concert. Having a great time.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Indeed, we're looking forward to it as well.

Aron Gutman:
I just wanted to let folks know that on Sunday, the Sunday after the klezmer, the Klezmatics concert at Bailey Hall. There will be a klezmer dance party on Sunday, April 14, from 6 to 9pm. And that's in the One World room up at Annabelle Taylor Hall on the Cornell campus. It's free and local musicians will be playing and the world renowned dance leader klezmer dance and Yiddish dance leader Steve Weintraub will be on hand to teach and to lead.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Fun. So you don't have to let the party stop after Saturday night at the Klezmatics. Thanks for the info. Aron. Thanks for coming in.

Aron Gutman:
So glad to be here.

Frank London:
I have one last comment, please. Since we've talked for a good little time about the Klezmatics just one shameless self-promotional plug. I released a new album at the end of the year called "Chronika." This is my own band, not not the Klezmatics

Felix Teitelbaum:
[Laughs]

Frank London:
And it's sort of a stoner Hanukkah record. And it's on you can you can find it on Borscht Beat Records." And to make it really fun, we made two videos. So if you go on YouTube, and look for Frank London or "Chronika" you'll find two really different and really crazy videos from From "Chronika." Stoner Hanukkah.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Excellent. We'll have to consider adding that to the rotation and the next holiday season.

Frank London:
Oh, yeah, I hope so. Okay. thanks guys.

Felix Teitelbaum:
Thank you, Frank. We've been talking with Frank London trumpeter, composer and co founder of the Klezmatics. There'll be performing at Cornell's Bailey Hall on Saturday, April 13 at 7:30pm you can learn more at cornellconcertseries.com and at Klezmatics.com. That's K-L-E-Z-M-A-T-I-C-S.com.

For Creatives on WRFI. I'm Felix Teitelbaum. In today's interview with Klezmatics trumpeter Frank London, you heard portions of three tracks from the Klezmatics, "Vi Lang" and "Zol Shoyn Kumen di Geule" from their 2016 release "Apikorsim," and "Elijah Rock" from their 2005 "Brother Moses Smote the Water" with Joshua Nelson and Catherine Farmer. You can find a link to this entire interview on our website, wrfi.org.

More at www.klezmatics.com and www.cornellconcertseries.com