Kick up your heels the next two weekends when Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band plays four free shows at Bay Area public libraries in honor of May’s Jewish American Heritage month.
“These songs are a bridge to the old world, and we’ll share what we know about them, though our approach is a mix of old and new,” Mike Perlmutter, who leads the band, told J.
The ensemble, known for its monthly appearances at Berkeley’s Cheeseboard Pizzeria, features a rotating cast of local musicians. (“Saul Goodman” is not one of them; the moniker is actually a play on “S’all good, man.”)
On Sunday, May 4, in San Francisco the band will perform at two public libraries: one in Noe Valley at 1 p.m. and the other in West Portal at 3:15 p.m.
The band will play the kind of rousing, danceable music it usually does, but there’s a twist. May 4 is also the annual celebration of “Star Wars” (based on the pun “May the fourth be with you”), and Perlmutter told J. the group will shake things up a little.
“We’ll work in a few mashups of ‘Star Wars’ movie music with klezmer,” he said. “Both hail from times and places far, far away, so there’s a connection there.”
The May 4 shows will feature Mike Perlmutter on clarinet, Ilana Sherer on violin, Jonathan Kipp on accordion and Sean Tergis on percussion.
Sherer, a pediatrician, was profiled in J. in 2020 and said that klezmer violin keeps her connected to her heritage.
“I grew up in a pretty mainstream Jewish community, and klezmer helped me see there were other ways to connect to Judaism,” she said in that Q&A.
Perlmutter said that, Star Wars aside, the band will play Yiddish music but also reach into the deep traditions of other parts of the Jewish diaspora.
“We’ll include a Turkish Sephardic wedding song in Ladino, a calypso song from Lionel Belasco, who descends from mixed Jewish and Afro-Caribbean heritage, a tune recorded and separately marketed to both Jewish and Greek audiences by Dave Tarras in the 1940s, and other tunes to showcase klezmer and represent some of the diversity of Jewish music,” he said.
On Saturday, May 10, the band will play in Corte Madera at 2 p.m. and on Sunday, May 11, again in S.F., this time at the Richmond library at 2 p.m. The Corte Madera show will feature Perlmutter, Kipp and Sherer joined by Chris Bastian on bass. The Richmond show will be just Perlmutter and Kipp.
Klezmer music as a genre is based on the folk music of Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe, with influences from each country where Jewish musicians made their home. A klezmer revival began in the U.S. in the 1970s.
Perlmutter said that at all the band’s performances he likes to tell audiences a bit about klezmer’s origins and functions.
“There are different types of klezmer tunes, for instance, that were used for different moments at weddings and celebrations, such as for processions, dancing, listening, etc.” he said.
Perlmutter added that for him Jewish American Heritage Month is a secular, low-key way to celebrate Jewishness, which makes it a perfect opportunity for klezmer.
“It’s a chance for anyone to connect with Jewish culture and community in a neutral way,” he said. “Sometimes one’s Jewish identity might feel invisible, other times overly salient or charged.”