I wish there were a sequel or three
This is one of those albums that you just end up being really glad you bought. It has everything, from the upbeat danceable tunes, to the slower, creepy, moody cymbalon-dominated tunes.

Occasionally there is some bass and percussion on this disc, but for the most part it is just clarinet and cymbalon. Cymbalon being a hammered-dulcimer (basically the santoor of northern India, santur of Iran, etc...). There are also two tracks with Statman on mandolin, and one solo cymbalon track.

Whether you're an established fan, or just looking for your first Jewish cd, this is an excellent choice either way. I would even say that I think this is a better first choice than some of the legendary masters' albums, such as Tarras and Brandwein, if for no other reason than this disc has very good recording quality and also the presence of the cymbalon. Maybe it's just me, but the cymbalon is one of the coolest sounding instruments anywhere. Just amazing tone, and Zev Feldman is a fantastic player. If he released a bunch more discs, I would certainly own a bunch more discs by him.

Whether on the stereo or in the car, this is a cd with which you'll fall in love.

Early Statman from the early days of the klezmer revival
I checked this CD out of my small-town Midwestern library because it was the only klezmer album they had listed, and I was curious to see what my gentile farmer neighbors were being exposed to as "typical Jewish music." Well, if you were going to pick only one CD to represent klezmer, then this would definitely be a good choice.

The library's catalog description didn't tell me anything about the performers (not even their names), so I was doubly pleased to find out that the album was recorded by Zev Feldman and Andy Statman. This is a re-release of an early CD they did back in 1980, when the current klezmer revival was just getting started. At that time, many Jews of the younger generation had never been exposed to this music, and the gentile world was largely unaware it existed. This album was instrumental (pun intended) in setting a very high standard for klezmer performance, and it`s still a real mechayah (pleasure) to listen to today. Now that I have to give the library copy back, I want one for myself!

CLASSIC KLEZMER AT ITS FINEST
When this album first came out in 1980, the Yiddish Klezmer Music Revival was still in its infancy. Up until then, most young Jewish folk musicians, myself included, had been playing everyone else's traditional music but our own. For us, Jewish music meant the hokey stuff like "Hava Na'gila" played at Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, in between schlocky renditions of contemporary pop standards. Definitely uncool.

Then along came guys like Andy Statman and Zev Feldman, who pioneered the movement to rediscover and revive klezmer-- the traditional instrumental/dance music of Yiddish-speaking Eastern-European Jewry. Like proper ethnomusicologists, the first wave of the Klezmer Revival embarked on scientific field research... not in some exotic, foreign land but, rather, in their own backyard. In their own community, these young Jewish musicians and scholars sought out the rapidly decreasing handful of "alter klezmorim", the last living practioners and bearers of a once vibrant musical tradition. They rummaged through stacks of old 78 rpm records to find the musical rosetta stones that would make this nearly extinct music form comprehensible to ears unfamiliar with the "krechtz" (moans and groans)of a wailing clarinet or fiddle playing a soulful doina or a foot-stomping freilach played by a kapelye (klezmer ensemble) at full throttle. The success of this spade work is evident in the current popularity of klezmer music and proliferation of klezmer bands around the world.

From the get-go, the prevailing trend in the Revival has been the "Big-Band Sound," developed by early Revival groups such as the Klezmorim on the West Coast and Klezmer Conservatory Band of Boston. This approach features the clarinet supported mostly by modern Big Band instruments, in an effort to recreate the klezmer orchestras that recorded in the early 1900s on through the 1930s.

In sharp contrast, Andy Statman and Zev Feldman offer us an older form of klezmer, which typically tended towards smaller ensembles that were similiar in instrumentation to the local non-Jewish fiddle-led string bands (in fact, non-Jewish musicians, especially Gypsies, often played in klezmer kapelyes). Here the featured instruments are clarinet and tsimbl (hammered dulcimer) with bowed bass accompaiment. Andy Statman, a renowned bluegrass mandolin player before he caught the klezmer bug, does pull out the ol' eight string for some incredible picking on two beautiful cuts, The Bride's Waltz, and Gypsy Hora & Sirba.

Every cut on this CD is a gem. The wonderful music is supported by well-researched, well-written liner notes by Zev Feldman, who is a noted authority on not only klezmer but also on Eastern-European, Balkan and Near-Eastern traditional music forms.

On a personal note, I had the privilege of seeing these guys in concert several times in the early 1980s and it was this album that first drew me into klezmer music so many years ago. I nearly wore out the LP from repeated playing, so I'm glad to finally have it on CD.

To sum up my long review: this album is a me'chai'ye (wonderous thing)... grab it!