Abraham Inc and the rebirth of klezmer
Hip hop producer Socalled, clarinettist David Krakauer and trombonist Fred Wesley have joined forces to create the funkiest klezmer band ever: Abraham Inc. On this week’s show, hear interviews with Socalled and David Krakauer, highlights from the Abraham Inc album, and a global tour of modern alternative approaches to traditional Jewish music – including an exclusive unreleased Socalled track.
Abraham Inc is a klezmer-funk supergroup, bringing together three unique talents:
* Socalled is a true hip hop pioneer. On albums like The Socalled Seder and Ghettoblaster, he has created an entirely new form of hip hop based primarily on klezmer, the traditional celebratory music of the Jewish shtetls of Eastern Europe. He is the subject of a new documentary film, The Socalled Movie, released in 2010.
* David Krakauer is a classically-trained master clarinettist, and one of the most important figures in the re-emergence of klezmer as a popular modern musical form. Formerly of New York’s neo-klezmer trailblazers The Klezmatics, Krakauer has gone on to increasingly push the boundaries of the genre, including with his band Klezmer Madness, which also featured Socalled.
* Fred Wesley is not a funk trombone player, he is the funk trombone player. As the late James Brown’s musical arranger and bandleader, and a central figure in the development of George Clinton’s Parliament, Fred Wesley is the sound of funk.
Together with a 6-piece band of funk, klezmer and hip hop musicians, they are Abraham Inc. In this edition of Radio Wave’s Friday Ripple, Socalled and David Krakauer talk funk, klezmer and matzah ball soup. The interview is streaming-on-demand now on the Radio Wave Jukebox; here’s the transcript:
Interview , Part 1:
The official Radio Wave/Abraham Inc summit of Fred Wesley fanboys
Socalled: Fred! Wesley! Like, I’m on the bus with him, I was listening to the JB’s in my head, I see his arm, and - like, it’s his arm! That’s the arm that made that thing! That incredibly classic best thing of all time. There’s that arm. It’s like seeing Picasso’s arm.
He’s basically a jazz snob and a frustrated jazz musician, in a way. I mean, he’s the king and godfather of funk, and funk is like – “Really? You want me to play the same thing over and over again? You want some inane little blues riff?” That’s sort of what he thinks of it. To him, real music is Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, and these amazing jazz soloists. To him, that’s the height of music. So I think he’s sort of this hilarious frustrated godfather. It’s a weird way to be, but you can tell he’s happy.
David Krakauer: The thing was, Socalled and I were in a hotel room, chilling, and we were thinking: okay, what could be the next step? We’re making this cool stuff, and bringing hip hop and klezmer together. What can we do, what’s the next step? And then Socalled said “What about... Fred Wesley?” And Fred Wesley’s, like, Socalled’s god, and my god, you know, we never thought that it would be possible.
And suddenly, just in that night, he mentioned that, and we both decided that it was gonna be possible. And we contacted Fred! I met him in New York, and we had a chat over a bowl of matzah ball soup in Carnegie Deli, this Jewish Deli, and we decided to try it. So in December of 2006, it was the Klezmer Madness concert at Carnegie Hall, we had Fred as guest, and we were like, ‘OK! This is working!’ And so we pursued really making an album out of it.
Interview, Part 2:
Moscowitz, and Loops of It
Socalled: Getting Fred Wesley was one thing. You know, a lot of people play with Fred Wesley, he’s guested on countless things, and he’s guesting on this too, it’s true – but! We do it all from the bottom up, everything is made by hand, together. It’s really shared, the whole process. It’s cool. It’s organic too, it’s just happening between, he does some s***, I do some s***, everybody does what they do best.
David Krakauer: Basically, we went into a studio, Socalled hit a beat, Fred started jamming with it, I started jamming with them, and then it was like, ‘Yeah! We’ve got some chemistry! This works!’ And then we did this tune Moskovitz and Loops of It, and -
Socalled: That’s a whole story.
