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Le (Jewish) jazz hot!

By Reva Blau

From left to right: Bart Weisman (drums), Clayton March (clarinet and mandolin),

Laird Boles (bass), Alan Clinger (guitar), and Monica Rizzio (violin and vocals).

Klezmer, a music born of the shtetls of Eastern and Central Europe and subsequently the Jewish diaspora, has found a new home on the Outer Cape, all thanks to the efforts of five talented local musicians.

Bart Weisman Klezmer Swing Group merges the music with personal insights into Klezmer’s history and traditions. “For me, it’s Jewish jazz,” says Weisman.

Klezmer comes from the Hebrew words “kley,” meaning vessel or instrument, and “zemer,” meaning song. It dates to at least the 16th century. During the vaudeville era, many European musicians rich in Klezmer tradition began to meld their sounds with jazz and show tunes, absorbing more and more American influences replete with brassy arrangements and virtuosic style.

The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater had produced a smattering of musical events over the years, but now under the direction of Mark Hough, the theater plans to offer concerts at the Julie Harris Stage including the Klezmer Swing Group.

The Bart Weisman Klezmer Swing Group has been together scarcely more than a year, yet already it has opened for the Boston Pops as part of the Pops by the Sea series, and will be performing with the Cape Cod Symphony in 2012. It will also be heading into the studio to make a debut CD next year.

Weisman, a percussionist, is well known for his contribution to the local jazz scene. He leads his own band that plays up and down the Cape (Grand Cru in Hyannis, Riverway in South Yarmouth, etc.) and hosts a jazz jam that attracts musicians from far and wide year-round at the Island Merchant in Hyannis. He produces the annual Provincetown Jazz Festival (held in Provincetown and Cotuit) and organizes a Summer and Winter Jazz Concert series at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, while performing in all of these venues.

Weisman says since his grandparents’ generation, which favored assimilation, Klezmer has found its way out of weddings & parties and onto the established concert stages. For 20 years Weisman played Klezmer in his former home of Washington, D.C., performing with The Deutsch Sisters, Estelle Abraham and the Capital Klezmers.

He moved to Cape Cod eight years with his wife Amy Heller, who had spent her summers in Provincetown as a child.

After moving to the Cape, Weisman was asked by Michael Mazur to play Klezmer at Mazur’s daughter’s wedding. While he thought of starting a professional Klezmer group, it took Weisman many years to find the current configuration of musicians – and all of the live full-time on the Cape. Alan Clinger, a veteran jazz musician, plays guitar. Laird Boles, who plays with the band Toast & Jam on the Cape, often plays country and bluegrass and is the bass player for the only jazz jam on Cape Cod. He plays the bass with a bow in the Klezmer tradition. Monica Rizzio, who leads the popular local group, Tripping Lily, plays violin for Klezmer and provides vocals for Swing. Clayton March plays clarinet and mandolin. Rizzio and March own the West Bend Music Studio in Dennis.

“We perform traditional Klezmer the way it sounded in the old country with clarinet and violin,” says Weisman. The group’s repertoire includes perennial favorites such as “Ot Azoy,” made famous by Cab Calloway, as well as several frailech melodies (“happy tunes” in Yiddish). For Swing they perform “Bei Mir Bis Du Schon,” a popular swing tune with Yiddish lyrics that was a big hit for the Andrews Sisters.

Since Klezmer had been suppressed and its performers persecuted throughout Europe, immigration to the U.S. of musicians led to an explosion of the art form in the 40’s and 50’s. Klezmer, naturally, intersected with the vibrant jazz scenes of American cities. Jewish musicians, says Weisman, ended up playing in the big bands, and influenced the American music scene. Because of the confluence swing makes for a natural partner with Klezmer.

“As long as we are performing Klezmer music, we are helping to keep Yiddish culture alive,” says Weisman.