Broyt Vayn Fish - Live in the Small Synagogue, St. Petersburg

Ilya Gindin clarinet Evgeny Lizin percussion, xylophone Andrey Antonenko accordion These guys are far from being novices in the art of bringing the audience to a high degree of boiling emotion. They learned how to play klezmer not from instructional videos on the Web, but from lingering, rambunctious Hasidic weddings. During the Great American Depression, big orchestras dramatically lost weight and the brilliant Jewish musicians of the past were forced to create new minimalist lineups not inferior to the frenzied drive of the big bands of the roaring ’20s in New York. Echoes of restaurant dinners, local folk tunes adapted for urban family celebrations and wild ecstatic states caused by holiday spirit-raising libations: the music of newly formed trios recorded by very imperfect means of sound recording today sounds surprisingly timely, precise, and bright. Almost disappearing kind of art, revived with love and reverence. Bread, wine and fish are always in order, wherever you are, in a good restaurant with friends or in a conversation with a gray-haired sage interpreting sacred texts full of hidden meanings.