Vanderlust 2006

4**** allaboutjazz

Original Yiddish/klezmer music was most likely string-based, with a heavy accent on violins, cellos and guitars, evolving during a time when the lines between Jewish and Gypsy musicians were quite fluid. Much later, Gypsy met jazz, and the result was perhaps the pinnacle of string-based jazz, the “hot club sound of guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli. It would seem then that a marriage between Yiddish music and “hot club jazz should be made in heaven. Happily it is, and Vanderlust, from the international ensemble Nikitov, is the proof.

NYC-based guitarist Adam Good lends his musical savvy while expertly melding his acoustic guitar with bassist Jason Sypher’s strong arco bottom to capture both soul and fire. Netherlands-based violinist Jelle van Tongeren beautifully augments or shoots fire from his fiddle, making for a gloriously clean, pure sound—an elegantly malleable sound that, while certainly not as cacophonous as a brass or electric jazz/klez fusion, retains both the powerful and soulfully stirring heart of its musical roots. It also perfectly fits the emotive Yiddish vocals