<\/p>\n
Yiddishe Cup is not<\/strong><\/span> a klezmer band.\u00a0 Our recordings — and our stage shows — are dark and light, funny and serious.\u00a0 Check us out.\u00a0 We stretch out.\u00a0 Every tune is different.<\/p>\n Klezmer <\/em>is a clich\u00e9d marketing term, and we aren’t a party to it.<\/p>\n We aren’t even Jewish.\u00a0 I’m<\/em> not.\u00a0 I gave it up for Lent.<\/p>\n Y Cup — formerly Yiddishe Cup, formerly Yiddishe Cup Klezmer Band — fits perfectly into the world music\/jazz scene.<\/p>\n I admire musicians who,<\/strong><\/span> when you hear their recordings, you immediately know who is playing.\u00a0 Like “Hey, that’s Arnie!”\u00a0 You know it’s Arnie by the hogs snorting in the background.<\/p>\n Y Cup has a new signature piece: “Mayor of West 83rd Street.”\u00a0 You can smell natural gas when the tune starts.\u00a0 Y Cup is a band with a very, very volatile — and totally unique — sound: intricate arrangements and constant shiftings of the lead.\u00a0 We bring out different colors, different dynamics, different brews.\u00a0 At a six-hour wedding, an open bar is imperative.<\/p>\n We write so many tunes, we can’t even name them. We gave up trying. Our newest tunes are 10-56, 10-57, 10-58.\u00a0 Then ’10’ stands for 2010.<\/p>\n Our album in progress is titled No Name, <\/em>but that is so lame.\u00a0 Maybe we’ll call it 10-10-10<\/em> and release it that day. \u00a0October 10 is going to be a huge wedding date.\u00a0 If we don’t have a gig that day, we’ll disband and call the album Thank You for Your Kindnesses.<\/em><\/p>\n Y Cup is not a star show.<\/strong><\/span> It’s not about one musician standing above.\u00a0 The rest of the band — the sidemen — I could replace them with one quick phone call — and I’d probably have a better group too — but I don’t.\u00a0 The whole is less than the sum of the parts.\u00a0 Add it up.<\/p>\n My musicians have skills.\u00a0 One guy can belch whole notes.\u00a0 Doesn’t feel academic either.<\/p>\n Non-Jews love our music.\u00a0 Non-Christians too . . . Jewish people.<\/p>\n When I told my wife I was leaving Judaism, she said, “Then why are you saying a brocha <\/em>over the wine?”\u00a0 I told her, “It’s Friday night, that’s<\/em> why.\u00a0 TG<\/em>IF.”<\/p>\n Klezmer is a niche<\/strong><\/span> I refuse to get boxed into.<\/p>\n We used to do klezmer, I’ll admit.\u00a0 We played it on occasion.\u00a0 Even Charlie Parker played klezmer at bar mitzvahs.\u00a0 In his later days he didn’t.\u00a0 Granted, he died at 34.<\/p>\n Y Cup plays what Parker would if he were playing bar mitzvahs today. That’s our esthetic.<\/p>\n —- Readers’ advisory:\u00a0 This post, “Our Esthetic: We are not a Klezmer Band,” is fiction. \u00a0 Made up.\u00a0 See “Driving Mr. Klezmer” <\/a> at the <\/span>Maltz Museum<\/a> of Jewish Heritage, Beachwood, Ohio, Wed. March 24, 7 p.m.\u00a0 Stratton, clarinet and spoken word (i.e. this blog), and Douglass, chauffeur and fuel-injected keyboards, plus vocals.\u00a0 Jewish and <\/em>American music.\u00a0 DUO. Yiddishe Cup at the College of Wooster<\/a> (Ohio).\u00a0 Sat. March 27, 9 p.m. Yiddishe Cup is not a klezmer band.\u00a0 Our recordings — and our stage shows — are dark and light, funny and serious.\u00a0 Check us out.\u00a0 We stretch out.\u00a0 Every tune is different. Klezmer is a clich\u00e9d marketing term, and we aren’t a party to it. We aren’t even Jewish.\u00a0 I’m not.\u00a0 I gave it up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8715,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions\/8715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1 of 2 posts for 3\/3\/10.\u00a0 Please see the next post too.
\n—-<\/span><\/p>\n
\n—-
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\n—-
\nYiddishe Cup \/ Klezmer Guy has a\u00a0 Facebook fan page<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"