1. Opa D – (Job Chajes) 2.46
2. Son – (Gijs Levelt, lyrics Alec Kopyt) 5.15
3.Spaghetti – (Jasper de Beer) 4.16
4. Der Fryske Bulgar – (Joop van der Linden) 3.56
5. Blue Hora – (Janfie van Strien) 4.30
6. Zosulenka – (traditional) 5.02
7. Vondelpark – (Gijs Levelt) 4.05
8. Magnificent 7 – (Janfie van Strien) 4.38
9. Multa bani ne femei (De Roemeen) – (Janfie van Strien) 6.41
10. Dr. Clavan – (Theo van Tol) 3.56
11. Bublitzki – (Janfie van Strien, lyrics Alec Kopyt) 3.31
12. Tussen Amsterdam en Rotterdam – (Job Chajes) 3.13
13. Ademnood – (Gijs Levelt) 2.52
14. Aprilfeesten – (Joop van der Linden) 3.29
15. Slaapgebrek- (Gijs Levelt) 4.42
16. Trieste Dromen – (Job Chajes) 5.12

comments

opa D job

Job: “Originally a hora in 3/8, but we have given it a four/four beat. A juicy traditional Klezmer tune, to which we have added some extra solos and harmonies.” Dedicated to Job’s grandfather, who turned one hundred in October 2003.

son gijs

Trumpet player Gijs wrote the title song (‘dream’ in Russian) after the first time he saw a live performance by Taraf de Haïdouks. Something new: this is the first of the AKB’s own compositions for which Alec wrote the lyrics.

spaghetti jasper

Written on keyboards by bass player Jasper. The song turned out as a kind of an Ennio Morricone style theme tune for a western that was never filmed.

der fryske bulgar joop

Joop: “A Klezmer traditional with a strong Eastern European brass band sauce. Watch out for the ‘feature’ for low brass in the bridge.”

blue hora janfie

A clear case of Janfie’s got the blues. Janfie: “There was a woman involved, apart from that no comment, speaks for itself.”

zosulenka trad.

Alec: “An old traditional song which the communists at the time converted to an ode to the blessings of the Party. A melody, typical of the Bucovina (an historical region which is now part of the Ukraine), was thus turned into pure propaganda.”

Vondelpark gijs

Job: “After a days jamming in the Vondelpark during a completely rain-drenched Queen’s Day, Gijs wrote this.”

magnificent 7 janfie

Inspired by Moldavian wind music, but also related to Brazilian music, with which Janfie has an intimate love affair. One of the favourites of the live repertoire of the band, due to the high ‘chicken coop content’ (as Joop describes it).

multa bani ne femei janfie

Inspired by Rumanian folk music. Watch out for the improbable solos, which effectively raze any puristic notions from the piece. Subdued and at the same time abstract, the AKB here strikes a breathtakingly beautiful balance between avant-garde and an authentic folkloric sound.

Dr. Clavan theo

A jubilant homage to the memorable character by Kees van Kooten. The AKB finally got Eastern Europe expert and accordion player Theo to write a song for the band. This aloof connaisseur, whose poker-face hides an unexpectedly smouldering interior, after years of working in folkoric dance theatre was instantly smitten by the AKB vibe.

bublitsky janfie

Polka-ska-punk? Again, the AKB defies all efforts at definition. Anyway, Alec wrote the lyrics. Take it away, Alec!

tussen Amsterdam en Rotterdam job

Commuting between his music conservatory and his place of residence Job wrote this song with, in the back of his mind, a wink at cheesy Hungarian strings. Watch out for the completely unique tone, enriched with a deeply troubled sound of jubilation, which Job has developed. This is no small achievement on the saxophone, an instrument that gets mistreated by so many!

ademnood gijs

The members of the AKB have given this song the telling nickname ‘ademnooit’ (never breathe). The irregular, cross-grained rhytms (7/8 over a four/four beat) originates from Gijs’ study of Southern Indian, Karnatic music.

aprilfeesten joop

An Italian tarantella, just because that’s what Joop liked to hear. May also be considered an homage to the orchestral Klezmer of Mickey Katz.

slaapgebrek gijs

This number symbolises the near psychotic/neurotic energy of trumpet player Gijs. When once again sleep eluded him this piece evolved, in which the influence of Taraf de Haïdouks is once again evident.

trieste dromen job

Slow, quiet sorrow, worked into a funeral march. A moving open end to this album, also the cliff-hanger for the next AKB chapter.

