Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi

Over the past several decades, violinist Yale Strom has released a flood of CDs, films and books that present a unique historical view of Eastern European Jewish music. Based largely on his seventy ethnomusicological visits to the region, he paints a picture of a pre-WWII shtetl music scene in which Gypsy (Rom) and Jewish musicians slipped in and out of each other’s traveling bands. This porous cultural musical exchange resulted in many of the tunes on Borsht with Bread Brothers.
Strom’s band, Hot Pstromi, includes an interesting mix of jazz/world musicians like Klezmatics founding drummer David Licht, accordionist Peter Stan (Slavic Soul Party) and clarinetist/saxophonist Norbert Stachel (Tower of Power). Vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz displays a wonderful appreciation for the nuances inherent in the interpretations of this music. Her mastery of the ornamentations is superb on selections like the movingly ethereal Hungarian Jewish folk song “Szol a Kakas Mar (The Rooster Crows Already)” and an extended version of the Czarist protest song “Vemen Veln Mir Dinen, Brider (Whom Shall We Serve Brothers?). She also gives an inspired performance of “Ver es Keseyder Tseyln (Who Can Count in Order?) that wonderfully portrays both the cantorial and badkhen (wedding jester rhymer) underpinnings to this music.
Strom’s fiddle, Stachel’s clarinet and Stan’s accordion likewise authentically interpret, what for the most part are simple folk tunes, in ways that beautifully expose the emotional depth behind the melodies. Strom showcases his extensive knowledge base in both song selection and the precisely written liner notes. Songs drawn from his travels in the Ukraine, Slovakia, Belarus, Germany, Russia, Poland, Romania and Moldova are skillfully described with lyrics presented in both Yiddish and English. Borsht with Bread Brothers is a wonderful compendium of heartfelt cultural music.
- All About Jazz

Music from the Borscht Belt through the filter of filmmaker/composer/writer and violinist Yale Strom. Smitten by Klezmer music at a party one night, Strom gave up law school to form his own Klezmer band and travel to Eastern Europe to document Jewish and Gypsy (Rom) folk music. The revival gathers nearly extinct tunes from Hungary, Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, Germany and Slovakia, in some cases, as remembered by Rom musicians. There’s also a Russian Czarist military tune (Vemen Veln Mir Dinen, Brider), a Polish cantorial-style song (Ki Onu Amekho) and a kind of klezmer square-dance popular in Belarus (Stoliner Shers). With vocals by the soulful Elizabeth Schwartz. Charlie Fidelman, CanWest News Service - CanWest News Service

For those unfamiliar with the tradition, myself included, Klezmer music is a form of instrumental music that began as "folk dance and virtuosic display music among the Ashkenazic Jews in Europe". Over the years, vocals and influences from surrounding cultures found their way into the mix. Composer/violinist extraordinaire Yale Strom's music builds on the foundation of Klezmer melodies and song structures, adds Yiddish American vocals and blends them with contemporary themes. Don't take that to mean this work is a bastard mix like Peter Gabriel's l (for some reason, Gabriel thinks that his Fairlight synthesizer improves on thousand-year old cultures); the arrangements are true to their roots, never devolving into cliché or copping out by relying on Western ideas to please American audiences -- except on the mysteriously sax-y blues of "Ten Plagues". This also isn't anything you see in movies, where the dance floor explodes with yarmulke-clad men, kicking and shouting while grandma pinches butts of young passers-by. Well, it might be able to pass for the latter, but you'd more likely hear this on the Baraka soundtrack than in something involving the words "Big", "Fat", "Jewish" and "Wedding".
To use the word "virtuosic" is probably an understatement for a large majority of these works, as Strom and his fellow musicians are indeed the Paganinis and Coltranes of this genre. However, they keep it tasteful, never bragging, and use their talents as an expression of their souls. "Hora din Caval", based partially on a Romanian folk melody and realized on classical guitar, demonstrates a flowing structure that's both natural and hummable, but would make Villa Lobos raise an eyebrow in admiration. "L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin!" shows this crew's ability to jump back and forth between folk dance and military-style choir, then blend the two naturally without missing a beat.
It's a distant land, but Strom closes the gap and helps you live these musical traditions as if you were there yourself.
- Global Rhythm Magazine

For over 20 years, Yale Strom has been at the forefront of the klezmer revival as a performer and bandleader as well as a documentary filmmaker, lecturer and photographer…. Garden of Yidn [is] Strom’s most fully realized effort to date, and a landmark in modern Yiddish song… The stellar cast of folk and jazz musicians are sympathetic instrumentalists who serve the song and the singer. The revelation of the album, however, is vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz. Heard here on recording for the first time, Schwartz boasts a deep, dark, rich vocal instrument, with enough versatility to pull off an Arabic taksim (a wordless melismatic improvisation), a cantorial wedding blessing, and a jazz waltz version of “Moscow Nights.” For the final number, a Gypsy-influenced doina, Schwartz reclaims the free-metered, improvisational lament – long favored by klezmer violinists and clarinetists – for the singer, in whom its origin lies. Schwartz channels her wide-ranging background in musical theater, blues, rock and jazz into a vivid, contemporary Yiddish idiom that needs no translation - Sing Out! Magazine

