Many years ago, a popular ad campaign for a renowned brand of kosher rye bread featured people of various ethnic backgrounds, proudly stating, "You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s."

The same could hold true for New York’s long-running Klezmatics, who have over the past 20 years become the Beatles of the klezmer genre.

That universal appeal is shown to full effect on the group’s eighth album, Brother Moses Smote the Water [Piranha]. Recorded live in Berlin, Germany, the program celebrates the liberation from historical oppression shared by Jews and African-Americans.

Traditional Hebrew Passover songs, like "Eyliyohu Hanovi" and "Ki Loy Nue," delivered by the solemn cantor-like tenor of longtime vocalist Lorin Sklamberg, are combined by rousing performances by Joshua Nelson, a 29-year-old charismatic African-American Jewish Hebrew School teacher, who calls his music "kosher gospel." If Nelson’s renditions of "Elijah Rock" and Sam Cooke’s "Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep" don’t get you off your seat, check your pulse to see if you’re still alive.

As for the origin of the idea for the unique collaboration, 47-year-old founding member Frank London explained, "About a year ago we decided to do a concert combining both the African-American tradition and Jewish tradition of freedom songs. When we were looking for different people to collaborate with, we were told about Joshua. When we heard his CDs, we were just blown away and decided to work with him. I don’t know of any other Jewish gospel singer who sounds like Mahalia Jackson and sings with the spirit that Joshua does."

As to performing the concert in Germany, which harbors some of the Klezmatics’ most ardent fans, London recalled an ironic moment. "Usually I’m more influenced by people than place," said London of his libertarian view of the world, "but one of the first times the Klezmatics performed in Germany, we were playing a Purim song. I was just kind of naïvely introducing the song to the audience, and I explained that this comes from the holiday that we celebrate because there was a time when people tried to kill all of the Jews, and we fought back and survived. Then all of a sudden, it hit me, ‘Oh, that’s what also happened here.’ I didn’t really want to talk about the Holocaust from the stage. but I was just trying to explain the holiday, because this story is so embedded in our culture."

Diversity and liberal world attitudes have been some of the trademarks of the Klezmatics for nearly 20 years now. The six-person band is a combination of Jews and non-Jews, straight and gay, male and female. This unconventionality is aptly demonstrated in the band’s decision to perform numbers like "The Reefer Song," and the controversial "Loshn-koyesh" ("Holy Tongues"), a tale about a male Hebrew school teacher’s infatuation with his boyish student. Lyrics like "Moyshele and I begin to chant ‘The Song of Songs’ and our two hearts then start to thump rapidly along... When I get to ‘yishokeyni,’I kiss him on the lips," are not what one would have expected from a klezmer band before the Klezmatics appeared on the scene. However, in concert they effortlessly integrate those types of songs with stirring performances of time-honored traditional Yiddish material.

In what immediately differentiated them from previous klezmer outfits, London, who has played trumpet (and sometimes keyboards) for the band since its 1986 inception, explained, "When I was growing up as a reform Jew in Long Island, I heard the really corny stuff of people like Mickey Katz, but when I first heard the old historical recording of klezmer, I thought, ‘This is a totally hip music.’

"So when I later got together with the Klezmatics, the first thing we did was to decide not do anything that either corny or kitschy. We said, ‘Just because corny stuff is part of the Jewish music tradition, doesn’t mean that we have to do it.’

We didn’t do the parody stuff. We didn’t do the cartoony stuff. We just started to learn how to play the old music in its traditional form."

It was this desire to cultivate a hipper image that got the band quickly noticed by publications like New York’s longtime counterculture paper, The Village Voice. The band immediately set itself apart from other Jewish bands by taking such active political stances as supporting AIDS research and adopting a somewhat radical anti-establishment punk aesthetic in exposing what they considered social injustices. In the process, the Klezmatics exhibited healthy doses of irreverence, something that initially unnerved parts of the unprepared Jewish establishment. However, it wasn’t very long before many followers embraced their fresh outlook on a very old, staid, Eastern European music that had influenced such early Jewish jazz musicians as Benny Goodman. It was also evident early on that the band had an arresting sense of humor, as evidenced by such album titles as Rhythm and Jews and Jews with Horns.

"When we first started working, people would ask us, ‘Why don’t you sing, "My Yiddishe Momma?" ’ "said London, who was exposed to klezmer’s more serious side as a student at Boston’s Conservatory of Music, studying what is now commonly referred to as world music.

"People would ask us, ‘Why don’t you sing "Romania, Romania," ’all the kinds of classic songs people expected a Jewish or Yiddish band to play. We said, ‘We don’t like them. We don’t want to do them.’We only wanted to present parts of the tradition, both musically and texturally, that we felt were vital to our lives."

London is vocal in his stances. "I don’t like stereotypes," he firmly stated. "I find them insulting and demeaning. They’re not what Judaism is about. I never identified with people like Jackie Mason or the whole ‘Borscht Belt.’ I never had this nostalgia for Jewish kitsch. It does nothing for me personally.

