ORIENT EXPRESS MOVING SHNORERS
Klezmer Nova
Universal
· Polished avant-folk performance from France.
From a global perspective, the musical quality we call "soul", which found its most powerful and immediate expression in Black American pop of the 1960s, seems more appropriately identified with Arab vocal music, surfacing pretty much everywhere that tradition went, from Spain to Inner Mongolia, and from the Balkans to Kashmir.
So it's not that surprising to find a strange reflection of classic jazz in the klezmer music of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews – there is a common musical heritage, rejuvenated after the Second World War by a more direct influence.
Although its quiet improvisations can be heartbreakingly beautiful, it's the party music that has made klezmer commercially viable in North America, a stand-in for the big band sounds that serious jazz performers now seem to find infra dig. The French variety is smoother than the earthier New York recordings, and despite their name, the Moving Shnorers are as polished as a classical ensemble – the only surprise here is a slightly avant-garde setting of the religious "Haneros Hanelou." A fine recording, but covering too narrow an emotional range to be definitive.
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