Fleytmuzik / Farewell to the homeland: Poyln

Adrianne Greenbaum is one of the more special klezmorim making music today. A flautist who seems to mostly play these wonderful, muscular old-fashioned wooden flutes, she has changed my awareness of what flute music is. And, as the primary flautist playing Jewish music, she has opened doors around the world. In this new recording, her first in years, she gladdens hearts musically, and helps preserve the repertoire of the Frand family, musicians from Dubiecko, Poland

Sharon Frant Brooks reached out to the klezmer community several years ago with transcriptions she had preserved from her great-grandfather's band. I had the privilege of passing the material on to some musicians. Brooks reached Greenbaum directly. As Adrianne puts it in the liner notes, "seeing that this klezmer band was made up of strings and flute, I answered the call." The rest is beauty.

There was an original all-star concert in New Jersey, and then, incredibly, at the cemetery in Dubiecko. This CD represents a more recent concert, featuring an all-star band, back in Highland Park, NJ, including Michael Alpert, who not only contributes his fiddle playing, but his badkhones,. This is not your bubbe's flute music. Or, perhaps more true, this is your bubbe's flute music—not the more familiar metallic flute we are more used to hearing today. The music is also an older klezmer, representing not just familiar, Jewish sounding tunes, but a wide variety of popular music (e.g., "Chaskel's Caledonia Polka," "Gitel Sara's Waltz" and Sobotsky Quadrille"). This makes perfect sense, of course, to anyone who has attended a recent simkhe in which musicians play the wide variety of music that their audiences love, and aren't restricted by genre—sort of like today's wedding bands that mix klezmer, Israeli tunes, jazz, and American pop or rock music.

This recording is just beautiful. The suites have been arranged to evoke not just life in Poyln before the Holocaust, but also the boat trip to America, during which Sharon Frant Brooks' father was bar mitzvah'd (memorialized with a quick quote from "America the Beautiful" before Adrianne breaks into a more typical klezmer tune), a delightful "Tish Nign," and an especially poignant last suite, "Farewell and Remembrance" which includes, appropriately enough, Michał Ogiński's "Farewell to the Homeland." This is special. You'll be sharing it with everyone you know.

Reviewed by Ari Davidow, 25 August 2016.

Songs

At Keyder

1. Leibish's Nign 2:41
2. Moishe, Der Chusid 2:18
3. Betzalel's Bulgar at the Pump 2:19

Summer at the Kasnicki Estate

4. Sholem Aleichem! (Michael Alpert, Badkhn) 0:56
5. Gitel Sara's Waltz4:30
6. Sobotky Quadrille 2:29
7. Kolomejka 1:57
8. Chaskel's Caledonia Polka 2:54

Wedding on the Rynek

9. Moishe Marshaluk's Freylekhs 1:27
10. Op Tsu Spiln a Khosn 3:03
11. Badkhones 2:57
12. Leizor's Lekhayim 2:43
13. Ladies' Waltz 3:35
14. Frand Men's Mishmosh1:41

At the Fair

15. Vengerka 1:53
16. Civil Und Militair Polka Francai(s) 3:21
17. Itche Bas Freylekhs 1:41
18. Graize, Grajku, Graj! Play, Musician, Play! 3:51

Aron Kodeskh on the Wagon

19. Torchlight March to Dynow (Adrianne Greenbaum) 2:33
20. Tish Nigunim 2:41
21. Yisroel's Yikhes 1:56

אַמאריקע Amerike!

22. Bar Mitzve on the Boat 2:35
23. L'chu Neranena 6:47
24. Mazltov Michel Dovid! 1:44

Farewell and Remembrance

25. Farewell to the Homeland (Michał Kleofas Ogiński) 6:09
26. Al Hanism (Adrianne Greenbaum) 3:18
27. A Sheynem Dank 1:57
28. A Nay Lebn! 1:44

All compositions from the Frand Family Klezmorim transcripts, arranged by Fleytmuzik, except as specified.