It does something between turning me off and embarrassing me. It does nothing for my sense of aesthetics. My aesthetics are about things in art and music.

"If someone says to me, ‘What you did is so Jewish,’ " London continued, "I would hope that meant that I’ve showed a thoughtful approach to something that considers many sides of an issue.

It has a moral value to it — a linking of spirituality with an approach to the secular world that is humane."

London lives in New York’s East Village and is an in-demand studio musician when not working with the Klezmatics. He is also the band’s resident rock music aficionado, having been weaned on such artists as the Who, Cream, King Crimson, Yes, and Frank Zappa.

It was, in fact, a member of one the aforementioned bands who gave him what he now refers to as "one of the musical highlights of my life."

Back in 1986, the eclectic musician was tapped to be a member of Jack Bruce’s touring ensemble. "We were doing mostly his [solo] material at the time, but the encore was always, ‘Sunshine of Your Love,’ " London recalled. "The band was playing this festival in Italy, and just before the encore, this big tall skinny guy who looked like Ichabod Crane came onstage and sat behind the drums. It was Ginger Baker, who was living there at the time. I’m thinking to myself, ‘I’m actually playing with two-thirds of Cream!’ It was so cool."

This desire to do outside projects recently led London and the group to record an album of Hanuka songs with lyrics by Woody Guthrie. The legendary folk artist’s daughter Nora was cleaning out her house about seven years ago — she was in the process of moving — when she unexpectedly came across some three thousand manuscripts of songs Guthrie had either handwritten or typed. However, because he was an unschooled musician, Guthrie left no musical notation to accompany the lyrics. The songs had never been recorded, so no one had any idea of what the music would have sounded like. In an effort to bring her father’s music to a new generation, Nora made the lyrics available to artists like Billy Bragg and Wilco, as well as the Klezmatics, who took the Hanuka songs and made an album of holiday songs called Woody Guthrie’s Happy Joyous Hanuka. "When the lyrics were given to us, we first thought, ‘Do we have to write klezmer music to the lyrics? Do we have to make it sound Jewish? Do we have to make the songs sound like Woody Guthrie songs?’" London explained.

"We all came up with different approaches to the question, ‘What happens when the Klezmatics meet Woody Guthrie?’as opposed to taking one dogmatic approach. That’s really the crux of what the Klezmatics are all about."

To explain the Guthrie-Jewish connection, London said, "Woody’s second wife, Marjorie, was Jewish, and they had four children, three of whom are still alive: Jody, Nora, and Arlo. They had what they called a Hanuka tree in their house, which they would dance around and sing songs.

Woody wrote a song called ‘Hanuka Tree’ that we recorded on the CD." Guthrie apparently shared the Klezmatics’ worldly view of religion, for, as London explained, "Arlo was raised as a Jew and was bar mitzvahed, but the family was really raised as humans who embraced everything. There’s a story that Arlo told at Carnegie Hall when we played together that really cracked us up. When [Woody’s] wife went to the hospital to have a baby, they asked her on the admitting form, ‘What’s your religion?’ and she said, ‘Everything.’

They said, ‘We can’t do that.’So she put down, ‘Nothing.’ So, when Woody came in they figured, ‘Well, he’s the father. He’s not pregnant. He’ll be more straightforward.’ So, they said, ‘Mr. Guthrie, your wife didn’t answer the question, ‘What’s your religion?’ and Woody said, ‘Put down all or nothing.’ "Like Guthrie, the group has also adopted a policy of political activism. That was aptly demonstrated when it took a stance on AIDS activism back in the 90s by performing music for the film Fast Trip, Long Drop. "We found an old Yiddish socialist song written over a hundred years ago called ‘In Kamf’ (‘In Struggle’), and the words of the song say, ‘You can destroy our bodies, but you can never destroy our immortal spirit. We will continue in our struggle.’Even though this song is pretty traditional, [contemporary] audiences can identify with it because of its beautiful words.

"We have always tried to do songs that are politically and texturally spiritual, and some from the Jewish tradition. For me, the Jewish spiritual message is not one only of reaching out to God, but is implicitly tied to making the world a better place. The whole mysticism of Judaism is tied with transforming the mundane, the secular — every act — into a sacred act. So, when we sing a song like Holly Near’s ‘I Ain’t Afraid’ [which the band recorded in both English and Yiddish] it basically lists all of these religions, and says, ‘I’m not afraid of any of your gods. I ain’t afraid of your Yahweh, I ain’t afraid of your Allah, I ain’t afraid of your Jesus.’ But I am afraid of what people do in the name of God. Religious fundamentalism. That, in a way, is a spiritual message."

