Presenting

What they say about Wholesale: "The Wholesale Klezmer Band added a dimension to our weekly summer music program that not only engaged and pleased the audience, but also raised listeners' awareness of a musical tradition that many people rarely get to hear and enjoy in depth." Roy Nilson, Petersham, MA Friday Market coordinator (More) Calendar of public performances

The Wholesale Klezmer Band at Carnegie Hall April 30, 1991

The Wholesale Klezmer Band at the Presidential Inaugural, January 20th, 1993

The Wholesale Klezmer Band in 1999 (click to enlarge)

The Wholesale Klezmer Band has, since 1982, performed both in the traditional context of providing music and dance leadership for Jewish weddings and other simkhes, on the concert stage, and at school and college educational programs. Credits include performances and workshops at the Conference on Judaism in Rural New England, Conference for the Advancement of Jewish Education, the New England Festival of Folk Arts (NEFFA), a Celebration of Folk Music for the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall hosted by Pete Seeger, and at the Inauguration of President Clinton. Their repertoire includes music for dance, traditional Yiddish folk songs, and Yiddish theater and vaudeville songs, including original compositions.

The Wholesale Klezmer Band consists of Yosl (Joe) Kurland, (vocals and fiddle), Christina Crowder (accordion), Michael Suter (bass viol), Brian Bender (trombone), and Peggy Davis (flute & vocals), Joanna Morse (fiddle), and Aaron Bousel (accordion). We also honor Sherry Mayrent who was our long-time clarinetist and music director, and David Tasgal z"l (clarinet, fiddle).

The Wholesale Klezmer Band performs in Yiddish and Loshn Koydesh, (Ashkenazic Hebrew), and they specialize in making it accessible to the English speaking world with translations, stories, explanations, visual aids, and that universal language that speaks to your feet and makes them want to dance. They write many of their own dance tunes and Yiddish songs that speak to contemporary concerns.

The Wholesale Klezmer Band performs music for both Jewish and general audiences that expresses Jewish values of justice and peace. By introducing Jewish music and culture to young audiences of diverse ethnic groups, religions and races they work to foster intercultural understanding.

For information and bookings, call Joe Kurland at 413-624-3204 or email us at wkb@ganeydn.com

We mourn the loss of mlti-instrumentalist David Tasgal Z"L (violin, clarinet, bass, piano). He had performed in string quartets, marching bands, jazz ensembles, symphony orchestras and rock groups before becoming joining Wholesale in 1998. Yet, he says, ''The idea of playing Jewish music with other Jewish musicians had never ocurred to me.'' Originally from Springfield, Mass., David studied clarinet, piano and cello, and later learned bass and violin. He now teaches stringed instruments and leads and composes music for youth orchestras. Like many American Jews who have found difficulty reconciling personal spiritual values with current religious institutions, he says, "I was suffering from a lot of cultural alienation. Playing with Wholesale filled an important need for me, especially when I saw how much the audiences appreciate being put in touch with a little Yiddishkeit.''
David adds, "I think this kind of music is not just entertaining but of real importance because it delivers the easily forgotten message that there is fun in Judaism."
"In my spare time," says David, "I occasionally like to put on tefillin."
His memory is a blessing.

Trombonist Brian Bender, who hails from California, is a graduate of the New England Conservatory's Third Stream Studies Department, with an emphasis on Jewish music.
He says, "Klezmer has become the most meaningful way that I can experience being Jewish as a professional musician. It is a great honor to be involved in the revitalization of a culture." The trombone's role in klezmer is a fascinating one, says Brian, because it shifts from a pure bass line to rhythm to a tenor counter-line to pure melody.
Brian is also active in playing jazz, Dixieland, reggae, rhythm and blues, Latin , Celtic, Brazilian and other music, and teaches trombone, trumpet and piano, as well as klezmer and jazz ensembles.

