Chronika

After nearly 15 years playing trumpet in America’s seminal klezmer band The Klezmatics (with whom he is still active), Frank London started the Klezmer Brass Allstars releasing their debut Di Shikere Kapelye (The Inebriated Orchestra) in 2000. Described on the CD as ‘Jewish-Oriental Village Brass from NYC’s Lower East Side’, it was an ebullient and irreverent blast. They teamed up with Serbia’s Boban Marković Orkestar and an Egyptian brass band for their next release (Brotherhood of Brass) and returned to mainly Jewish material for 2005’s Carnival Conspiracy, a Top of the World in January/February 2006.

Since then the band has been a little quiet, but suddenly they’re back with Chronika. The best song here is a Jewish Caribbean mash-up called ‘Unity (Carnival in Crown Heights)’, bringing together the music of two of Brooklyn’s communities, Hasidic Jews and West Indians, with the soca-style vocals of Michel ‘Meshach’ Nestor from St Lucia. Elsewhere the tunes are predominantly Hasidic from Eastern Europe with Yiddish vocals from Michael Alpert, Sarah Gordon and others. A new musical texture comes with the guitar and banjo of Brandon Seabrook and the late Yosi Piamenta, known as the ‘Hasidic Hendrix’. The most interesting tracks come early on and the album rather loses inspiration with several remixes at the end.