Dave Tarras: The King of Klezmer
Dave Tarras: The King of Klezmer, by Yale Strom, Kfar Sava: OR-TAV Music, 2010. 128 pp.
Book Review by Cantor Jonathan L. Friedmann
Dave Tarras: The King of Klezmer opens with a quote from another prominent klezmer musician, Pete Sokolow: “I was very, very lucky to have played with Dave. He was the guru of the American klezmer revolution in the 20th century. Playing with Dave was like playing with Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman—you know he was the definitive player” (p. 11). There are several reasons to place Tarras (1897-1989) in the category of “definitive.” His performances, both live and recorded, have attracted countless admirers, including such luminaries as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. His virtuosity is still the measure by which klezmer clarinetists are judged. His compositions remain fresh and vibrant even as many have become standards, and he preserved tunes from his childhood that would have otherwise been forgotten. These qualities, along with Tarras’s singular personality, make him an unmatched figure in the world of American klezmer, and make Strom’s biography a long overdue and much-welcome contribution.
The book is comprised of two sections: a brief and absorbing oral history (pp. 11-56), and useful transcriptions of twenty-eight of Tarras’s melodies for C and B-flat instruments, prepared by Strom and bassist Jeff Pekarek (pp. 58-119). The pages are sprinkled with pictures of Tarras at various stages of his life, showing him both against the formal backdrop of the concert stage and in the relaxed setting of family life. The biographical section is pieced together primarily from interviews with Tarras’s relatives and noted klezmer musicians, such as Sokolow, Julie Epstein, Ray Musiker, and Tarras’s protégé Andy Statman. Strom, an accomplished violinist, author, and educator, frames the book as the culmination of his decades-long “mission of researching the klezmer musician, his life and world before, during and after the Holocaust” (p. 7). Tarras is a fitting subject for such a culmination, as he bridged the old and new worlds, helped bring Jewish sounds into American popular music, and inspired the klezmer revival of which Strom and his contemporaries are a part.
Like most klezmorim of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Dave Tarras was born into the profession. He was a third generation member of the Tarras Family Band, a “family business” made up of fathers, uncles, cousins, and sons. The band traveled around Russia to play weddings and other special events (Jewish and non-Jewish); and depending on the budget and the number of gigs they covered on a given night, the group had as many as ten members. European klezmorim traversed dangerous country roads, encountered anti-Semitic locals, and were not well compensated for their work. And, despite the importance of music at weddings, their social status tended to be low. Because they regularly played away from home, rumors spread that “they fraternized with all kinds of drunks, thieves, smugglers, gamblers, gentiles, Roma (Gypsies) and loose women at the inns or the taverns where they stopped” (p. 13). Suspicions also surrounded the klezmer loshn, an “insider” language used to speak freely about gigs, hosts, food, guests, and payment. It was, as Strom puts it, a vernacular “rich with sarcasm, disdain, humor, and sexual innuendo” (p. 13).
The bulk of the biographical section deals with Tarras’s career in America. When he arrived in New York in 1920, Tarras worked as a janitor in his brother-in-law’s fur shop. He was under the impression that everything in America—including the musicians—was better than it had been in Europe, and felt discouraged from pursuing a musical career. But, as he discovered playing weddings on the side, his assessment was far from accurate. Before long, Tarras rose to the top of the klezmer heap, earning the somewhat ironic title of the “Jewish Benny Goodman” (p. 21).
The ground covered in Strom’s book exceeds the limits of a short review, but a few areas warrant special attention. Particularly intriguing is the comparison of Tarras and Naftule Brandwein (1884–1963), a klezmer clarinetist who was also billed as “the greatest.” According to Tarras’s youngest son, Sy: “My father did not like Naftule—he thought he was a wild player, a Gypsy, and shouldn’t be playing the Jewish clarinet. He did not like his behavior as a performer on the stage and he never considered Naftule to be any kind of competition for him” (p. 19). This contrasts with Andy Statman’s report that Tarras “made clear [that] there was no rivalry between he and Naftule Brandwein. He liked him as a person and his playing. . . . Dave understood Naftule’s importance as a link in the chain of this tradition” (p. 21). One wonders if the latter opinion reflects the mellowing of age, or if the first was formed at a time when both men were vying to be “king.” But, whatever the reason for the discrepancy, these accounts highlight the musicians’ clashing styles and personalities. Whereas Tarras favored a pure tone and avoided over-the-top embellishments, Naftule’s tone was rough and his playing highly acrobatic. Strom astutely notes, “Brandwein and Tarras were certainly not cut from the same klezmer cloth. What we hear through their playing is an extension of their personalities. Brandwein was rebellious, edgy, and eccentric while Tarras . . . was more stern, reserved and very proud” (p. 21).
Also of interest is Tarras’s fruitful relationship with Sam Musiker (1916-1963), a talented clarinet and tenor saxophone player who was equally adept at klezmer and swing. The two were introduced in 1939, and in 1941 Musiker married Tarras’s daughter Brouny. Tarras included his son-in-law in as many gigs as he could, but interest in klezmer declined in the 1950s and performance opportunities became increasingly scarce. One attempt at reinvigorating the genre involved combining klezmer and jazz—an endeavor that came naturally to Musiker, but was more challenging for Tarras, a “purist” who “really never could swing” (p. 25). This experiment in hybrid music culminated in the 1955 album Tanz!, which brought Tarras and Musiker together with an all-star big band of Ray Musiker (Sam’s brother), Carl Prager, and Phil Bodner on reeds, Melvin Solomon on trumpet, Seymor Megenheimer on accordion, Moe Wechsler on piano, Mack Shopnick on contrabass, and Irving Graetz on percussion. While the album artfully “bridged the early immigrant years past with the conservative 1950’s” (p. 33), and brilliantly alternated between the two clarinetists playing together, Tarras playing alone on more traditional pieces, and Musiker playing the swing arrangements, it failed to capture the ears of either swing or klezmer enthusiasts. Today, however, Tanz! is widely considered one of the first and best albums to merge klezmer with swing, and a forerunner to the new klezmer bands that began to emerge in the 1970s, which proudly mix diverse influences to create genre-bending sounds.
Tarras’s importance to the klezmer revival is another topic explored in the book. As the movement grew, Tarras was visited by a stream of musicians, journalists, historians, and documentarians—all of whom viewed him as a sort of founding father. Although Tarras was genuinely happy to see renewed interest in klezmer, he tended to be critical of the phenomenon, especially as most of the clarinetists used ornamentations and other “tricks” he felt masked the real essence of the music. He was even known to advise players of the younger generation to “become doctors and lawyers, because it takes too long to become a musician, and it doesn’t pay well” (p. 47).
The recollections and historical insights Strom presents are compelling, and the reader comes away not only with an understanding of Tarras’s life and times, but an appreciation of his significance as a musician, critic, and icon. There is much to be gained from the finely crafted biography, and the sheet music included is enough to recommend it to anyone interested in playing and/or analyzing Tarras’s exquisite tunes. Though it is a bit surprising that it has taken so long for a biography of Dave Tarras to appear in print, Strom’s book was certainly worth the wait.