Lyrics

Ой, кувала зозуленька

Ой, кувала зозуленька
Там на Полонинi
Гарно стало тепер жити
В нас на Верховинi!

Гарно стало тепер жити
Гарно працювати
Ше й пiсеньку веселеньку
Можна заспiвати.

В наших горах темно було,
Нiчка покривала,
Коли влада панiв вражих
У нас панувала.

А якже нас визволила
Армiя йедина
Як та ружа розцвiлася
Наша Верховина.

В кожнiй хатi електриця
I радiо грайе,
А людина росте-квiтне,
Росте-розцвiтайе.

Ой, кувала зозуленька
В лiсi недалеко
Посилайемо подяку
В Кийив у столицю.

Ой, кувала зозуленька
Там на Полонинi
Слава нашiй Батькiвщинi
Партiйи йединiй.

Сон

Познакомились в саду Эдемовом
Стояла ты в халатике кремовом
Глаза твои блестят и светят
И мы решили, что никто нас не заметит

Вот мгновение чудное,
А вот и яблочко наливное!
Живой водой запил и насытился
И наготы своей совсем не устыдился.

Припев: А потом гуляли до ночи
Ночь тепла была, и день солнечный,
Ветерком, цветов дыханьем
Сопровождаются взаимообнимания.

И, обняв меня обледенелого,
Губами цвета граната спелого
Ты меня целуешь до забвения,
Я не забуду это чудное мгновение!

Хоть родился я в рубашке,
Рубашка эта – не для глажки!
След простыл, покрылся серой пылью,
Нет, не родился я, чтоб сказку сделать былью.

Припев: А потом гуляли до ночи
Ночь тепла была, и день солнечный,
Ветерком, цветов дыханьем
Сопровождаются взаимообнимания

Бублички

Ночь надвигается,
фонарь качается,
Бросая отблески в ночную тьму.
А я несчастная
Торговка частная
Стою на улице и продаю.

Купите бублички,
Горячи бублички,
Гоните рублички
Да поскорей!
И в ночь ненастную
Меня, несчастную,
Торговку частную
Ты пожалей!

Отец мой пьяница,
За рюмкой тянется,
А мать – уборщица,
Какой позор!
Сестра – гулящая,
Она пропащая,
Братишка маленький – карманный вор.

Купите бублички,
Горячи бублички,
Гоните рублички
Да поскорей!
И в ночь ненастную
Меня, несчастную,
Торговку частную
Ты пожалей!

Cuckoo cried

Cuckoo cried
In the mountains,
Life is good now
In our Verhovina.

Life is good now,
Work is fun,
Even a happy song
Can be sung freely.

There was darkness
That covered our mountains
When the hostile landowners
Ruled.

But since the United Army
Has liberated us,
Our mountains
Blossomed.

In every house there’s electricity
And radio’s playing
And people are rejoicing

Cuckoo cried
In the forest nearby,
We are sending our gratitude
To the capitol of Kiev

Cuckoo cried
In the forest nearby,
Glory to our Motherland
And the one and only Party!

Dream

We’ve met in the Garden of Eden,
You were wearing a beige gown,
Your eyes were shining
And we thought, noone will see us.

Here’s a wonderful moment,
And here’s a fresh apple,
I ate it and drank some water,
And wasn’t ashamed of my nakedness at all.