It was, in fact, Holly Near who provided London with what he still considers one of his most memorable moments onstage with the Klezmatics, at a concert in Berkeley, California, a few years ago. "At the encore, Holly came onstage with Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers, and for the encore we did ‘Goodnight Irene.’ I was so happy to be performing the song with them. I was actually crying onstage. It was so beautiful to be there."

In addition to London’s side projects, like heading his own group Hasidic New Wave and being a member of Les Miserables Brass Band, he has collaborated with such diverse musicians as rapper LL Cool J, the late, legendary crooner Mel Torme, rockers Rob Thomas and David Byrne, and such eclectic musicians as John Zorn, La Monte Young, They Might Be Giants, and Ben Folds Five, appearing on more than 100 albums in the process. However, Yiddish music is the closest to his heart, as evidenced with the reverential, scholarly passion with which he speaks about it.

"The Klezmatics have always looked for songs that had really important messages from the tradition. One of the first songs we found that has been in our repertoire for almost 20 years is ‘Ale Brider,’ which means ‘We’re all brothers. We’re all sisters. We’re all gay. We’re all united, whether we’re religious... leftist.’

One of the most important themes to the Klezmatics over the years has been spirituality. It’s not so much the Jewishness of the music that’s so spiritual, it’s the intention. Jewish music is just the vessel."

Stability has also been a trademark of the band, which still includes four founding members. In addition to London, drummer David Licht, bassist and tsimbl player Paul Morrissett, and singer and accordionist Lorin Sklamberg have been there since the beginning.

Both London and Sklamberg unceremoniously stress that no one in the band is more important than any of the others, but it is readily apparent that he and Sklamberg are the focal points of the band. "We’re  somewhere between democracy and anarchy," laughed London. "Our group politics are clearly that we’re a group without a leader."

Sklamberg has been London’s friend and musical partner for 20 years, and they have also recorded two albums of religious music, Nigunim and The Zmiros Project. "Lorin has one of the sweetest voices in the world," London said admirably. "His taste is as impeccable as his knowledge is broad. He has passion, and his commitments to his ideals as reflected in the texts that he sings, are one of the strongest determining factors in the Klezmatics’ entire career — philosophically, aesthetically, and politically. His life is at peace with his music."

Though they share musical and philosophical views, at first glance, London and Sklamberg may appear an unlikely duo. London is tall and beefy, with free-flowing long hair, and speaks with the rapid-fire cadence of a rocker living in the East Village. He is married and has two children. Sklamberg, 49, who works as the long-time sound archivist for New York’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (the source of some of the band’s repertoire), is more soft-spoken and introverted.

He and his male partner are raising three children. However, those lifestyle differences have in some ways strengthened their mutual musical mission of exposing many social ills of our society.

Although klezmer music is an amalgam of very divergent backgrounds, it shares a common musical format with American folk music. London explained, "Klezmer and Yiddish folk songs are acoustic, three-chord stuff. It uses different instruments (from traditional folk music), and the chords are mostly minor rather than major, but the roots of klezmer is Yiddish folk music."

One musical aspect of klezmer that fascinates London is that "it’s a border music. It’s the border between East and West in many ways. You hear elements of Western music, whether it’s marches or polkas, or oom-pa-pa music from Germany, Czechoslovakia, and those regions. Then you hear music from the East. You have modal music. The early European stuff can be approached either modally or harmonically. You hear Eastern, almost Arabic Middle Eastern inflections, modes, and scales. and you have sorts of ornamentation. Yet you also hear the roots of theater and film [music]."

Klezmatics concerts are imbued with feelings of spirituality that spill over to the rapt audiences. Has London felt on occasion that he’s connecting with a higher being while performing the music? "This is getting into the question of the performative nature of ritual music. There are many ritual traditions where the music and dance is getting closer to God. That is the mysticism, whether it’s Sufi music, Balkan music, Haitian, or Jewish traditional music. You always have the question when you perform onstage for an audience, ‘Are you performing the ritual, or are you actually engaging in the ritual itself?’ Sometimes you can engage in the ritual, but your performance sucks. Just because I might reach a state of ecstasy doesn’t necessarily make for a good performance.

I have to maintain the connection that I’m giving a concert. "Ecstasy is a very interesting thing. It’s spiritual. It’s talking to God. That’s pretty heavy stuff. When I get to that place sometimes, and it happens, and then I get offstage and someone asks me a question, I can’t even answer it. It’s like you’ve got different parts of your brain, and you lose touch with the verbal. That sort of ecstatic spiritual mystical experience is very heavy, and whether you do it through meditation or through dance or through singing, it’s not always a good place to go to when you’re doing a concert," he said, laughing.

"We are so lucky and so blessed to have been able to work together to do the things that we do, and meet the kinds of people we have," acknowledged London. "Now if we only had the economic success to go with it," he added with a chuckle. "But on a musical, personal and  social level, it’s all been unbelievable."

-Elliot Stephen Cohen
Copyright 2005, Dirty Linen, Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved