Rocking and rolling down the Dnieper River
This is the second in a three-part series on Jewish Ukraine.
By Lorne Mallin
Some of the world's finest Jewish musicians sailed on the first Klezmer Heritage Cruise this spring. The lounges of the Dnieper Princess and the concert halls of Ukraine rang with the sounds of such renowns as David Krakauer, Michael Alpert, Guy Schalom, Alex Kontorovich, Bob Cohen, Vanya Zhuk, Eric Stein and Josh Dolgin, also known as DJ Socalled.
But they all paid homage to a short, dapper 86-year-old singer with a shock of white hair and twinkling eyes, who came aboard when the boat docked in Zaporozhye, about 700 kilometres downriver from Kiev.
Arkady Gendler was a hit from the moment he began entertaining us with his bottomless repertoire of Yiddish songs.
"He is a true treasure and I feel uniquely privileged to have had the opportunity to hang out and play with him during the cruise," said Stein, a bass and mandolin player who is also artistic director of Toronto's Ashkenaz Festival. Stein is bringing his great band Beyond the Pale to the Norman Rothstein Theatre for a concert on July 12.
The 10th child of his family, Gendler was born in 1921 in Soroca, then part of Romania, now part of Moldova on the border with Ukraine, in the area known as Bessarabia.
"As far as I can remember, my father, my mother, all my siblings, everyone sang Yiddish songs," he told us one afternoon. "So it seems I started singing before I started speaking."
Gendler fled to Russia to escape the Nazis, served with the Red Army, later became a plastics engineer, struggled to nurture Yiddish culture during the repressive Soviet era and now teaches Yiddish at the ORT School in Zaporozhye. He's never stopped singing and songwriting and has appeared at Jewish music festivals throughout Europe and in California. This summer, he's on faculty at the KlezKanada annual music camp Aug. 20 to 26 in the Quebec Laurentians.
On the cruise ship and on shore, Gendler brought his rich voice and engaging showmanship to such tunes as Mayn Ershter Vals (My First Waltz), Ele-Bele! (So There!), Kartoflyes (Potatoes) and his own take on Chiribim Chiribom.
All of us on the April 29 to May 11 cruise were spoiled with remarkable music. There were about 160 passengers, mainly from Canada, with many from the U.S. and a few from Israel and Europe.
Josh Dolgin, whose parents Marc and AC worked on the nuts and bolts of the trip, assembled the musicians from Canada, the U.S., England, Hungary and Russia. They played on the ship, in halls, synagogues, a Jewish community centre and a Jewish day school, where hundreds of kids danced with the passengers.
Dolgin plays accordion and piano, sings and mixes klezmer and hip hop. His new CD, Ghettoblaster, is just out. He was followed most everywhere by a film crew making a documentary on him for the National Film Board.
A lot of the music on board was just having fun. Eric Stein revelled in the "endless alcohol-fuelled jams and spontaneous partying. Memories that will last a lifetime."
Arrangements were made to connect with local musicians throughout the voyage, which began in Kiev and sailed down the Dnieper River to the Black Sea ports of Sevastopol and Odessa, where we were greeted by Konsonans Retro as the ship docked. The group brings together German clarinetist Christian Dawid and a Ukrainian brass band from the village of Kodyma. Drummer Guy Schalom from London has also played and recorded with them.
"Those guys kick ass," said Stein. "They are one of the freshest and funkiest things I've heard in a while." He's planning to bring them to Ashkenaz next year.
Alex Kontorovich, who plays superb clarinet and sax, said his most thrilling moment was with the same group after the final concert in Odessa.
"The brass band followed us to the ship for the post-party, which inevitably morphed into the kind of low-down, dirty, tune-trading jam only possible when a heap of trumpets, tubas, and clarinets find their way to inebriated mouths."
The two most well-known klezmer musicians on board were New Yorkers, the multi-linguist, multi-instrumentalist and singer Michael Alpert, and David Krakauer, an astounding clarinet player who took his instrument kicking and screaming into another dimension.
Krakauer, who teaches at the elite level, graciously took on coaching a group of amateur musicians, who included Vancouverites Elie Dolgin, Noam Dolgin, Avi Dolgin and Lisa Mallin.
"Being a clarinetist, I was pretty intimidated to have this virtuoso giving me pointers on simple things like fingering, but he was so lovely and patient and inspiring, and he really brought the fun back into the music," said Elie.
"Then sure enough our little ragtag group of musicians really started to come together. And, boy, what a joy it was to all be playing together, learning melodies, improvising a little bit and having a great time."
Josh Dolgin, directed a Yiddish choir of about 20 passengers, including Shanie Levin of Vancouver and me. He reinforced the sheet music by playing the parts on a melodion, a keyboard with a mouthpiece.
"I loved every minute of it, " Levin said. "I think that we formed a cohesive group very quickly and I felt closer to the choir members as a result of the work we did together than to others on the cruise. Everyone decided very quickly who they would sit beside and who would best help them to sing their part well."
As well as the spontaneous dancing that erupted just about everywhere music was played, there was a folk dancing group led by Hélène Domergue-Zilberberg.
Ruth Hess-Dolgin of Vancouver said she's not a musician but "dancing to the klezmer gave me a chance to enjoy the music and get some exercise at the same time. It was good for the body and the soul."
Lorne Mallin is a Vancouver writer, editor, graphic designer and Jewish chant leader. His website is lornemallin.com.
RESOURCES
• Two excellent blogs that include cruise music and video are nfb.ca/socalled and Bob Cohen's horinca.blogspot.com.
• Check out Arkady Gendler's album My Hometown Soroke at www.jewishmusicfestival.org/store/arkady-gendler-cd
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