Refrain: And then we wandered till night
The night was warm, and the day sunny
Light wind and the smell of flowers
Accompanied our embraces

And having embrased me
And kissed me with your lips the colour of pomegranate
You kept kissing till oblivion;
I won’t forget this wonderful moment!

Although I’m a lucky fellow,
Don’t count on me –
I’ve vanished without a trace,
I’m not the boy of your dreams, honey

Refrain: And then we wandered till night
The night was warm, and the day sunny
Light wind and the smell of flowers
Accompanied our embraces

Pretzels

Night encroaches, the street lamp sways,
Light reaches into the murky night.
I wander about, bruised, unclean,
and wrapped in rags.

[Soft] pretzels for sale, hot, [soft] pretzels,
Send your rubles this way, come on!
Pity unfortunate me, a lone barterwoman,
In this cruel night.

My father’s a drunk — keeps on reaching for the glass.
My mother is a cleaner
My sister is a hooker, what a shame!
And my little brother is a pickpocket.

Refrain.

Recording technique

The greatest strength of De Amsterdam Klezmer Band can be found in the way they play together. It is exactly this that makes a performance by De Amsterdam Klezmer Band into a special event. For this reason studio recordings were set up in a similar way. A group of musicians who, helped along by the acoustics of the venue, do what they do best: making music. It takes nothing more fancy than two microphones to record the band sound, plus a support microphone for the bass and vocals.
This way of recording enables the music to speak. You’ll be a witness to the exceptional achievements of De Amsterdam Klezmer Band: no tricks and no safety net, just the band as they are. Nothing less!
Using two Blue-Bottles, the famed, handbuilt tube microphones made by the high-end brand Blue (Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics) and mic-preamplification of the Focusrite Red series, the recordings where made straight onto two-track stereo using an Appogee 24 bit AD-converter. This extremely discreet signalpath made it possible to capture every instrument in these unique recordings to it’s finest detail. Great care was taken during (analogue) mastering that all the energy in these performances was faithfully reproduced on CD.

Michiel Cornelisse

Liner Notes

“We want to be able to talk about [music], even if it’s only because music often turns out to be such an emotional experience. But even apart from that emotional stimulus, the human mind is always looking for stories, interpretations, analyses and systems. And if there is one psychological characteristic we can call innate, it must be that of the assignation of meaning. This discrepancy is what makes the musical phenomenon so paradoxical: a meaningless abstraction which awakes in us an unquenchable desire to discuss the musical experience, to share it and to describe it. But how? If you delve into the hopeless blurbs on record covers and in CD booklets, even if it concerns a piece of music you love and are intimately familiar with, you realise it is really an impossible task. It is like writing about cooking. Everything becomes a metaphor, velvet on the tongue which tastes like nothing.”
David Rijser, ‘Op zoek naar verloren ruis’, in: NRC Handelsblad, 16 July 2004.

Nonsense is written about every sort of music, and Klezmer is no exception. As with many styles of traditional music, a distinguished, academic approach has developed to what is essentially party music. The vibrant Klezmer tradition is too often smothered by a bone-dry, near-museological approach, in which uninteresting details of performance technique take centre stage.
Enter De Amsterdam Klezmer Band! With its fifth album, Son, De Amsterdam Klezmer Band (AKB) makes a refreshing, resounding and much-needed statement about how Klezmer can sound in 2004.

