Yale Strom Klezmer Artist

I rarely feel compelled to publicly express an opinion of a personal experience but I feel the urge to do so now, after last night’s performance by Yale Strom and Hot P’strami at the Lyceum Theater in San Diego. Though I grew up in an immigrant European Jewish home I had very little experience with traditional Jewish music and wasn’t aware of Klezmer music until, as an adult, I attended a small party in an old L.A loft. A band there produced music that I found familiar and foreign, joyous and melancholy, sounds that mysteriously and unexpectedly produced a sense of connection to my roots, a revelation. Some years later I attended a presentation of Carpati, a film by Yale Strom that involves the Carpathian mountain region that my family is from. After the film was shown, Yale played his violin. I enjoyed both the film and the music and remember wishing that Yale had played more. About a dozen years have past and I had an opportunity recently to hear Yale and his band at a folk music festival. The performance was terrific and it ultimately led me to acquire some recordings of his music and suggest to some friends that we attend his performance at the 8th Annual Klezmer Summit. The evening started well with a rousing performance by Klezmer Juice a Latin influenced band out of L.A. After an intermission it was time for Yale and his band. At first I was surprised that the percussion instruments on the stage were Caribbean in origin and as the musicians made their appearance I was slightly disappointed that the accordion that produced such interesting riffs on many of the recordings was not among the instruments. But then the music started and the rest is hard to describe. I was tremendously impressed with each and every musician’s ability and contribution to the whole. Their solos were terrific displays of musicianship and they combined to produce a complex blending of sound that evoked a wide range of emotions. In the constraints of theater seating I found my toes taping furiously to the beat I caught myself smiling non-stop throughout the performance but I also felt my throat constrict at times during sorrowful passages. At the core of all of this were the incredible evocative virtuosity of Yale’s fiddle playing and the amazing richness of Elizabeth Schwartz’s voice. Yale produced sounds that I had never heard produced by anything like a violin and he played with such clarity, inventiveness and technical proficiency that its hard to come up with the appropriate superlatives but breathtaking is a good hint. And Elizabeth, WOW, with a voice that could tear your heart out. A big voice that is capable of the most delicate tenderness, full bore earthiness, sultry and sexy and the anguish that I heard in my mothers voice when she described family members who had perished. What a performance, I was moved and thinking about it hours later. Yale, Elizabeth and the other wonderful musicians that comprise Hot P’stromi produced for me the most significant musical experience since I was fortunate enough to see and hear Janis Joplin, Jimmie Hendrix and John Mayall at Winterland in San Francisco nearly forty years ago. That’s saying something as far as I’m concerned.