Betsuni Nanmo Klezmer - Omedeto

Klezmer bands with 18 members are not exactly common anywhere in the world, but it's safe to say this is the only one of Japanese provenance. Reed giant Kazutoki Umezu formed Betsuni Nanmo Klezmer in 1992 and the sprawling ensemble left the world with three public recordings, the 1994 debut Omedeto I shall be celebrating below, and two 1996 releases, Waruzu and Ahiru. Surely a monumental challenge to organize and sustain, the orchestra project was supplemented and eventually supplanted by Komatcha Klezmer, a small group vehicle for Umezu's klez urges that formed in 1995 and continues to be active, with releases in 2001 (Komatcha Kle) and 2003 (Gekkoishi no Shippo). With the exception of drumkitter Kozo Nida, the members of Komatcha Klezmer are BNK alumni: alto saxist Yoko Tada, violinist Ayumi Matsui, accordionist Koyo Chan, and tubist Takero Sekijima, and the two stars (in my mind) of BNK, wunderkind vocalists Tokyo Nammy and Koichi Makigami, have joined the group as occasional guests.

Omedeto is one of the strangest and most cherished items in my music collection. For starters, it's a positively ass-kicking, burning klezmer disc with inspired solos and a rare and devastating orchestral punch. Even more distinctively, the vocal performances by Makigami and Nammy are astonishing triumphs of creativity and virtuosity. More than anything, though, the group stands alone in the annals of klezmer for its alternately sublime and zany postmodernism. The musicians were clearly chosen for their freewheeling embrace of humor and playful antics as much as their instrumental chops. The lineup is something of an abridged who's who of Tokyo's bohemian prankster avant-garde. The total package unfolds as a seamless, ambitious, far-ranging album that doesn't falter for a single moment.

The festivities begin with "Ale Brider", a traditional tune rendered as five minutes of straight, passionate klezmer. The playing is flawless and bursting with the invigorating spirit of the timeless rhythms and melodies. I could listen to music like this for hours on end. My appetite for klezmer has been insatiable since I discovered the music early in high school and launched my obsession with The Klezmatics' Rhythm and Jews, so it's fitting that a tune I find so utterly addictive as this leadoff track on Omedeto features a quotation from The Klezmatics, specifically their 1988 debut, Shvaygn=Toyt. Credit is given to recordings on two other tracks: "Dona, Dona" quotes The Klezmer Conservatory Band's Oy Chanukah and "Der Gasn Nigun" quotes Theodore Bikel Sings Yiddish Theatre and Folk Songs.

For a guy who doesn't speak the language, Koichi Makigami's Yiddhish vocals on "Ale Brider" and throughout the album are unbelievably compelling. He rips through each line with utter clarity and verve, and there are few singers in the world who can rival his booming tone and precise, hovering vibrato. Just as his two mind-blowing landmark solo vocal albums on Tzadik (Kuchinoha and Koedarake) and his similarly astounding duo disc with Ryoji Hojito (Over That Way) place him alongside Jaap Blonk and Phil Minton as a benchmark for extreme extended vocal techniques, his work here (and plenty elsewhere, e.g. the twisted lounge pop of Koroshi no Blues) ranks him among the most advanced conventional singers. And for all the ace instrumentalism here, it's these robust vocals that really captivate me to the point I'd readily leave individual pieces like "Ale Brider" on repeat play. What's more, with 18 members, the vocal possibilities of the group certainly aren't limited to the two frontpersons; spirited unison group vocals push the energy level a notch higher on this song and a few others. When an insistent chanting chorus of "oy oy oy" in several catchy variations kicks into full gear towards the end, I feel like I'm part of the band, vamping away on this glorious diphthong with sheer bliss and abandon, or if not part of the band, at least there at the party partaking in the communal groove. Great klezmer does that.

The strident chorus, Tokyo Nammy's operatic background wailing near the end, and the sheer vigor of the tune as a whole is analogous to Koenjihyakkei, Tatsuya Yoshida's caffeinated and unabashed revision of Magma, in the sense that both ensembles take an idiom and reproduce it so literally and earnestly that it takes on a surreal absurdist comicality. Even while I'm bathing in musical pleasure, as both BNK and Koenjihyakkei fit my musical preferences like a key in a lock, I can't help but simultaneously experience a detached recognition of the parodism lying on the other side of the top they nearly go over. Curiously enough, aside from minor parts on other albums, my familiarity with Nammy is limited to her work in both of these ensembles (she's a pivotal third of the post-Kobaian "choir" on Koenjihyakkei's monumental masterpieces Nivraym and Live at Star Pine's Cafe), which may simply be coincidence given that this personnel overlap was not at all what motivated the analogy. Nevertheless, she's certainly a prime example of virtuosity married to fringe aesthetics, although she also maintains a more prolific parallel career performing commercial music under her real name, Nami Sagara.

