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)
Fanfare over electric bass, seventy-one seconds, and the idea is on the table. Belf's Romanian Orchestra, around 1911. Also printed as Ma Yofus.
2. Odessa Bulgar (2:27)
The first burner, in D freygish. Abe Schwartz, mid 1920s. Single, September 25.
3. Bessarabian Hora (2:59)
A dark waltz in G minor, circling a centre it never lands on. Belf's again.
4. Der Gasn Nigun (5:26)
Five and a half minutes in three. The slow one, and by then the record has earned it. Kandel's Orchestra, 1923. Single, October 23.
5. Leibowitz's Melody (1:47)
Trumpet, cello and piano. As close to chamber music as this gets. Max Leibowitz, New York, around 1919.
6. Khupah Tanz (2:48)
Called a dance but it plays like a procession, and it fades to almost nothing. Abe Schwartz, 1917 to 1920.
7. Russian Bulgar (3:26)
Comes up out of that silence. Abe Schwartz again, 1917.
8. Umgeheymt (1:32)
Mine. Short and moody, electric bass, answering the opener from the far end.
9. No Khagim in June (2:55)
Also mine. The fast one. Single, November 13.
10. They Just Stayed There (3:30)
A Hasidic nigun in A minor, slow, a tango somewhere underneath. Learned from Stacy Phillips's transcription of Andy Statman's 1984 recording. Closes the record.
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.