Frank London Part Two
Frank London talks about the Klezmatics, 1990s Jewish New York, and the oversized influence of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
About a month ago, in the introduction to part one of my interview with trumpeter, bandleader, and composer, Frank London, I mentioned that you can’t discuss the last half century of Jewish music without talking about him, because he’s had a hand in, seemingly, everything.
That breadth of experience has also made him something of a Jewish musical encyclopedia, and he’s more than happy to share. In that first part of our open-ended, freewheeling conversation, we spoke about his early history and first exposure to Jewish music, and how, for him, that wasn’t about reaffirming his hyphenated Jewish-American identity; the fascinating history of klezmer music as a border music, and how he considers it a true synthesis of East and West; and his initial exposure to Hasidic weddings and how that led, eventually, to the birth Hasidic New Wave.
Picking up where we left off, here London and I spoke about the start of his innovative band, the Klezmatics; the ubiquity of Jewish music—however you want to define that—in New York City in the 1980s and 90s, and how that scene is still thriving today; his take on the importance, and influence, of the pioneering rabbi and musician, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach; and, as you’d expect, the myriad projects he’s working on for 2021.
A lot of what we spoke about in the first part of this interview was leading up to the story about how the Klezmatics got started. In a nutshell, what happened?
I was in New York. I started playing Hasidic weddings—I was doing American weddings, too—and I was still commuting up to Boston to play in the Klezmer Conservatory Band. I hadn’t quit yet. I was doing jazz, and I was touring. I was music director for David Byrne and Robert Wilson’s, the Knee Plays, which is avant-garde theater. I was touring Europe with Lester Bowie and his Brass Fantasy, and also with Kip Hanrahan, Jack Bruce from Cream, and with the most amazing African and Puerto Rican musicians in the world. I was doing all sorts of things, because that’s what life is. Someone put an ad in a listing that said, “We’re forming a klezmer band. Do you want to play klezmer?” I said to myself, “You can always use more gigs.” I wanted to meet musicians to play klezmer with. I went down and that became the Klezmatics.
Who put up the ad?
Rob Chavez, who disappeared. The band was called, I don’t remember—he had a terrible name—and then he disappeared. I had met Lorin Sklamberg at Zlatne Uste, which is a Balkan Brass Band, and I brought him into it. David Licht (drums) had gotten my name from Henry Sapoznik. David Licht called me—we played a lot of punk music together—and he came into the band. Lorin knew Paul Morrissett (bass), and pretty quickly Rob Chavez disappeared and we met Margo Leverett, who was playing music on the streets. Margo Leverett was our original clarinet player.
The short version is that I was in London, playing the Knee Plays with Robert Willson and David Byrne. I went to a show of a band called the 3 Mustafas 3, and I met Ben Mandelson, who was in the band. Ben Mandelson went on to become one of the founders of the world music industry. The next thing I know, Ben Mandelson called asking me if I want to bring my new klezmer band, the Klezmatics, over to a world music festival in Germany. We went together with Les Misérables Brass Band. The festival was organized by a record company called Piranha Music—this was in 1988—and in the course of one week, we had our first gig in Europe, we recorded the album that became our first album, which was put out on their record label, they also became our booking agent in Europe, and I met the woman who is still my wife to this day, 35 years later. That was an important week in my life.
The head of the record company—after we made the first album—said, “You guys are playing this lovely klezmer music, but you’re playing it old fashioned. I know you have all these other musics in you. Why don’t you put your personality into the music? If you do that, I’ll record more records for you, and we’ll promote you as a new original klezmer band.” We had this guy, his name was Christoph Borkowsky Akbar, and Piranha Records behind us, telling us, “Do your thing.”
Is that what became your second album, Rhythm and Jews? But the first one, Shvaygn = toyt, is more traditional?
It wasn’t that traditional, but whatever, he said, "Do your thing and we’ll support you.” We had a little box, and here was someone saying, “Get rid of that box.” I’ve often said that our second record, Rhythm and Jews, is like a template of different ways one can explore klezmer music. If you listen to it now—I don’t think it’s a great record, I have lots of quibbles with it—but there are things on there that almost every contemporary klezmer band is still working with. They are working with ideas that we teased on that first record. We said, “You can add Arabic rhythms, funky rhythms, improvisation, and rock ’n’ roll to klezmer”—we tried everything, and then spent the next 30 years exploring all these different things we could do.
You asked if I have a parallel career in jazz. I can’t even think that way. I have a music career. Thank God. I am known in the world with Jewish music because of all the stuff I’ve done. But in a practical sense, I am a working musician. If you do anything—whatever you do—and assuming you do it really well, someone else is going to call you to do more of that. You didn’t plan to do that, but you did it well and it kept on building on itself. That’s normal. It takes on its own inertia.
