Casco Bay Tummlers, Portland, ME, Dec 15, 2007
Casco Bay Tummlers – klezmer concert
Saturday, Dec. 15th, 8pm
One Longfellow Square
$12
www.onelongfellowsquare.com
761-1757
Portland’s own Casco Bay Tummlers are renewing their tradition of doing a Chanukah season concert in Portland. The Tummlers will be appearing at One Longfellow Square, (formerly the Center for Cultural Exchange), on Saturday, December 15th at 8pm. In recent years, the Tummlers, whose primary focus is klezmer music, have been exploring some exciting improvisational music styles from countries such as Macedonia, Greece and Serbia. This concert will include some of that new material along with great klezmer standards, Yiddish swing, and outstanding Yiddish and Ladino vocals.
For those who are not familiar with them, the Casco Bay Tummlers have been performing klezmer music for over twenty years. They have entertained audiences from downeast Maine to Eastern Europe. The Tummlers have a unique sound and a stage performance that features all members of the band. Steve Gruverman brings an extensive background in ethnic dance music to his soulful clarinet playing. Carl Dimow has developed a unique klezmer flute style, making the instrument an equal solo voice in the music. Julie Goell has a rich background in theater and jazz that comes out both in her bass playing and in her vocal features. Nancy 3.Hoffman brings a playfulness which audiences love to both her accordion playing and her singing. Hayes Porterfield holds the band together with his wonderfully creative drumming which draws on jazz and improvisation.
The Tummlers have released three CD’s and have toured Europe a number of times playing festivals in Lithuania, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear this creative and entertaining band.
Press Quotes:
“Fun and frolic, but also pathos and yearning abound. This is emotionally charged music, played with abandon by musicians who are clearly comfortable with each other.” —Greater Boston Flute Association
"The Tummlers newest album, Journey, epitomizes neo-klezmer. The music exudes the sound of celebration. Soulful bursts of intense sound..... transport listeners through a range of emotions and experience." —Jewish Voice
Festival Concert review from newspaper Il Gazzetino, Italy
"The success of the first festival concert is attributed to the musicians who reminded a full and attentive audience that words wrung from instruments have no boundaries, as opposed to words from a dictionary. The words of the Casco Bay Tummlers, an ensemble of Americans from Maine who play Eastern European klezmer mixed with Dixieland, seem to be written on sheaves of paper borne on the wind, caressed by a guitar. Joined by rhythms of bass and drums, the words assume the drive of a train in motion, which, between the flight of a sparrow and the sound of bells ringing in the night, stopped abruptly in some station of a voyage without end." —Nicola Astolfi (translated from Italian)
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