FORTUNA (2 vinyls)

Description

AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND'S STUNNING KLEZMER: "FORTUNA" With its talented musicians, on stage, the AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND (AKB) is both energetic and poetic, enchanting international audiences. Their refreshing approach to Klezmer and Balkan music transcends traditional aspects to create a vibrant mix of Eastern European sounds. Their strength lies in their ability to attract a wide audience of all ages; they play in clubs as well as theaters, festivals, parties, and weddings. AKB can both ignite an audience and create pure listening pleasure through the brilliance of their playing. "More than twenty years after its beginnings on the streets of Amsterdam, the brass orchestra continues to swagger in a joyful mix of frenetic rock, dissonant blues, and cheeky Yiddish hip-hop." ---TÉLÉRAMA --- The Amsterdam Klezmer Band is a perfect synthesis of this new approach to klezmer: breaking with the tradition of excluding wind instruments and percussion, the group also incorporates diverse origins: klezmer and Balkan music, ska and jazz, gypsy and hip-hop. Their music is also a base for renowned DJs like C-Mon & Kypski or Shantel. In twenty-two years, the seven-member group has grown in global renown by mixing its own sound, shaking up the orthodoxy of the genre: a traditional Jewish chant can just as easily be accompanied by a rap or a sax solo. They are invited everywhere: from downtown cellars to renowned festivals and concert halls, in Europe as well as Brazil, Mexico, or South Korea. No matter if their music is played at the Sziget Festival, in Hong Kong, at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam's great classical hall, in Slovenian or Turkish bars, their rhythms always get audiences moving and dancing. The group's leader and saxophonist describes it as a mini brass band, composed of three wind instruments, percussion, bass, accordion, and a singer with a gravelly voice. When he launched the group in Amsterdam, a city where the klezmer tradition had disappeared in the early 1990s, he did not expect the warm reception that quickly led him to accumulate concert offers. From 1996, the official creation date, to 2001, he played street festivals until their famous concert in 2001 at the Groningen festival, which brought them notoriety and allowed them to secure contracts worldwide. In total, the group has performed nearly 1,000 shows and recorded eleven albums without ever losing its formidable energy, music of the street and for the many.