We did Klezmatics, and we did it well, and that led to more opportunities. I had a choice. If I really wanted to have a parallel career in jazz, I would have had to consciously cut my Jewish music stuff to half, to leave half of my life open to jazz. First, I don’t love jazz enough to do that. I love music. And second, I can be myself—whatever that means—I can put myself into any kind of musical situation. It’s not going to sound the same, but Frank London doing jazz and Frank London doing Klezmer and Frank London doing Brazilian music and Frank London doing avant-garde improv and Frank London writing a symphony—there is a commonality, and it’s Frank London. I can put myself into anything, unless it’s a commercial job where they say, “We don’t want you to sound like Frank London, just copy the Frank Sinatra record,” and I know how to do that.
What was happening in the 1980s and 90s? It seemed like every Jewish musician in New York City started exploring Jewish music, whether it was John Zorn’s Radical Jewish Culture, or things that were happening at the Knitting Factory and Makor. What was it? Was something in the air?
In one way, it’s very simple. I’ll give a simple answer to a complex question. This is not going to be true for everyone, but just as I said that I am a working musician and Jewish opportunities came to me, and I explored them. Well, I am not the only person like that. There are many people like that, and we’re trying to make a living. For example, Zorn not only got into this stuff, but he started a record label, Tzadik Records. He would invite different musicians—almost all, but not all of them Jewish musicians—who were not doing any Jewish music. He would say, “Make your record of what you consider to be Jewish music.” I think that was the most brilliant thing he ever did.
You had carte blanch to do what you want?
At the beginning, for a good number of years, in the mid-‘90s, he would not only give them carte blanch, he would give them money. Many of these people, mostly Jews, who either knew all about klezmer and didn’t care, or were already doing some, or didn’t care about Jewish music at all, they made these records because he invited them.
Likewise at the Knitting Factory. They had a Jewish music festival and musicians see an opportunity. It’s like if you see a job offer and it’s something you know you can do, but you haven’t done it before, but you know you can do it, you’ll try to get that opportunity. Some people are strict and say “No, that’s not what I do,” but most people say, “Why not?”
Zorn gave people the opportunity. The Knitting Factory gave people the opportunity. Makor is less important and very short lived, but being that it was for a short period of time a venue where people doing Jewish music could work, that encouraged people to do a Jewish project because they could get a gig at Makor. I think it’s as simple as that.
And there was an audience for it?
Yes of course.
Who were they?
That question cries out for a reductionist answer, which if you haven’t yet figured out, I am never going to give you [laughs]. It depends on what the music was. It’s not all the same. The audience for God Is My Co-Pilot would never be the same as the audience for Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi. I am sorry. Why would they? It’s about aesthetics. It’s about taste. So who is the audience? The audience would be appropriate. Also, audiences always depend on venues.
Meaning that the type of person who went to the Knitting Factory was different from the type of person who went to Makor.
Let’s get more blatant. The kind of person who goes to the Rodef Shalom Synagogue for a Sunday afternoon concert is different from someone who goes to the Knitting Factory for an 11 PM show. Someone who goes to a free outdoor concert in a town square is different from someone who goes to Carnegie Hall at $80 a ticket.
I am asking because the common thread is that the music, somehow, is considered “Jewish.” What was happening that had people looking for Jewish music?
What you’re trying to get at, and it’s true, is this explosion of different Jewish musics—from the 1980s through now—has been parallel. This is where we still have to talk about Carlebach, because he is so crucial in this discussion.
Amongst Jews, people looking for different ways to explore their Jewish practice and their Jewish identity, and I separate those two. They don’t have to be separated. You can have a Jewish identity without a Jewish practice. I grew up with Jewish practice, but there was no culture. You have a multiplicity of different ways of practicing Judaism. You have things like the Havurah movement that started in the 1970s in Boston, different communities, different Minyanim, different ways of practicing, egalitarian, Romemu, and so on. There was also the explosion of Jewish musics and Jewish art in general. Each one allowed people to explore some combination of their Jewish identity and their Jewish practice in a new way that gave them something enriching. I think that’s the answer that you’re looking for. It’s true. If you were a punk rocker and you had a mohawk, and I am sure there were some punk rock musicians who happened to be Jewish…
Like the Ramones.