David Krakauer: Moscowitz and Lupowitz. Joseph Moskowitz was a cimbalom player. But he opened a restaurant with a dude named Lupowitz, down on Rivington Street, probably in the early 1920s.
Socalled: Klezmer must’ve happened there, and crazy Romanian parties and whatever. Then I found
this tune by Joseph Moskowitz, the dude who opened the restaurant. It was a funky tune that he wrote, and it’s a cimbalom tune. So then I had this sample of this Romanian thing, in this A Minor situation. We have all that actually documented, of me first bringing you that beat, actually – cos I’d just made it, I thought it had potential. It was basically this: [scat intro to Moscowitz and Loops of it – if you want to hear the scats, listen to the show!]
When I was just beginning my whole situation as a gigging, sort of weird soloist, I’m in his apartment, and I think it’s f***ing cool to be in New York City, in this professional musician’s apartment, talking about a gig. It was crazy, at the time.
David Krakauer: So we wrote some riffs back and forth, we played thme, it was cool, we made Moskowitz and Loops of it. We went into the studio, made an album Bubbemeises, and that was at the heart of that repertoire.
Then we’re chilling – we’re with - f***ing Fred Wesley! We’re in a studio in New York City, and he’s like, ‘What the hell am I gonna do?’ We’re just like, ‘Listen to the riffs, we’ll play them for you.’ He was nervous about, like, “How can I adapt?” Cos these modes are not really normal modes. But beautiful melodies, he loved the melodies, it was crazy how he was totally into it. So we just played him the riffs [scat on clarinet riff]. Okay, that’s the first riff. And he went, “Alright, how about, like, [scat on trombone riff]”
Socalled: Yeah, exactly! It was f***ing cool.
David Krakauer: F***ing amazing. And then that night he actually made, harmonised a three-part harmony for these riffs.
Socalled: A five-part harmony! The bass, and the guitar parts, the written-out piano parts... Handed it out to the whole band. I’ve never seen such a thing in my entire life. Have you?
David Krakauer: No!
Socalled: Like, an arranging prowess. And Wesley’s like, “I don’t think this is gonna be very – I dunno, hit it!”
Check out the online show for the broadcast audio, with all the scats included, and with the swearing covered up by genuine Fred Wesley trombone notes.
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Elsewhere on the show
There’s more stuff from the Abe Inc boys, including a never-heard-before unreleased Socalled track: a booty rap (oh yes) called Sleepover (Booty Instant Replay) – watch out for a definitive version of this on a forthcoming Socalled release.
After that, there’s also a global tour of artists who are taking elements of traditional Jewish music and turning them into something completely contemporary. The full playlist is at the bottom of the page; here’s a short guide to some of the artists covered:
* Shetl Superstars
The 2006 compilation Shtetl Superstars: Funky Jewish Sounds from around the World remains the best overview of global trends in modern alternative interpretations of traditional Jewish music. It’s compiled by Yuriy Gurzhy, the Berlin-based Ukrainian frontman of RotFront, and Lemez Lovas from British klezmer-rock experimentalists Oi Va Voi.
The broadcast selection focuses on the hip hop side of the album, ranging from the comedic flow of Hip Hop Hoodios to the militant fury of Remedy from the Wu-Tang Killa Bees posse. Elsewhere on the mix, you’ll find tracks from Gurzhy’s and Lemez’s own bands.
* Living Legends
Mixing klezmer with contemporary music and creating something enormously funky is nothing new: Irving Fields has been doing it for decades. In the first half of the 20th Century, pianist and composer Fields saw his songs covered by some of the biggest international superstars of the era, from jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong to Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat. In 1959 Fields released Bagels and Bongos: a Latin-Jewish fusion album which, long before Socalled and Krakauer got funky, took traditional Jewish music to a much wider audience. Irving Fields is still writing and performing today. He guested on Socalled’s 2007 album Ghettoblaster, and, with a little encouragement from Socalled, became Youtube’s oldest viral video star the following year.
