Description: Shpil offers an expansive history of klezmer, from its medieval origins through the present era. Individual chapters concentrate on the most common instruments found in a typical klezmer ensemble: violin, clarinet, accordion, bass, percussion, and even voice. Contributors incl...
Brief description: Yale Strom is one of the world's leading ethnographers of klezmer culture. He has been doing field research in Central and Eastern Europe on the topic since 1981.
Review Quotes: Shpil is Strom's latest book on klezmer. In less than 30 pages of the book's opening, he gives an almost breathless history of Jewish music, from its earliest mentions in the Bible through the 1990s. The tour includes the fall of the Temple in the first century, the empires of the Ottomans, Russia, and Austro-Hungary, U.S. labor and immigration history, the development of the Borscht Belt in New York's Catskills, World War II, and the Nazi Holocaust through the recordings and performances of Mickey Katz and Don Byron. Carlos Santana even gets a mention....In its 153 pages Shpil could not possibly contain all that one might want to know about klezmer or its performance. But with its densely packed chapters, it provides a perfect place to start in understanding and playing this most joyous and wonderful music.