Songs I Found
Gavriel Micah
Eight traditional klezmer tunes played the way a jazz group plays standards, plus two of my own. The melodies stay as written and the harmony and form underneath are rebuilt.
Songs I Found
Eight of these tunes are traditional klezmer: bulgars, horas, and nigunim, most of them first recorded on 78s about a hundred years ago. The other two I wrote myself, in the same language, so they would sit inside the set without sticking out. The melodies stay the way they came to me. The harmony and the rhythm section and the solos are where the jazz happens.
The idea was to treat the klezmer repertoire the way a jazz group treats standards. Keep the heads intact, push the harmony and the forms toward jazz, and let the solos carry a lot of the weight, especially on the dance tunes. The record I kept coming back to as a reference was Quiet Kenny. Space and understatement, fewer notes.
Trumpet out front, with piano, bass and drums under it, and cello on two of the slower tunes. Ten tracks, twenty-eight minutes. I recorded, mixed, and mastered it at home, in the Shack, in Centennial, Colorado, over 2025 and 2026.
Out Friday December 4, 2026, the first night of Hanukkah.
The tunes
1. Reb Dovidl Nigun (1:11)
2. Odessa Bulgar (2:27)
3. Bessarabian Hora (2:59)
4. Der Gasn Nigun (5:26)
5. Leibowitz's Melody (1:47)
6. Khupah Tanz (2:48)
7. Russian Bulgar (3:26)
8. Umgeheymt (1:32)
9. No Khagim in June (2:55)
10. They Just Stayed There (3:30)
Credits
Gavriel Micah, trumpet throughout; piano on 5, 8 and 10; cello on 5 and 10; bass on 1 and 10.
Wade Ridenhour, piano on 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9.
Tymon Trąbczyński, double bass on 9.
All other instruments, Gavriel Micah.
All compositions traditional, arranged by Gavriel Micah, except "Umgeheymt" and "No Khagim in June," composed by Gavriel Micah.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered at the Shack in Centennial, Colorado, 2025 and 2026.
The eight traditional heads come from Stacy Phillips's transcriptions.
Cover painting by Fons Heijnsbroek.