Alec Kopyt, from Odessa, Ukraine, is also one of a kind. He’s the last surviving singer of traditional Odessan-Jewish gangster ballads, and the keeper of an underground folk tradition stretching back for over a century. Kopyt’s influence on contemporary alternative music is easy to spot, since he’s the acknowledged idol of both Yuriy Gurzhy from RotFront, and Eugene Hutz from Gogol Bordello. Today based in Amsterdam, Kopyt records and performs solo, with the Amsterdam Klezmer Band, and with Poza.
* More transcultural crossovers
J.U.F. (Jüdisch-Ukrainische Freundschaft) is a 2004 collaboration between Ukrainian-American gypsy punks Gogol Bordello and the Israeli musical duo who would soon afterwards become Balkan Beat Box.
Terry Hall & Mushtaq is a collaboration project between the former Specials 2-Tone ska star and the producer of Asian-British hip hop crew Fun-Da-Mental; their 2003 album The Hour of Two Lights is a conscious attempt to create a new form of music drawing on both Jewish and Muslim musical traditions. You’ll find more transcultural crossovers in the mix from two Tel Aviv bands: Soulico working with Baltimore rapper Rye Rye, and Boom Pam together with Bucovina-German Balkanbeat producer Shantel.
* Alpha Blondy??
This is not a show about “musicians who are Jewish”: it’s a show about musicians for whom Jewish traditions of music and culture form a central part of their identity as artists. Consequently, Ivoirian reggae singer Alpha Blondy belongs in the mix.
As well as being one of Africa’s biggest reggae stars, Alpha Blondy follows a syncretic West African religion whose worship explicitly encompasses all three of the Abrahamic faiths. He is a scholar of Hebrew, and has released a number of songs in that language.
The track featured here, Jerusalem by Alpha Blondy and the Wailers (yes, those Wailers) is sung in Hebrew, Arabic, French and English, and comes from the 1986 album of the same name. Anyone interested in exploring other parts of Alpha Blondy’s music which reference the Judaic elements of his faith might also want to check out his 1998 album Yitzhak Rabin.
Before that, though: load up the Radio Wave Jukebox, select Friday Ripple on the programme menu, and click on the show title 23.07.2010. The full playlist looks like this:
Abraham Inc - Tweet Tweet (Table Pounding Records)
Abraham Inc - Baleboste (A Beautiful Picture) (Table Pounding Records)
Abraham Inc - Abe Inc Techno Mix (Table Pounding Records)
Abraham Inc - Moscowitz Remix (Table Pounding Records)
David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness - Rumania, Rumania (Label Bleu)
The Klezmatics - Man In A Hat (Flying Fish)
Socalled - Sleepover (Booty Instant Replay) (demo version 2010 - unreleased)
Socalled - (These Are The) Good Old Days (JDub)
Irving Fields Trio - Mama's Mombo (Decca)
Louis Armstrong – Cheesecake (Chacra Music)
Balkan Beat Box - Move It (Nat Geo Music/Crammed Discs)
Soulico - Exotic On The Speaker Ft. Rye Rye (JDub)
Oi Va Voi - Every Time (Oi Va Voi Recordings)
RotFront – Klezmerton (Essay Recordings)
Amsterdam Klezmer Band - Immigrant Song (Yuriy Gurzhy remix) (Trikont)
Remedy - Never Again (Trikont)
Hip Hop Hoodios - Havana Nagila (Trikont)
Klezmerson – Impaciencia (JM)
Alec Kopyt – Tramvay (Trikont)
J.U.F. - Onto Transmigration (Stinky Records)
Matisyahu - One Day (Epic)
Alpha Blondy & the Wailers – Jerusalem (Stern’s Africa)
Terry Hall & Mushtaq - Ten Eleven (Astralwerks)
Shantel vs Boom Pam – Bucovina (Koshernostra mix) (Nat Geo Music)