The group started out as a trio of street musicians. The foundation myth of the band is well-known: the AKB’s original line-up was performing its favourite Klezmer and Balkan tunes in the Amsterdam Vondelpark, when a self-declared expert from Odessa announced his presence. With the legendary words “Quite nice what you guys are doing, but you are doing it all wrong!” singer and percussionist Alec Kopyt successfully applied for a position in the AKB. After some more personnel changes the seven-strong group has been playing in its current line-up for quite some time.
“We don’t actually like Klezmer!” is a jocular remark sometimes heard during the AKB’s very lively rehearsals. This reflects the fact that the group doesn’t worship tradition. Rather than a historically correct performance practice, the AKB prefers a living fusion of Klezmer and Eastern European music, mixed with equal parts of street vibe and jazz mentality. This is why the AKB is one of few Dutch groups to play at such diverse venues as the renowned Bimhuis in Amsterdam, squats, pop music festivals and weddings.
The AKB members all have very different musical backgrounds: they have extensive track records in Ska, Cajun, Funk, Punk and Jazz music. An AKB brass player can only benefit from ‘chopping’ experience (playing the off-beat) in a Ska band.
Who should the listener envisage when thinking about the group? Let’s try some short and sharp descriptions. Saxophone player Job: hip-hopper from Amsterdam; trumpet player Gijs: intellectual with a funk tic from Amsterdam-South; bass player Jasper: funkateer from Haarlem; trombone player Joop: hard-rocker and Zappa freak from Fryslân; reed player Janfie: punk from Emmen; singer Alec: Klezmer authority from Odessa’s Jewish ghetto and last but not least accordion player Theo: Eastern Europe expert and virtuoso from The Hague.

In recent years the AKB has been involved in all sorts of side projects. Festivals were organised, tours were undertaken with other bands, guest vocalists were hired. Notwithstanding the inspiration these activities generated, the AKB now wanted to create a new album that marks a return to the good ol’ live vibe, full of the vibrant energy which in the past caught the attention of passers-by and made them dance. If possible, the album would be recorded with the subtlety and sound of the legendary Blue Note recordings by Rudy van Gelder. A seven man group with two microphones, live and direct, captured on CD without overdubbing: this, in short, was the ambition. After a day and a half of finding the right positions in a spotlessly white studio space the countdown began and soon after sixteen songs had been captured on tape. And with some result: if you play Son on a good loudspeaker set you can hear saxophone player Job Chajes move around the room. See the box inset for more details on the recording technique used.

What makes Klezmer and Eastern European music so attractive to the AKB guys? Is it the freedom of the street? The Gypsy romanticism? “That’s an old story and we’re sick of it!” resounds through the group in response to these suggestions. They go on to emphasise that they are more interested in the direct, ‘in-your-face’ character of an acoustic band, which achieves the most effect by not straining for it.

Job: “Klezmer and Gypsy music are full of pleasant scales which enable you to party and wail at the same time. Nearly every band member has completed music studies at the conservatory, but that is not where you learn about making your own choices. All members of the AKB play right in the groove, believing that this is a more effective way of astounding an audience than using a polite, educated approach. It is no coincidence that we’ve all spent time behind a drum kit pre-AKB.”
How does an AKB song come into being? Again, we go to Job: “In comparison with earlier phases of the AKB, our current working method is more refined as regards to juxtaposing the three sections of the band: the wind section, the rhythm section and the smaller percussion instruments. The band members are proud of the natural way in which the division of labour in the group works. Each band member knows what is expected of him, so that a new song often gets going within five minutes.
Apart from this, it is mostly the restrictive nature of the tone material which makes the work so interesting. Apart from this, every member always gets the opportunity to step out of the band mould, for example Janfie in Blue hora.”

High and low culture, subtlety and a rock ’n’ roll attitude, defiance and accessibility, danceability and refinement, the AKB seems to move elegantly and effortlessly between all these seeming contradictions. Forget everything you think you know about Klezmer and traditional Eastern European music: with Son De Amsterdam Klezmer Band formulates a sparkling speech for acoustic tunes, a groovy update of an age-old tradition. Fifteen new compositions and one new arrangement of a traditional melody: that’s the kind of ratio we like to see. In the pithy phrasing of Janfie van Strien: “After all, Naftule Brandwein wrote his own shit too!”
Son invokes an unquenchable desire for nights of obstinate partying in Emir Kusturica style, followed by an intimate musing session with your lover, punctuated by a bursting headache, in the light of an hallucinatory sunrise.

Des Esseintes, July 2004