Global klezmer superstars The Klezmatics return to Minneapolis for a May 27 concert at the Dakota
By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
My last interview with Frank London took place nearly 10 years ago. The irrepressible trumpet player for The Klezmatics talked with me ahead of the group’s Oct. 8, 2015, concert at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.
This time the occasion is the klezmer ensemble’s return to the Dakota, where it will hit the stage at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 27. The band, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary of performing and recording, will play the following night at City Winery in Chicago.
Have you ever been to a Klezmatics show? Do you know from klezmer?
On the band’s website (klezmatics.com), London explains, “Klezmer is the unique sound of East European Jewishness. It has the power to evoke a feeling of other-worldliness, of being there and then, of nostalgia for a time and place that we never knew.”
London, a founding member of the renowned klezmer band, recently talked on the phone with the Jewish World from his home in the East Village of New York, adjacent to a fabled landing pad for Jewish immigrants to the Goldene Medina, American paradise. The Klezmatics will be onstage at the Dakota this month with the same lineup that it has been performing “for at least the last 15 years, which is relatively a short part of our 40-year history.”
When we talked in 2015, London had just played the 75th National Folk Festival, in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his group Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars. “Later this year, I think in November, we’re going to the National Folk Festival in Jackson, Mississippi,” London commented. “One of the things I love about these National Folk Festivals is that they send us to places that we never would have gone. We played a National Folk Festival in Butte, Montana — that was a trip!”
Then London suggested steering the talk back to The Klezmatics and the upcoming Minneapolis show. As it happens, the band is recording a new album, in anticipation of a “massive” 40th anniversary celebration. “Like so many of the other things we’ve done, it’s a heavily conceptual album. … We’re going to start recording next month.”
London said that the new record will involve collaborations with “a bunch of different world music artists, most of whom live in the New York area, not all entirely. And most of the songs will be social justice and activist songs — songs that try to deal with the current political situation and generally making the world a better place.”
Varied influences and languages will make it into the grooves: “We’re working with musicians from Colombia… Crimean Tatar musicians, gospel musicians. It’s really an exciting time, a little overwhelming, but I’ll go with exciting.” Recording the new album will be spread out over the spring and summer, London said.
A shot of musical uplift, with a klezmer vibe, is what we need during these disturbing times in the United States. “It really is,” London agreed. “One of the songs we’re recording is sort of a gospel-ish anthem, written by a woman named Angela Gabriel from the Poor People’s Campaign. … It’s called ‘We Were Made for These Times.’ It’s a very inspirational gospel tune, saying, don’t give up hope, don’t lose heart, we were made for these times.”
London advised that “a lot of what we all need now is a positive energy, that we all have the strength to make things better. It’s a great song and, in our typical way, we’re mixing it with Yiddish text.” (You can find Angela Gabriel’s version of the song on YouTube, which notes that the text was inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, in her powerful piece “Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times.”)
The new Klezmatics album in the works also will revisit Woody Guthrie’s music, with his song “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).” The song by the great American troubadour was inspired by the 1948 plane crash in southern California that resulted in the deaths of 32 people, including 28 migrant farm workers being deported from California to Mexico. “It doesn’t make it better, but we realize that the challenges that we’re going through now, as horrific as they are, it’s not the first time we as a people have gone through them. … And we remind ourselves that the struggle continues and we can make things better,” London said. He added, and we’re doing this “in our unique way, doing everything through a Jewish and a Yiddish and a universal lens.”
And readers should be reminded that The Klezmatics won a Grammy Award for their 2006 album Wonder Wheel, which featured Woody Guthrie’s lyrics, in the best contemporary music album category.
Speaking of struggle, London has been going through his own personal health crisis in the form of a rare blood cancer. He mentioned just returning from the hospital for treatments on the day that we talked.
In 2024, London released an album titled Spirit Stronger Than Blood (ESP Disk), a heavily jazz-influenced project dedicated to musicians who shaped London’s “musical-spiritual aesthetic” and have passed away, including Jewlia Eisenberg and trumpeter Ron Miles. “Let There Be Peace,” a track on the album, is from the Jewish prayer “Oseh Shalom.”
As our chat was winding down, I told London that my wife and I visited Venice in March (AJW, April 2025). I recalled that he was commissioned to create a musical work about the Jewish ghetto in the fabled Italian city for the 500th commemoration of the original ghetto, which took place in 2016 (veniceghetto500.org). London mentioned that during the pandemic, he completed an album, Ghetto Songs (Venice and Beyond), “which sprung out of that project.” For fun side projects, London has been playing early American fife and drum music, and he also is part of a polka band.
Looking forward to the Dakota gig, London said, “The Klezmatics are really happy to be coming back to Minneapolis. We haven’t been there in a long time. And we’ve always had such a great reception there. It’s time to give people energy and inspiration.” Hopefully, London’s cousin, Gary Raynor, a local ace on the contrabass, will make it to the show.