Christina Crowder (accordion) trained in classical piano, but caught the folk music bug in college and switched to accordion. She later studied Scandinavian and Bulgarian accordion in Seattle and performed with the acoustic folk-rock band Bad Karma Banjo. Christina moved to Hungary in 1993, where she studied Hungarian folk dance and became a founding member of the Budapest-based Yiddish music ensemble Di Naye Kapelye. She appears on their albums Aleph (1995), Di Naye Kapelye (1998), and A Mazeldiker Yid (2001). Di Naye Kapelye focused on both researching and re-creating the sound of the musicians that served rural and urban Jewish communities in the early 20th century. Christina and her husband John DeMetrick continued this research with Fulbright grants to Romania in 1999-2000. Their work encompassed field-work with musicians, archival research and collecting commercial recordings related to Jewish music in Romania.

Christina also plays old-time music on banjo and fiddle and travels to various fiddlers conventions and gatherings in New England and West Virginia. She finds a strong connection between the Appalachian and Klezmer traditions: “I find that playing traditional music – of any kind – is a unique way to connect to history. At a dance or a party, you can really feel yourself connected to essentially the same scene, maybe fifty, a hundred, even 150 years ago. I really enjoy trying to capture the essence of tune, as passed on to me through the musicians or recordings I’ve learned it from, and then convey that spirit to dancers or an audience”.

See also the description of Christina on the KlezmerQuerque website.

Peggy Davis (flute, vocals) grew up in Minneapolis, where she studied piano, flute and guitar. She first listened to Yiddish music through the recorded singing of Theodore Bikel, Ruth Rubin and Martha Schlamme. Her first encounter with native singers was when she worked with Russian immigrants in Italy, many of whom spoke with her in Yiddish. In Minnesota, she helped found the group, "Yiddishe Folksmenshn." Peggy also sang Balkan and Russian folk music in the Ethnic Dance Theatre Choir.
Of klezmer, she says, "I think of the music as having been written in Yiddish, even if there are no words attached to it.'' Peggy is a calligrapher and is married to Joe .

Although Michael Suter (bass) had early brushes with music, playing recorder and appearing in "The Wizard of Oz" while growing up in southern Connecticut, he didn't start playing bass (electric) until age 16. At the University of Connecticut, he studied string bass with Robert Black. Michael's musical interests have led him to several ensembles including a Sun Ra tribute group, jazz poetry, a funk/ rock, world music groups featuring mainly African and middle eastern music, as well as several orchestras and pit bands for dance and theater presentations. "Klezmer deeply touches my roots in northern Serbia's Voivodina region where my grandfather grew up,'' he says, "and gives me a real sense of positive connection to my European heritage -- something which is valuable and healing."
Michael is also interested in mycology ( the study of mushrooms), gardening and wildcrafting, backpacking and Native American culture.

Aaron Bousel began playing the accordion at age ten, though it wasn't until 1995 that he began to play klezmer. He has participated in workshops at Klez Kanada in Quebec and Yidstock at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. Soon after moving to Amherst, MA in 1997 he became accordionist for the band Hu Tsa Tsa with which he has played at many b'nai mitzvah, weddings, and local synagogue functions. He is also accordionist for the Yiddishkeit Klezmer ensemble, has accompanied Mak'hela, the Jewish chorus of western Mass, and performed as part of the Tunes at Noon series at the Amherst Survival Center. Aaron is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany. He is a Piano Technician, a graduate of the Piano Technology program at the North Bennett Street School in Boston and a Registered Piano Technician of The Piano Technicians Guild.

Joanna Morse began playing with the Wholesale Klezmer Band in 2015. She grew up steeped in the traditions of English and American traditional music and dance. After studying classical violin at Wesleyan University, Joanna began playing for English and contra dances in New England in 1999, with a focus on Quebecois repertoire. Her dance experience now energizes Yiddish dance, and she performs with the Wholesale Klezmer Band and the Yiddishkeit Klezmer Ensemble. When not playing fiddle, Joanna teaches history, religious studies and civics to middle school students.