A Fresh Take on Klezmer Music

Add Kol Simcha to the crest of the new wave of klezmer music.

And what is Kol Simcha? A Swiss group that is well known in Europe and fully deserving of similar attention in this country. Its performance at Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium on Saturday was an impressive display of virtuosic music-making, at least as accomplished as the work of such cutting-edge ensembles as the Klezmatics, the Klezmer Conservatory Band and the groups led by Andy Statman and Don Byron.

Kol Simcha’s instrumentation is somewhat unusual--clarinet, piano, bass and drums, with flute replacing the more typical violin. But the group nonetheless covered the traditional klezmer elements with ease: vigorous, foot-tapping hora rhythms, poignant Eastern European melodies, and music themes that embraced elements from every part of Europe and Central Asia.

Tradition, however, represented only one aspect of Kol Simcha’s extraordinary presentation. In one lengthy klezmer suite composed by pianist Oliver Truan, the music dipped through classical timbre that were juxtaposed, often with startling suddenness, against high-flying improvisations from clarinetist Michael Heitzler. Another piece transformed a sprightly traditional melody into a surge of rhythm and jazz improvisation that was closer to Coltrane than klezmer.