Description

Andy Williamson: sax & voice
Tom Deam: violin
Steve Dow: guitar
Tim Heming: clarinet & double bass

Andy Williamson writes:
I've loved Klezmer music before I knew that's what I was listening to. I can't really remember where I first heard it. My earliest recollection is watching 'Fiddler on the Roof' on TV one Christmas as a child in the 1970s, and recognising some of the music as based on something I'd heard before and liked. But I was sidetracked by the saxophone and jazz after being infected by Henry Mancini's Pink Panther theme. Every now and then, however, I would come across something that reminded me of this music that I'd always wanted to explore further. It happened in Egypt in my early 20s, hearing the amazing string sounds coming out of the radios wherever we went; not Klezmer at all, but it evoked something that reminded me. Then I landed in the Famous Spiegeltent in Edinburgh in 1999, playing silly jive with the Honkin' Hep Cats. Alongside us there that year, from Paris was The Orient Express Moving Schnorers, a bunch of fabulous jazz musicians playing music based on this thing that is Klezmer. For some reason unfathomable to me, they decided to change the band's name to 'Klezmer Nova' when they returned a few years later, playing the same great repertoire as they do still today, back in Paris. But what is 'Klezmer'?


Anyone who's ever learned to play an instrument will remember being introduced to minor scales, and usually at an early stage the difference between the 'harmonic' and 'melodic' minors. In the upper half of a harmonic minor, there is the huge gap between the 6th and 7th steps which immediately gives it an exotic 'eastern' flavour that conjures up Arabian souks or languid moments of pre-villainy in some of the early Bond movies. It's this minor third that gives Klezmer its signature sound, alongside other essential ingredients of course: driving rhythms over relatively simple harmonies, and simple, catchy tunes which have similar forms to folk music from all over the world. It's music for dancing, for celebrations. It's regarded as originating in the area of Eastern Europe which was Bessarabia, now the small country of Moldova, landlocked between Romania and Ukraine, and was played by Jewish musicians known as klezmorim.

Gustav Bensel (pictured) is my great-great-grandfather who avoided conscription into the Prussian army by going to sea. He's reputed to have jumped ship in Brazil and made his way eventually to Green Bay Wisconsin where his seven languages made him a successful grain buyer. When we created this band a few years ago to play gypsy jazz and klezmer, I needed a name and an image. His picture was to hand and I felt he would like to be brought back to life in this form. And so we are The Gustav Bensel Hot Club.

Description

Ashburton Arts Centre is a community-owned and run place where the arts of all kinds happen.

It opened in 2018 in the town's old Methodist Church. Come see world-class live music, theatre, etc plus local performers, classes and community events.

15 West Street,

Ashburton,

Devon,

England,

TQ13 7DT.

07980 680052