After Makigami's lead vocal on the first cut, Nammy steps into the foreground on "Dona, Dona", where she not only rivals Makigami's uncanny ease with Yiddish lyrics, but goes even farther out into the realms of exaggerated vigor, singing with an exuberance that borders on ferocity. Boisterous accenting strikes me as a key feature of klezmer in general, at least in its thankfully ubiquitous hard-driving form, and Nammy conspires with the rest of the ensemble to give certain phrases explosive ending accents, practically shrieking "kalb" in unison with Sachiko Nagata's xylophone cluster in the line "Ver zhe heyst dir zayn a kalb?", and accenting the living daylights out of "shekht" alongside a saxophone blurt in the line "Un men shlept zey un men shekht". Beyond that, she puts some kind of articulatory spin on virtually every syllable. As an indication of the passion she attacks this material with, even when the same chorus is repeated later in the song, it comes out with a spontaneous rephrasing. At a mere 2:24, "Dona, Dona" works as a total joy-juice blowout pop nugget.

Trying to convey the extraordinary nature of the vocal performances on this disc, I find myself tempted to suggest that without the vocals, this disc would be quickly buried somewhere in a stack of great klezmer discs, but such thoughts are quelled when I turn my attention to the instrumental "Der Shtiler Bulgar", with its barnstorming massed horn riffing and wild solos. After a heavy-hitting orchestral run through the tune for almost two minutes, an insane clarinet solo launches a classic mid-section of turn-taking soloism. I can't say for certain which of the two b-flat clarinettists in the group get credit for this incredible upper register playing, but as a long-time Umezu fan with a solid stack of his records, the tone does sound familiar. Wataru Okuma is a ripping clarinettist too, the leader of Cicala Mvta, a wonderful kindred ensemble to BNK based around a kind of rowdy Japanese street music known as chindon in which a small drum is used to accompany peripatetic reedists—a role Okuma adopted himself for many years— but freely wandering into other areas, like Turkish traditional music, Albert Ayler, and, indeed, klezmer, with recent lineups benefitting from the explosive drumkit work of none other than avant-kingpin Tatsuya Yoshida. In any case, that mercurial clarinet playing is just the tip of the iceberg as a handful of reeds swirl around each other for about 30 thrilling seconds. Assuming the steady bass clarinet part is coming from Kazuhiro Nomoto, it sounds like all three clarinettists together for a bit, and some of Kanji Nakao's soprano sax too if I'm not mistaken. The reed thrills give way to brass thrills as Hiroshi Itaya launches into a devastating, roof-raising trombone solo, and the ensemble downshifts a bit to make room for Hidehiko Urayama's banjo solo. After a fake ending that gives Cicala Mvta member Takero Sekijima a chance to go out on tuba for a few seconds, the ensemble kicks back into the high-octane big band themes. A stunner even without a peep from Makigami or Nammy.

After the unrelenting energy of the first three tracks, the opening passage of "Terk in America" is especially effective, a taciturn doublebass solo that evolves into a brawny improv with some percussion. Two doublebassists are in the group, Joji Sawada (a notable composer in his own right) and Yasuhiko Tachibana, so it could be either of them I'm hearing. It's surely an unexpected and welcome pleasure to hear free improv that could pass for a Barry Guy and Paul Lytton duo right smack in the middle of all the smoking klez jams, which is exactly what the ensemble explodes into after about 111 seconds of this inspired improv detour. After ripping through the main themes, the ensemble drops out for an extended drumkit duet between Yasuo Sano and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki. Yoshigaki is easily the drumkit MVP of the Tokyo avant-garde, a master of every permutation of jazz, rock, and improv ever dished up by Altered States, Ground Zero, Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet/Orchestra, Rovo, Shibusashirazu Orchestra, etc. His nimble, powerful style is unmistakable on this album, one of the key instrumental factors that pushes it well beyond an average klezmer platter. On top of the rumbling, popping bed of drums and cymbals, Hiroshi Itaya delivers another devastating (seriously, this guy is the real deal) trombone solo, but this time taking things out into fire music realms, as does Kazuhiro Nomoto with a vicious baritone sax workout. Free jazz this good sandwiched in between klezmer this good—this album is a rarity indeed. And with two drumkitters, two doublebassists, and these kinds of heavyweights on horns, there's a supple, aggressive edge to even the tightly rehearsed klezmer romps. Not to say it's without peers though; we need look no further than Zorn's Masada or the New Klezmer Trio for well-known examples of music that consistently smokes across a similar expressive range.