Daily Disc: Borsht with Bread, ¬Brothers
Posted: November 30, 2007, 1:45 PM by Ian McKellar
Daily Disc
Borsht with Bread, ¬Brothers,
Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi
ARC Music / Fusion III

Music from the Borscht Belt through the filter of filmmaker/composer/writer and violinist Yale Strom. Smitten by Klezmer music at a party one night, Strom gave up law school to form his own Klezmer band and travel to Eastern Europe to document Jewish and Gypsy (Rom) folk music. The revival gathers nearly extinct tunes from Hungary, Ukraine, Moldavia, Romania, Germany and Slovakia, in some cases, as remembered by Rom musicians. There’s also a Russian Czarist military tune (Vemen Veln Mir Dinen, Brider), a Polish cantorial-style song (Ki Onu Amekho) and a kind of klezmer square-dance popular in Belarus (Stoliner Shers). With vocals by the soulful Elizabeth Schwartz. Charlie Fidelman, CanWest News Service
- CanWest News Service

Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi: Borsht with Bread, Brothers/Klezmer
Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Spring, 2008 by Mike Regenstreif
YALE STROM AND HOT PSTROMI
Borsht with Bread, Brothers / Klezmer
ARC Music 2102
Much of the music now associated with the klezmer revival is based on source recordings made by first generation immigrant musicians who arrived in the Americas in the early decades of the 20th Century and became recording and performing artists. Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras are probably the best known examples of those early klezmer stars. However, violinist Yale Strom and his band Hot Pstromi have taken a different direction on this intense and riveting CD, playing tunes and songs Strom has collected from the largely unknown Jewish and Roma musicians he's encountered on collecting trips to Eastern Europe since 1981.
Jewish and Roma musicians often interacted with each other in the pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe of the 19th and 20th centuries, exchanging tunes, playing in each other's bands, etc. and both Jewish and Roma traditions run through much of this CD. So, too, do the various regional musical styles from the different areas of Eastern Europe that these selections came from. And, of course, another factor at play here is the awesome virtuosity and versatility of the various musicians in Hot Pstromi: guitarist Fred Benedetti; David Licht, a former Klezmatic, on percussion; bassists Jeff Pekarek and Sprocket Royer; reed players Tripp Sprague and Norbert Staehel; accordionist Peter Stan; and vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz.
Picking favorite tracks from the dozen here is almost impossible, but I'll call special attention to "Stol A Kakos Mar," a Hasidic song from Hungary sung in Hungarian and Hebrew, with a vocal performance from Schwartz and perfect accompaniment from the band, that almost reminds me of Edith Piaf at her best. Another that must be singled out is "Vemen Veln Mir Dinen, Brider," a Yiddish protest song that laments being forced to serve in the czar's army. This is a very special klezmer album.--MR
- Sing Out! Magazine

Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi, Borsht with Bread, Brothers
ARC Music EUCD2102
Full Price (76 mins)
****
Old World influences for the new klezmer century

After 15 years of reviewing Jewish music, my principal complaint about new recordings of klezmer and klezmer-influenced music is the narrowness of the repertoire. How many times can you listen to “Firn di Mekhotonim Aheym” again? Happily that is never a problem with Yale Strom’s CDs. Strom has done so much fieldwork in Eastern Europe that he has published a songbook with over 300 tunes, many previously uncollected. And his latest recording showcases a dozen unfamiliar songs nicely done.
Strom is one of many klezmer musicians who have recently looked backward to the Old World for a new sound, based around the delicate balance of violin and tsimbl, but he replaces the latter with guitar, evocatively played here by Fred Benedetti, and he also retains one horn in his line-up, usually played by multi-instrumentalist Norbert Stachel. As a result, the sound is something of a hybrid of the folkloric sounds of the East European klezmorim and the American version with its popular music influences ranging from ragtime to swing. It’s an appealing amalgam that reaches its fullest fruition in a number like “Szol a Kakos Mar” (When the Rooster Crows), a Hungarian tune favoured by the local Hasidim; that number is heated up by a fleet accordion solo by Peter Stan, whose comping behind the other players is also deft, and a smouldering vocal by Elizabeth Schwartz. A thoroughly refreshing recording from Strom and co, although one wishes for more of Schwartz’s singing.

George Robinson
- Songlines Magazine UK