{"id":4609,"date":"2011-10-31T08:15:38","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T15:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4609"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:10:25","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:10:25","slug":"adjunct-and-emeritus-profs-make-toe-tapping-music-on-their-bands-latest-cd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4609","title":{"rendered":"Adjunct and emeritus profs make toe-tapping music on their band\u2019s latest CD"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Ed Goldberg. Photo (c) David Benjamin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although it\u2019s been played for centuries, klezmer music can escape definition. Not for Ed Goldberg<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cJewish soul\u201d is how the adjunct computer science professor and leader of the Odessa Klezmer Band describes the celebratory, instrumental dance music that originated in Eastern Europe and is enjoying a resurgence in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe roots of klezmer go through many different countries, but the music has a common thread of Jewishness to it,\u201d said Goldberg, who said he grew up listening to it. \u201cIt\u2019s in my system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goldberg\u2019s band, which features Professor Emeritus Robert Mehlman<\/strong> on clarinet, has been making audiences hetsken zich <\/em>for more than 20 years, playing klezmer favorites as well as Eastern European, Latino, and Middle Eastern tunes. The band\u2019s new CD, Live at Jazz Vespers<\/em>, features everything from freilachs to polkas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really gives you an idea of the breadth of the band and the kind of stuff we play live,\u201d said Mehlman.<\/p>\n

Goldberg said he was exposed to a wide variety of musical genres, particularly klezmer, while growing up. The quadruple-instrument threat\u2014he plays piano, bass, vibes, and accordion\u2014began performing professionally in high school, and since then has toured with numerous bands, played on more than 150 albums, won a Grammy, and appeared at Carnegie Hall five times. He joined Odessa in 1984, taking over the reins when the original leader left a few years later\u00a0 \u201cI kept it going, never knowing where it would lead,\u201d he said. Twenty years later, the group plays weekly shows across the tri-state region and sells CDs to fans as far away as Asia.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Robert Mehlman. Photo (c) Jerry Goldberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A serendipitous computer problem brought Mehlman into the fold 12 years ago. When his office desktop crashed, the tech who came to fix it happened to be Goldberg\u2019s daughter, Sharon. \u201cShe needed my password, which happened to be klezmer related,\u201d recalled Mehlman. \u201cShe mentioned her father had a klezmer band and asked what instrument I played. I said, \u2018Clarinet,\u2019and she said, \u2018my dad is looking for a clarinetist. You should call him.\u2019\u201d Mehlman did, and Goldberg invited him to sit in on that afternoon\u2019s gig. \u201cI went there, we rehearsed for 15 minutes, and then went on stage. We\u2019ve been playing together ever since,\u201d said Mehlman.<\/p>\n

Like Goldberg, Mehlman has been a fan of klezmer since childhood, and said he recalls listening to it on WEVD, an old Yiddish station, every time he visited his grandparents. He took up the clarinet at age 6 and played throughout high school (even sharing the stage with classmate and fellow clarinetist Allen Konigsberg, better known today as Woody Allen), college, and a stint in the army. He stopped performing for 25 years after being discharged, but eventually returned and has since played with two international groups.<\/p>\n

The uncle who trained Mehlman as a classical clarinetist didn\u2019t want his pupil playing klezmer. \u201cHe called it \u2018cheap music,\u2019\u201d the retired English and counseling professor recalled. \u201cKlezmer<\/em> was once a derogatory term. If your daughter was going out with a klezmer, that meant she was going out with a bum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, Mehlman\u2019s contributions are the key to Odessa\u2019s klezmer sound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clarinet gives the quirks, the different inflections, the in-between tones\u2014that\u2019s what makes klezmer music,\u201d said Goldberg. \u201cWithout Bob, we\u2019d just be a bunch of musicians playing Jewish music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two are equally excited about the band\u2019s new CD, which was recorded during a show in Cape May, New Jersey. \u201cEvery once in a while, one of those evenings catches fire and everybody is on the same wavelength,\u201d said Mehlman. \u201cIt was a memorable concert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to visit Odessa Klezmer Band’s website and listen to samples of their music. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Goldberg’s Odessa Klezmer Band, which features Robert Mehlman on clarinet, has been making audiences “hetsken zich” for more than two decades. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,48,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","category-november-2011","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}