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July 6, 2007
Rocking and rolling down river
Klezmer cruise brings together legendary musicians from around
the Jewish world.
LORNE MALLIN
This is the second in a three-part series on Jewish Ukraine.
Next week: An island of progressive Judaism in a sea of orthodoxy.
Some of the world's finest Jewish musicians sailed on the first
Klezmer Heritage Cruise this spring. The lounges of the Dnieper
Princess and the concert halls of Ukraine rang with the sounds of
such renowns as David Krakauer, Michael Alpert, Guy Schalom, Alex
Kontorovich, Bob Cohen, Vanya Zhuk, Eric Stein and Josh Dolgin,
also known as DJ SoCalled.
But they all paid homage to a short, dapper 86-year-old singer with
a shock of white hair and twinkling eyes, who came aboard when the
boat docked in Zaporozhye, about 700 kilometres downriver from Kiev.
Arkady Gendler was a hit from the moment he began entertaining us
with his bottomless repertoire of Yiddish songs.
"He is a true treasure and I feel uniquely privileged to have
had the opportunity to hang out and play with him during the cruise,"
said Stein, a bass and mandolin player who is also artistic director
of Toronto's Ashkenaz Festival. Stein is bringing his band, Beyond
the Pale, to the Norman Rothstein Theatre for a concert on July
12.
The 10th child of his family, Gendler was born in 1921 in Soroca,
then part of Romania, now part of Moldova, on the border with Ukraine,
in the area known as Bessarabia.
"As far as I can remember, my father, my mother, all my siblings,
everyone sang Yiddish songs," he told us one afternoon. "So
it seems I started singing before I started speaking."
Gendler fled to Russia to escape the Nazis, served with the Red
Army, later became a plastics engineer, struggled to nurture Yiddish
culture during the repressive Soviet era and now teaches Yiddish
at the ORT School in Zaporozhye. He's never stopped singing and
songwriting and has appeared at Jewish music festivals throughout
Europe and in California. This summer, he's on the faculty at the
KlezKanada annual music camp Aug. 20-26 in the Quebec Laurentians.
On the cruise ship and on shore, Gendler brought his rich voice
and engaging showmanship to such tunes as "Mayn Ershter
Vals" ("My First Waltz"), "Ele-Bele!"
("So There!"), "Kartoflyes" ("Potatoes")
and his own take on "Chiribim Chiribom."
All of us on the April 29-May 11 cruise were spoiled with remarkable
music. There were about 160 passengers, mainly from Canada, with
many from the United States and a few from Israel and Europe.
Dolgin, whose parents, Marc and AC, worked on the nuts and bolts
of the trip, assembled the musicians from Canada, the United States,
England, Hungary and Russia. They played on the ship, in halls,
synagogues, at a Jewish community centre and a Jewish day school,
where hundreds of kids danced with the passengers.
Dolgin plays accordion and piano, sings and mixes klezmer and hip
hop. His new CD, Ghettoblaster, is just out. He was followed
most everywhere by a film crew making a documentary on him for the
National Film Board.
A lot of the music on the cruise was just having fun. Stein revelled
in the "endless alcohol-fuelled jams and spontaneous partying
... memories that will last a lifetime."
Arrangements were made to connect with local musicians throughout
the voyage, which began in Kiev and sailed down the Dnieper River
to the Black Sea ports of Sevastopol and Odessa, where we were greeted
by Konsonans Retro as the ship docked. The group brings together
German clarinetist Christian Dawid and a Ukrainian brass band from
the village of Kodyma. Schalom, a drummer from London, has also
played and recorded with them.
"Those guys kick ass," said Stein. "They are one
of the freshest and funkiest things I've heard in a while."
He's planning to bring them to Ashkenaz next year.
Kontorovich, who plays superb clarinet and sax, said his most thrilling
moment was with the same group after the final concert in Odessa.
"The brass band followed us to the ship for the post-party,
which inevitably morphed into the kind of low-down, dirty, tune-trading
jam only possible when a heap of trumpets, tubas and clarinets find
their way to inebriated mouths," he said.
The two most well-known klezmer musicians on board were New Yorkers
- the multilingual, multi-instrumentalist and singer Alpert and
Krakauer, an astounding clarinet player who took his instrument
kicking and screaming into another dimension.
Krakauer, who teaches at the elite level, graciously took on coaching
a group of amateur musicians, who included Vancouverites Elie Dolgin,
Noam Dolgin, Avi Dolgin and Lisa Mallin.
"Being a clarinetist, I was pretty intimidated to have this
virtuoso giving me pointers on simple things like fingering, but
he was so lovely and patient and inspiring, and he really brought
the fun back into the music," said Elie Dolgin.
"Then, sure enough, our little ragtag group of musicians really
started to come together. And, boy, what a joy it was to all be
playing together, learning melodies, improvising a little bit and
having a great time."
Josh Dolgin directed a Yiddish choir of about 20 passengers, including
Shanie Levin of Vancouver and me. He reinforced the sheet music
by playing the parts on a melodion, a keyboard with a mouthpiece.
"I loved every minute of it," Levin said. "I think
that we formed a cohesive group very quickly and I felt closer to
the choir members, as a result of the work we did together, than
to others on the cruise. Everyone decided very quickly who they
would sit beside and who would best help them to sing their part
well."
As well as the spontaneous dancing that erupted just about everywhere
music was played, there was a folk dancing group led by Hélène
Domergue-Zilberberg.
Ruth Hess-Dolgin of Vancouver is not a musician, but said, "Dancing
to the klezmer gave me a chance to enjoy the music and get some
exercise at the same time. It was good for the body and the soul."
Lorne Mallin is a Vancouver writer, editor, graphic designer
and Jewish chant leader. His website is lornemallin.com.
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