After these two distinctive and incredible instrumentals, I'm almost tempted to suggest "Vocals? Who needs vocals? An afterthought."! But surely it will come as no surprise when I shortly launch into praise of Nammy and Makigami with effusion to make my earlier encomiums seem lukewarm. You see, as the expansive 8-minute tour de force of "Terk of America" fades out and the tribal drums and vocal freakouts of "Mahouzukai Sarii" enter, I'm jolted back into my main BNK zone. It's all about the human voice. It's rather charming that the lovely foldout paper with lyrics, credits, etc lists the Yiddish song titles (and one English title too) with Japanese translations below, only to give a Yiddish gloss for the album's sole Japanese song title! Then again, these things are all chicken-and-egg escapades anyway. "Mahouzukai Sarii" is given in Yiddish as "Di Makhsheyfe Sally" and translates into English as "Sally the Witch". While all the Yiddish lyrics are faithfully translated into Japanese on the lyric sheet, they didn't go so far as giving a Yiddish translation for the Japanese lyrics though!

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself even talking about lyrics though; nothing like intelligible vocal utterances factor into this song until the 1:27 mark. What comes before then is something that you'll not only never hear on another klezmer record, but on no other record period! But it's not only incredibly strange stuff, it also blows my mind as a triumph of fully realized creativity. Basically, the two drumkitters generate a percolating bed of dense, loose tribal grooves (somewhat reminiscent of Yoshigaki's work in Rovo, a decent group I have no special enthusiasm for) and a handful of the others go nuts on top of it, especially Makigami and Nammy. The closest thing I can think of is Jefferson Airplane's wacky miniature "Ribump Ba Bap Dum Dum" (never released until a CD reissue of Crown of Creation, where it appears as a bonus track), but this is a hundred times crazier. Far from being a chaotic freakout, though, the violin scribbles and xylophone darts are measured, balanced interjections and the whole thing works as a delirious swirl of rhythm and coloration. But most importantly, Nammy and Makigami go out; I mean far out. Hearing Makigami's extended vocal vocabulary is, of course, no surprise, but no less welcome and riveting for that. On the other hand, this precious passage is the only one I've encountered with Nammy offering a parallel thread of invention. Step aside Shelley Hirsch, Lauren Newton, and any other diva of the deranged, this lady is a few zip codes away from her rocker here. Completely mind-blowing stuff. It would be stretched out to album-length in a perfect world. Then again, it is an intro, and what it introduces is so great I can hardly wait till it kicks in! So you're starting to get the gist here. This song would be played on every radio station at least once an hour if the world was full of aesthetic pathologies like me. The fact is that as much as I love every track on this disc and relish it as a continuous experience, in practice "Mahouzukai Sarii" is the song I play most often, a track I pluck for handmade comps and often pop the disc in just for the sake of hearing as a quick fix.

So the song proper kicks in after this magical madness, and how does it begin? With one of the most scalding, gripping, medicinal vocal lines I've ever heard this side of "Civet's Tango" by the Sun City Girls (the leadoff track on disc one of 330, 003 Cross Dressers from Beyond the Rig Veda). Lasting only about seven seconds, it's all-too-brief; Nammy repeats a short line twice and then it's off to the next section of the song. The linguistic provenance of her utterance defies my grasp entirely. While clearly structured syllabically and transcribed in the lyric sheet, it's not any Japanese I can recognize, so I can only speculate it's some kind of adaption from another language or an outright phonetic invention, perhaps intended to suggest a magical incantation befitting the song's playful lyrics about a charming young witch. The best way I can think to describe Nammy's singing might be rather on the mark given the topic of the song: it's like the high-pitched cackle of a witch! Whatever it means and whatever Nammy's doing in her delivery, this singing makes my endorphins curdle.

After this mercurial micro-song, Nammy launches into the delightful Japanese verse about a young witch flying into town on her broom, flashing a mischievous grin, chanting some magic words, and so on—really playful, charming stuff entirely befitting the manic, wacky singing by Nammy and Makigami (in alternation), klezmer rave-ups, and even a irresistible heartfelt group vocal chorus. Being the only song in their native Japanese on the album, Nammy and Makigami clearly are in a comfort zone where they can push themselves into even more expressive depth than the killer Yiddish songs. What's more, the full-out complex group chorus would've been a daunting affair in a non-native language. Everything about this song just bursts with joy, passion, and fun. Best of all, that seven second vocal part comes back near the end!

The next track, "Doina", passes its first half as a simmering sparse klezmer reverie that gives Makigami a chance to go into his experimental vocal wackiness, notably including his Tuvan-inspired techniques, before it suddenly bursts into a breakneck klezmer hoedown with ripping Yiddish vocals so catchy I've caught myself virtually reciting them from memory in idle moments after a session with the disc. I start to wonder if I'm subconsciously learning Yiddish! Probably not, but it's not especially different than English, German, and other close Germanic siblings.

The album closes out with "Der Gasn Nigun", a traditional tune rendered as a slightly somber, sensuous, slow march with drones and langorous melodies from (I believe) all three of the group's bass clarinettists at once, with violins, accordion and xylophone laying out the melodies with old world phrasing . It's a chance to wind down and revel in the vibrant acoustic timbres of the ensemble and hear a side to their musicality besides the high-energy romps.

~Michael Anton Parker