DAVID KRAKAUER

DAVID KRAKAUER
FEAT. KLEZMER MADNESS! AND SOCALLED
KRAKAUER LIVE IN KRAKOW (2004)
320 KBPS

New York-based clarinet virtuoso David Krakauer's reinvention of Jewish klezmer music continues with a live concert taped in his ancestral city of Krakow, Poland. However, while the artist's triumph at reclaiming a place that has haunted his life and work is palpable, the album inevitably documents highly combustible emotions. Whatever peace he has made with this town seems purchased at the cost of constant vigilance. After all, for many of Krakauer's forebears, the next stop was Auschwitz, and the mute remains of this notorious Nazi death camp are a mere hour's drive away. Krakauer has channeled over a half century of pain, survivors' guilt, and remembrance into his horn. In his compositions, folksy accordions are confronted by clubby beats, and borderline maudlin Eastern-European-inspired melodies explode into dissonant screams of terror. The passionate, courageous, implacable beauty of Krakauer's music continually acknowledges the black maw of history but utterly defies it.

1. Turntable Pounding
2. Gypsy Bulgar
3. Dusky Bulgar
4. Offering Nign
5. Klezmer à la Bechet
6. Naftule's Nussach
7. Love Song for Lemberg/Lvov
8. Alt (Dot) Klezmer
9. Waiting for Julian
10. Sirba
11. Sheryl Pounds the Table