HANKUS NETSKY AND THE KLEZMER CONSERVATORY BAND
WITH VERY SPECIAL GUEST C. CALLOWAY BROOKS,
GRANDSON OF THE LEGENDARY CAB CALLOWAY
(of hi-de-ho fame), who performs in full zoot suit
and has all the style and licks to match it. The band and CB will perform
songs that show how much the two musical forms share and will have CB and
KCB musicians trading scat and Yiddish solos. This concert has only
previously been performed one time in 2006 when it sold out within weeks of
tickets being made available

The Klezmer Conservatory Band Hankus Netsky, Director

From the shtetls of Eastern Europe, through the emigration to America,
from the jazz clubs of cities and the stages of Yiddish theater comes the
music of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. Klezmer music began in medieval Europe,
where bands of itinerant Jewish musicians went from town to town playing for Jewish
festivals and special events. By the 19th century, klezmer music had become a well-developed
musical style, taking its inspiration not only from the synagogue, but from the non-Jewish
culture that surrounded it. In America, immigrant Jewish musicians adapted this music
to the new rhythms and instruments they found, creating new klezmer forms.
Until the 1940's, klezmer orchestras flourished, but with the new styles of music,
and the immigrant Jews' desire to appear "American," the klezmer tradition faded.
Today, however, a klezmer revival is in full swing, with the Klezmer Conservatory Band
playing a prominent role. Fueled by a desire to return to his roots, and the inherent
appeal of the music, Hankus Netsky, the band's founder, discovered that both a
grandfather and an uncle were in Philadelphia klezmer orchestras in the 1920's.
In 1980, while an instructor at the New England Conservatory of Music, he formed the band.

Since its formation in 1980 the KCB has performed concerts from coast to coast.
In April of 1990, the Klezmer Conservatory Band made its debut tour abroad,
performing several concerts in Germany and giving a remarkable performance
at the first-ever International Yiddish Festival in Krakow, Poland.
The band has toured Europe regularly, and has also appeared at Australia's
Adelaide Festival, New Zealand's International Festival of the Arts and Womad.

The band has made numerous appearances on Minnesota Public Radio's A Prairie Home Companion,
with Garrison Keillor. In 1994 the band performed with Joel Grey in his recreation of
Mickey Katz’s Borscht Capades and appeared in a PBS special with renowned violinist
Itzhak Perlman called In the Fiddler's House, filmed in Krakow, Poland and New York.
The program traced the Klezmer roots of Perlman's artistry and featured the soulful
sounds of the KCB. A joint recording on EMI was released in the fall of 1995
(live version was released in the fall of 1996), and "In the Fiddler's House"
concerts were performed in major venues, including Wolftrap, Great Woods,
Radio City Music Hall, the Ravinia Festival, the Saratoga Music Festival,
and the Mann Music Center (Philadelphia). In December of 2002 the Klezmer
Conservatory Band performed a concert of orchestral arrangements of klezmer
and Yiddish vocal music with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

About Calloway Brooks--the "Prince of Hi De Ho"

Brooks obtained his first guitar at age 7 won his first musical awards at
age 9 from the Guild Institute of Music and went on to become a graduate of
the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music, the first major
Conservatory in the US to offer a degree in Jazz Music.

During his years in Boston, Brooks studied with such luminaries as Charles
Banacos, Jaki Byard, Robert Cogan, Hankus Netsky, Mick Goodrick, and
MacArthur Award winner Ran Blake. He also credits the many years of
experience with his grandfather Cab Calloway as a cornerstone of his
musical education.