Description
Air Mail Music: Odessa — Klezmer Music / Musique Klezmer (Audio CD)
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Product Details:
- Product Type: Audio CD
- Brand / Label: Air Mail Music (Sunset-France)
- Artist: Odessa (Odessa Klezmer Orkesta)
- Catalogue Number: SA 141134 (SA 510)
- UPC / Barcode: 3700089411342
- Release Year: 2006 (recorded 2002)
- Genre: World, Folk
- Style: Klezmer, Eastern European Jewish music
Product Features
- Format: CD
- Discs: 1
- Total runtime: 54:10
- Tracks: 14
- Sound: DDD
- Performers: Pierre Levi (accordion), Ronald Grün (clarinet), José Navas (banjo), Jean-Michel Clerc (tuba)
- Made in France
Overview
Klezmer is the traditional music of Eastern European Jewish life — the sound of weddings, celebrations and feast days, carried village to village by the klezmorim, the wandering and usually poor professional musicians who played them. Legend traces its roots to Odessa, in Ukraine, and that's where this French quartet takes its name.
The group Odessa plays that tradition with an open door. The core is Eastern European Jewish repertoire, but it draws in everything that brushed against klezmer along its travels — Greek, Ottoman, Gypsy and Macedonian colours all find their way in. The result is music that's by turns mournful and giddy, often in the same tune.
The instrumentation is lovely and unusual: accordion, clarinet, banjo and tuba, a lineup that gives the band both a dancing lilt and a deep, rolling bottom end. Across fourteen tracks they move through traditional pieces and a few signed klezmer classics, including tunes by David Tarras and Shlomo Beckerman.
About 54 minutes of music, recorded in Paris and released on the Air Mail Music world series.
Interesting Facts
- Klezmer is traditional Eastern European Jewish celebration music; the klezmorim were travelling professional musicians who played weddings, bar mitzvahs and social gatherings.
- Popular legend places the origins of the klezmer tradition in the port city of Odessa, in present-day Ukraine — the source of this group's name.
- Beyond the Jewish core, the band's repertoire absorbs Greek, Ottoman, Gypsy and Macedonian influences, reflecting the many cultures klezmer met on its travels.
- The unusual quartet lineup pairs accordion and clarinet with banjo and tuba, giving the music both melodic lift and a strong rhythmic foundation.
- Two tracks carry named composers from the klezmer canon — David Tarras ("L'Abeille") and Shlomo Beckerman ("Ot Azoï, Git Azoï") — alongside the traditional arrangements.
- The album was recorded and mixed at Studio Sysmo in Paris and issued on Sunset-France's Air Mail Music label, a series devoted to world and traditional music.
Track Listing
- Fun Tashklikh — 2:02
- Baym Rebin's Sude — 3:12
- Der Gasn Nigun – Horse Radish — 6:43
- Frey Acht — 3:39
- Glezele Vayn — 3:08
- Mediatsyner Valse — 4:25
- L'Abeille (David Tarras) — 3:36
- Meyn Shtetel Yaz — 3:11
- Firn di Mekhutonim Ayem — 4:59
- Ot Azoï, Git Azoï (Shlomo Beckerman) — 4:23
- Naches et Tsures — 2:38
- Kolomayer Badkhen (Henri Gerro) — 5:03
- Freilakh-Haim — 3:35
- BB-Bulgar — 3:08
Publishers
Released on Air Mail Music (Sunset-France) in 2006, catalogue SA 141134 / SA 510. © & ℗ 2002 Odessa Klezmer Orkesta; ℗ 2006 Sunset-France. Produced by Sunset-France, Boulogne. Made in France.
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