<\/p>\n
Klezmer bands are often run like dictatorships<\/strong><\/span> because klezmer music originated in Eastern Europe — a part of the world notorious for autocrats.\u00a0 Or so hypothesized Walt Mahovlich<\/a>, the leader of the renowned gypsy-style band Harmonia<\/a>.\u00a0 Walt is an expert on Eastern Europe. His full name is Waltipedia.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n Walt used to be in Yiddishe Cup. Technically he still is.\u00a0 He is on a leave of absence, which he requested 13 years ago.\u00a0 Walt likes to keep his options open.<\/p>\n If you run a band as a democracy, you’ll be in total disarray on the bandstand, Walt said.\u00a0 I had a musician who liked to call tunes for me.\u00a0 Drove me nuts.\u00a0 Luckily he moved out of town 19 years ago.<\/p>\n Yiddishe Cup’s keyboard player, Alan Douglass,<\/strong><\/span> occasionally requests songs.\u00a0 More often, he requests not<\/em> to <\/em>play a certain song. \u00a0For instance, he does not like playing “balls out” (hard-driving) music during guests’ meals.\u00a0 Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes not. \u00a0These folks — at bar mitzvah luncheons — are comatose from a three-hour shabbat service followed by a 30-minute kiddush <\/em>(post-service schmooze). \u00a0Sometimes they need a bracing shot of high-proof klez.<\/p>\n Some musicians have trouble with bandleaders’ czar-like behavior. My guys — not so much.\u00a0 Yiddishe Cup’s musicians are the best in Cleveland; they get paid the most; and they generally cooperate.\u00a0 If I have a problem with a guy, I’ll talk to him alone, not in front of the others.<\/p>\n Craig Woodson<\/a>, a veteran drummer, taught me not to air private grievances in public. \u00a0Craig, too, believed in the benevolent monarch thing.\u00a0 He had worked with a king — Elvis. \u00a0(Check Craig out in the movie Clambake<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Craig was Yiddishe Cup’s second drummer. <\/strong><\/span>He was good — and in California too often on his own gigs.\u00a0 Yiddishe Cup went through a ton of drummers.\u00a0 Our current drummer, Don Friedman — who has been with us 13 years — knows how to keep time and add tasteful fills. \u00a0So does our alternate drummer, a yingl<\/em> (boy) named Diddle<\/a>.<\/p>\n Diddle, 21, started “playing out” (gigging) when he was 13.\u00a0 I hate that — that start-out-as-young as-Mozart-or-you’re-toast mentality.\u00a0 Diddle’s father hangs around our gigs, kind of like Venus and Serena’s dad.<\/p>\n Cleveland’s jazz king Ernie Krivda played in his dad’s polka band at 13.\u00a0 Clarinetist Ken Peplowski played in a polka band at 13.\u00a0 Joe Lovano started the sax at 5.\u00a0 “At 16 the young Joe Lovano got his driver’s license and no longer needed his father, Big T, to drive My father was a “Big T” too. \u00a0Toby.\u00a0 Why didn’t he have a band?\u00a0 Or at least a decent record player. Klezmer bands are often run like dictatorships because klezmer music originated in Eastern Europe — a part of the world notorious for autocrats.\u00a0 Or so hypothesized Walt Mahovlich, the leader of the renowned gypsy-style band Harmonia.\u00a0 Walt is an expert on Eastern Europe. His full name is Waltipedia.\u00a0 Maybe. Walt used to be in Yiddishe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,6,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kinder-the","category-klezmer","category-toby-stratton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8723,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions\/8723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhim . . .” blah, blah.<\/p>\n
\n—-<\/span>
\n1 of 2 posts for 9\/2\/09.\u00a0 Please see post below too.<\/span>
\n—-<\/span>
\nYiddishe Cup<\/span> concert 7:15 p.m. Sun., Sept. 6, Orange Village (Ohio) gazebo.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"