How It’s New York: The Klezmatics are a New York based group, and klezmer of course has a long tradition in this city! In fact I just saw a great klezmer band in the show Shlemiel the First. And trumpeter Frank London also did the music for Golem at LaMaMa ETC which I also posted about here, so there’s that NY theatre crossover. The occasion is Live from Town Hall, a 25-year celebration DVD at one of New York’s revered venues. There was recently a terrific article about them in the Wall Street Journal. You have to subscribe to get it, but one of its points was the reminder that the Klezmatics were the wedding band for Charlotte in “Sex and the City”
How It’s Irish: It’s mostly Jirish, but Irish singer Susan McKeown often performs with them, and she and singer Lorin Sklamberg also released an album called “Saints and Tzaddks” which I wrote about for the Forward (the Jewish weekly Forward, that is. Remember, I’m the only New York Journalist who writes for the Forward and for Irish Music Magazine). And fiddler Lisa Gutkin once made a stray comment to me about how playing Irish music led her back to Jewish music (over drinks with Scottish singer Dougie MacLean, as I recall!) that led to my Village Voice piece about Jewish fans of Irish music, that has since gone viral. Lisa still plays Irish music, and can sometimes be found at the 11th street Session on a Sunday night.
Then after the taping, the band is off to their scheduled L.A. concert at WALT DISNEY HALL and the rest of their Hanukkah shows:
what was the name of the song played tonight
It was called “Hanuka Gelt” which means “Hannukah Gold,” there was a tradition of giving children holiday money and chocolate coins in gold paper (is a tradition, i should say!) You can buy the album at Amazon by clicking; if you buy it through us we get some gelt! a few pennies anyway!