The Klezmatics

The Klezmatics: 40 Years of Revolutionary Joy

by Steven Roby
December 12, 2025

In this episode of Backstage Bay Area, host Steven Roby sits down with Frank London, trumpeter and founding member of the Grammy Award-winning band The Klezmatics. For four decades, The Klezmatics have been the world's leading voice in blending traditional Yiddish roots with the energy of punk, jazz, and gospel. Frank shares stories from the band's origins in New York's gritty East Village scene of the 1980s and discusses their landmark collaboration with the Woody Guthrie estate--a project ...

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Album Review

The Klezmatics: Brother Moses Smote The Water

Read "Brother Moses Smote The Water" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 7, 2005

On its first live disc this alt-klezmer band chooses to celebrate the theme of liberation from bondage, but not only in the strict Jewish context or heritage, usually focused around the Passover and the story of Exodus, the liberation from slavery in Egypt. The Klezmatics, together with black Jewish gospel singer Joshua Nelson, find inspiration in the freedom songs and spirituals from the African-American tradition that celebrate the struggle for emancipation during the American Civil War and the Civil Rights ...