Don Byron Spins the Dreidel (via Mickey Katz)

Here we are half-way through the Festival of Lights. As promised, here's this year's Chanukah post. While los amigos has featured Hanukkah hip hop, jazz, and klezmer in the past, we're going all Mickey Katz on the kandles this year.

Mickey Katz was a Borscht Belt comedian and superb clarinetist who played with Spike Jones (not Spike Jonze) in the 1940s. He later broke out on his own, performing Spike Jones inspired, klezmer infected, Yiddish parodies of popular songs. In addition to a slew of comedy and song parody albums, Katz also recorded a straight-up klezmer album in the 1950s: Simcha Time: Mickey Katz Plays Music For Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and Brisses.

Although a big fan of the Klezmer revival emerging out of San Francisco (Klezmorim), Boston (Klezmer Conservatory Band), and downtown NYC (Frank London and the Klezmatics), I'd never heard of Mickey Katz until I saw Don Byron perform a tribute to his klezmer music at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia back in 1992.

It was a fantastic show, made all the better by the diverse audience. About two-thirds of the crowd was what you'd expect: jazz fans and avant hipsters, most in their late 20s to late 30s, black and white. Your typical early 1990's Knitting Factory crowd. But the rest of the audience consisted of old school fans of Katz in their 60s and 70s, including a fair number of blue haired old Jewish women and men in dark suits or ugly sweaters, some of whom seemed, at least at first, a bit taken aback at the sight of the young, hip, dreadlocked Byron in Katz's clarinetist/leader role. Byron toyed with it a bit, peppering his remarks with hip hop references and street slang in a joking manner that helped pull the old folks in.

Don Byron, who studied at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music and played with the Klezmer Conservatory Band in the 1980s, put together a stellar band of downtown NYC avant jazz and klezmer musicians to perform his tribute to Mickey Katz, including los amigos favorite Dave Douglas (trumpet), Uri Caine (piano), Mark Feldman (violin), Josh Roseman (trombone), and the Klezmatic's Lorin Sklamber (vocals). A couple years later, Douglas became one-fourth of Zorn's Masada (see below). Feldman has played with numerous Zorn projects, as well as Douglas' Charms of the Night Sky.

In 1993, Byron released his tribute album Don Byron Plays Mickey Katz on Nonesuch. As Stuart Broomer notes, Byron "forg[es] links between black and Jewish outsider traditions . . . balanc[ing] contemporary musical interests with an archival re-creation of some spirited Yiddish comedy." It's a great album by one of the more inventive jazz musicians, and gifted clarinetists, around. For Chanukah, I've included Byron's interpretation of Katz's piece "Grandma's Dreidel," along with Katz's original track from Simcha Time.

Dreidel Song -- Don Byron: Plays Mickey Katz (1993)

Grandma's Dreidel -- Mickey Katz: Simcha Time (1956)

BONUS: Tonight and Friday, John Zorn played a Festival of Lights concert at the Abrons Art Center in in NYC, featuring tracks from Bar Kokhba. Here's a taste from Zorn's 2-Disc Masada Chamber Ensembles Bar Kokhba from 1996. Bar Kokhba took pieces from Zorn's Masada songbook and arranged them for a variety of small chamber ensembles, including strings. It's a fantastic part of the Masada collection, but I'm still partial to the Masada quartet (Zorn on sax, Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass, and on Joey Baron on drums). As I've said before, Zorn's Masada, the avant/free jazz group steeped in traditional klezmer/Eastern European Jewish folk melodies and middle eastern modalities, was one of, if not the best jazz quartet playing in the 1990s.

In keeping with the clarinet focused klezmer of Byron and Katz, here's a beautifully melancholy piece from Bar Kokhba, featuring David Krakauer on clarinet and Anthony Coleman on piano (note: the great Chris Speed also plays clarinet on Bar Kokhba).

Mahshav -- Masada Chamber Ensembles: Bar Kokhba (1996)

Happy Hanukkah. Have some latkes.
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