In the late s, David Krakauer got his first taste of klezmer. When we came, we were these American Jews coming to play in Europe. We were seen as representatives of tolerance and multiculturalism without waving a flag, without getting up on a soapbox. We could be very political, but not in a didactic way. Following a seven-year run with the Klezmatics, Krakauer launched a string successful solo projects and collaborations, which include his bands Klezmer Madness and Ancestral Grooves; his ongoing association with Canadian beat maker and producer, Socalled; his compositions, recordings, and looping experiments with pianist Kathleen Tagg; numerous multimedia projects; and even a long-running genre-smashing ensemble with—wait for it—funk legend Fred Wesley.
We convened a full band, had a rehearsal the next day, and that was it, Abraham Inc. A month later we went into Zankel Hall, at Carnage Hall, and did our first gig. I spoke with Krakauer from his home in New York, and we talked about his long, roundabout journey to klezmer, trading solos with violinist Itzhak Perlman, the—once you hear it—obvious reason he thinks klezmer and funk fit naturally together, and how being a klezmer musician is part of his greater Jewish journey. My late mom was a classical violinist.
She had studied with one of the great violin teachers, Ivan Galamian. She was on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music in the prep department and also in the extension division.
She played chamber music and a did a bunch of things like that. She stopped playing to raise me and my sister, but when we were teenagers, she got back into music and mostly had a career as a teacher. But she did some chamber music, and had a couple of chamber music partners that she worked with. I was 10 years old, and I had the opportunity to study in my elementary school. You ought to play the clarinet or the flute. Also, my parents left recordings around the house. When I was 11 years old, I got a gift of a recording by Sidney Bechet.
I want to play music. It was called the High School of Music and Art. I think it was called the LaGuardia—there were two LaGuardia high schools, one was on 46 Street in the theater district, and the one I went to was in Harlem, on and Convent Avenue. I was a kid playing the clarinet, I went to high school, and Anthony was a full-fledged composer.
