A Dynamic, Tuneful, Mysterious New Album and Two NYC Shows by the Yiddish Art Trio

by delarue

At their most somber, the Yiddish Art Trio take otherworldly cantorial and Jewish folk themes and add a jolt of 21st century energy. Their quieter songs come across as sort of a less deliberately obscure take on the kind of material on the legendary Darkcho album. Their more upbeat repertoire reaches toward Ichka‘s energetic klezmer jazz, although this trio stick more closely to the songs’ folk roots. And unlike the mystery crew on the Darkcho album, you can actually see the members of the Yiddish Art Trio on tour this coming January. The three – clarinetist Michael Winograd, bassist/frontman Benjy Fox-Rosen and accordionist Patrick Farrell – rank among the world’s elite players in the thriving Jewish music demimonde, and also have a pair of NYC shows coming up. For those who’d prefer a lively small club atmosphere, they’re at Cornelia St. Cafe on Dec 17 at 6 (six) PM; cover is $8 and includes a drink! For those who prefer a more rapturous sonic experience, the group are playing the album release show for their new one – streaming at Bandcamp – at the gorgeously restored Eldridge Street Synagogue Museum (just north of Division; B/D to Grand St.) on Dec 21 at 7 PM; cover is $20/$15 stud/srs.

The album’s opening track is a diptych, Fox-Rosen’s spacious bass and low-key, heartfelt vocals giving way to Farrell’s balmy, lingering atmospherics, then it morphs into a wistful ballad. Farrell’s long, trilling crescendo fuels the second track’s upward flight, followed by another Farrell original, a brisky, bouncy sher dance with a long, sailing Winograd solo.

Track four reverts to pensive, spacious, distantly angst-fueled ballad mode; the group follows that with a lively, catchy, jazz-infused waltz by Winograd, Zhok’s on Me. Guilt, another Winograd composition, pairs his wary, airy lines with dark, full-throttle washes from Farrell’s accordion, evoking the majesty of a classical organ prelude. Fox-Rosen follows that with another terse, uneasy, suspensefully paced vocal number.

The triptych Seven Months Away from My Home begins as a lushly moody waltz, transforms into a deliciously vertiginous, swaying terkisher dance with a rippling Winograd solo and winds out as a biting freylekh romp written by Farrell. The album’s most epic track, Aza Freyd begins with atmospheric washes over Fox-Rosen’s minimalistically plucked bass and rises to a joyous waltz theme on the wings of Winograd’s elegantly trilling clarinet. The album winds up with a slow, bucolic number that grows unexpectedly somber, and then a whimsical hasidic tune. You don’t have to speak Yiddish, or for that matter, to be Jewish to enjoy these colorful and intriguing songs – although it helps.