If that was your connection, you could say, “I am a Jew and I am a punk, and look, the Ramones are Jews and punks, too.” Great. But then you heard God Is My Co-Pilot, and it wasn’t even that they’re Jewish—not all of them are Jewish—but they were using Jewish culture and music and texts in a punk way. You could go to a punk show that wasn’t Jewish just because one of the people in the band happened to be Jewish, but you could actually hear a Jewish punk show, with Jewish content, that reflected your community. If you were a punk, you weren’t hanging out with only Jews, you were hanging out with punks. That was like me discovering klezmer. I didn’t change. I didn’t start doing only that. But I knew there was something about my people having a music also, and I can share that. You can fill in that with any type of thing, whether it was Arabic music, whether it was African music. I think that was the point about that explosion, about the audiences that gave all sorts of people a chance to explore their identity and their practice as Jews, until they found one where they really felt at home. That’s my guess about that.
How does Shlomo Carlebach fit into that?
He started as an insider. He’s not an outsider. He’s an insider who ended up getting kicked out or leaving. He knows nigunim. He knows nusach. He knows the traditions of Jewish music. He’s the real deal. Just like anyone who grows up in that community, he knows it. It’s there. But he’s looking outward as a person, and he sees the hippie movement and the world of the 1960s, and you can't separate that world from the music in it. The folk rock, whether it’s Crosby, Stills & Nash, or Joni Mitchell, or anything. Strumming guitars and all that stuff. He was aware, and he was older, too, so probably he goes back to Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. He’s aware of that, but he also knows nigunim. He’s not putting words to American songs. He’s taking Hasidic nigunim, and finds a way to translate traditional Hasidic nigunim in a way that’s aesthetically appealing to your basic middle American ear of the 1960s and 70s, who is listening to Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills & Nash. He simplifies them. He makes them very easy to learn. None of these long nigunim. None of these weird modes. He rarely writes in freygish, he does sometimes, but he also has a lot in major in minor. His form is mostly just two sections. Very singable. Very simple. Very direct. But they are truly nigunim. They are absolutely Hasidic nigunim, but they can be played with a guitar. But he’s an insider, and his tunes are somewhere between a simplification—it’s an aesthetic change of Hasidic nigunim that fit a certain ear, an American folk rock ear of the 1960s and ‘70s—and it’s totally Jewish. It’s real Jewish music. It’s totally coming out of the tradition.
Carlebach could not have done what he did without absolutely knowing Hasidic nigunim, and he didn’t change it that much. He just simplified it and changed it to an American palette. It’s like any restaurant with “ethnic” cuisine that moves to another country. They just cut down the spice level, throw in some sugar, and make it appealing to the American tastebuds. That’s what he did. It’s so smart. It’s so Jewish. It’s so Hasidic. I think that’s why they were so afraid of him. I think that’s why they kicked him out. Among other things, he scared them.
What’s next? What have you been up to during the pandemic?
The most important thing I’ve done lately, is new album coming out now called Ghetto Songs. That started with an exploration of the Venice Ghetto, which was the first ghetto in the world to be called a “ghetto.” That’s where the word comes from. I am sure it wasn’t the first ghetto in the world. I assume throughout history people have had a corner to stick the people they don’t like, but that’s where the word comes from. The Venice Ghetto celebrated its 500th anniversary a few years ago (1516). I explored the music from the Venice Ghetto, and then from there I went looking at all sorts of other ghettos. The Warsaw Ghetto. The Moroccan Jewish Ghetto called the Mellah. The favela, which are the poor and dark Brazilians. The townships in South Africa, where the blacks in South Africa were forced to live. And African-American ghettos. I created a program and recording of all these songs from Ghettos throughout time and place. It includes Yanky Lemmer, who’s my favorite cantor, Svetlana Kundish, who’s a Ukrainian Israeli German opera singer turned cantor and folk singer, and Karim Sulayman, who’s an expert in early music. It’s on Felmay Records.
I hope to release four albums during the pandemic year. There’s the Klezmatics’ avant-garde record, for a film installation, Letters to Afar. There’s the Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars' Rooftop Concert on Bandcamp. I want to rerelease my album Shekhina, which is my Nyabinghi Jewish record. Letters to Afar is home movies made in Poland in the interwar period by American Polish Jews who went back to Poland to visit their families. This is music we did for that.
I wrote a book of Klezmer Duets and I’ve been recording the duets and publishing them, and I am publishing that book. We’re working to get a new production of my Yiddish Cuban opera, HATUEY: Memory of Fire. Eleanor Reissa and I put together a new project called, We’re Still Here. It is songs of liberation and resistance, mostly based around the Holocaust period, but songs of social justice and resistance, and features an Indian percussionist, Deep Singh, and Brandon Seabrook, one of my favorite guitarists in the world.
I am sure there’s more…
If haven’t already done so, go here to read part one of this interview.
From The Archives: Let’s Tantz
The British klezmorim talk about their high-energy approach to the genre, and why that isn’t punk.
Go here to read the complete interview with Matt Holborn and Ben Danzig from Tantz.
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