Klezmer swing group the right combination

By W. HENRY DUCKHAM II

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

March 08, 2011

Although Bart Weisman, an accomplished drummer and tireless

impresario bringing jazz to the Cape, had performed Klezmer music for

over 25 years in other parts of the country he told the audience that it

took time to find just the right players on the Cape to form the group that

played to an enthusiastic audience Sunday afternoon at the Cotuit Center

for the Arts.

He has certainly hit the ball out of the park with these players:

Clayton March, clarinet and sax; Suzanne Davis, piano; Laird Boles;

acoustic bass; Monica Rizzio, violin, vocals and ukulele and Bart on

drums. Klezmer is a musical tradition of European Jews and ranges in

spirit from dance tunes in fast forward to mournful almost dirge-like

reflections.

It's one thing to have the "chops"; it's another to have embraced

the joy, the melancholy and good humor of this infectious music.

Authenticity and hearts-on-sleeve emotion were heard throughout the

afternoon.

And true to the band's name there was both traditional Klezmer and

Swing music. The opening Klezmer number began with a free statement

by clarinetist March in the clarinet's nutty low register, replete

with dips and scoops and moving into mid-register to a fast-forward

and a vigorous, fervid conclusion. There followed an arresting

variety of numbers -- the song "David Shipl" (or Play it Again, Dave)

and "Russian Sher # 5 ("Russian Scissors- a reference to a dance

where legs are kicked like scissors).

If the clarinet is the forgotten instrument of jazz (compared to the

hey-day of the big bands and Goodman and Shaw), it is very much front

and center in this music and clarinetist March, the afternoon's predominant

voice, has all the attributes needed to play compellingly with a finely centered

sound, control in all registers and deft articulation and agility.

His front instrumental colleague Monica Rizzio, a charter member of

the group "Tripping Lily" was equally effective in her more subdued

role as violinist. But it was her vocals on such numbers from the

Swing era as "I'll Be Seeing You" and "It Don't Mean a Thing If It

Ain't Got That Swing" that reached out to the audience. Her

influences can be traced back to the 30's and 40's with a radiant but

reserved style that not so much sings at you as draws you in.

The rhythm section lead by the spirited and informed work of Weisman

provided cohesion and forward motion. On the quintessential Yiddish

melody in Swing "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" made famous by the Andrew

Sisters, Rizzio kicked off the verse accompanying herself on ukulele and

bassist Boles' solo on that number was exemplary, eschewing technical

display for rock-solid pulse, round sonority and spot-on intonation.