December 10, 1995, Sunday, CITY EDITION
SECTION: AUDIENCE, Pg. 1E
LENGTH: 1317 words
HEADLINE: FOR HANUKKAH PARTY TUNES, IT'S SANTA KLEZ!; CASCO BAY TUMMLERS AND OTHERS ARE HAVING FUN AND GAINING FANS WITH A BRAND OF; JEWISH MUSIC CALLED KLEZMER.
BYLINE: Shoshana Hoose Staff Writer
Some people assume they're acrobats.
But a growing number of Mainers know what to expect from the Casco Bay Tummlers: a lively brand of Jewish and Gypsy folk music from Eastern Europe known as klezmer.
The Tummlers get audiences dancing, even in the pouring rain. At the Common Ground Fair last year, about 50 fans splashed in mud puddles amid a downpour as they boogied to Yiddish tunes such as ''Heyser Bulgar.''
''That's when we knew we had a cult following,'' says Julie Goell, the band's mandolin player.
Ed Roseman, the clarinetist, summed up the scene in one word: ''Klezstock.'' Klezmer music, brought to this country by Jewish immigrants at the turn of the century, nearly went extinct a generation ago. But the music now is enjoying renewed popularity.
No longer confined to Jewish weddings or bar mitzvahs, klezmer music has been featured in movies such as ''The Chosen'' and on the popular ''A Prairie Home Companion'' radio show. Itzhak Perlman will play klezmer music in a special airing on Maine Public Television Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 10 p.m.
The Tummlers (pronounced toom-lers) performed during the past year at schools in Bar Harbor and Damariscotta, at the installation of a new rabbi in Portland and as part of an award-winning ''Fiddler on the Roof'' production in Eastport. The 7-year-old band will play Dec. 17 at a Hanukkah party at Morganfield's in Portland.
Maine also has at least two other klezmer bands - the Kenduskeag Klezmer Society of Bangor and Judy and the Gefilte Fish in South Portland. Both formed within the past year and a half.
''There's an increasing realization that you don't have to be Jewish to love and dance to klezmer,'' says Goell, who grew up hearing her grandparents sing Yiddish tunes.
You don't have to be Jewish to play it, either, adds Anne-Marie D'Amico, who grew up hearing the Beatles. D'Amico, a tuba player, cheerfully describes herself as the Tummlers' ''token goy.''
Way back
Klezmer music dates back to at least the 1500s.
Klezmorim, as the musicians were called, drew on Jewish religious tradition, particularly the sound of cantors chanting prayers in synagogue.
''The laugh or cry of the music was really that of the community's own laughter or weeping coming back to it through the playing of the klezmer,'' Henry Sapoznik writes in his 1987 book, ''The Compleat Klezmer.''
Early bands featured instruments in the violin family, flutes, drums and tsimbl (hammered dulcimer). Clarinets were added later as a lead instrument. Like violins, they have ''a closeness to the human voice,'' observes Sapoznik.
Klezmorim played primarily for Jewish weddings, with different tunes accompanying each part of the ceremony.
The fate of klezmer musicians reflected Jews' standing in the community. Some cities restricted bands to playing at certain times of the week, and required them to buy expensive permits. Klezmorim performing at non-Jewish weddings sometimes were forced to play Jewish songs to poke fun at themselves.
Jews moving from small villages to cities such as Warsaw brought with them musical influences from their non-Jewish neighbors. Thus, klezmer came to incorporate the folk traditions of Eastern European peasants.
As more Jews entered the army, klezmer also was influenced by military bands. Brass instruments gave the music a more robust sound.
Klezmer music enjoyed its heyday in Europe and America around the turn of the century. The Yiddish theater provided a ready audience. Klezmer music could be heard on radio shows and records catering to Jewish immigrants in America.
Some klezmorim went on to play for popular band leaders such as John Philip Sousa and Benny Goodman. Klezmer incorporated elements of jazz, Latin music and rock and roll.
The drive to assimilate made Jews increasingly embarrassed by the music of their Eastern European roots. Yiddish virtually disappeared as a spoken language. Klezmer music gave way to what Sapoznik describes as ''Jewzak.''
Then came the folk revival of the 1960s and '70s. Young people rediscovered ethnic folk music, including klezmer. Dozens of new bands have emerged during the past two decades, including the popular Klezmer Conservatory Band of Boston. ''Klez kamps'' have helped spread the music to a new generation.
A Mexican-American who heard klezmer music at a folk festival brought the klezmer revival to Maine.
Danny Mills, who lived on Peaks Island in the late 1980s, ''had no connection with anything Jewish whatsoever,'' said Nancy 3. Hoffman, a member of the Casco Bay Tummlers. But he fell in love with the music. He asked Hoffman, a neighbor, to play with him.
At first, says Hoffman, who is Jewish, ''I didn't really like it that much. I actually was in an anti-Jewish phase.'' But her perspective changed after she performed klezmer songs at a wedding. ''It really just got to me,'' she said. ''From then on, I wanted to play.''
The Tummlers grew to include five members. Hoffman, the pianist and accordion player, is the only member who has been with the group since the beginning.
The band's name comes from a Yiddish word with the same root as ''tumult.'' It means people who create a lot of noise and fun. Tummlers acted as emcees for floor shows at the Catskills' resort hotels.
The name seems appropriate, for the Casco Bay Tummlers have a tendency to ham it up. Serious musicianship and silliness went hand in hand at a recent evening rehearsal in a band room at Waynflete School in Portland.
D'Amico worried out loud that she might mess up the words to a new song, ''Abi Gezunt'' (''Be Healthy'').
Hoffman told her not to worry. ''If you flub in Yiddish,'' she said, ''no one will know.''
D'Amico, Hoffman and Goell - they call themselves ''the Tummlettes'' - wove their voices in a tight, soaring harmony. Flutist Carl Dimow and Roseman, on clarinet, traded off playing melody. Hoffman swept down the piano keys in dramatic glissandos.
The band's sound varied from oompah to Appalachian, quiet and dreamy to riotous whooping.
Some klezmer bands see their mission as preserving the old music in its original form. Others adapt it freely, incorporating jazz and other influences. ''We try to do both,'' said Roseman.
The band's repertoire includes traditional tunes such as ''Tanz, Tanz Yidelekh'' (''Dance, Dance Jews'') and original compositions such as Roseman's ''Sweedler's Dance,'' named for his grandfather.
One of the band's most moving tunes is ''Friling'' (''Springtime''), written in Vilna, Poland during World War II. The cabaret tune became popular among Jews in the ghettos and concentration camps desperately trying to survive.
The Tummlers have been hired to teach elementary children klezmer songs and dances as part of a Holocaust unit. They average two gigs a month, performing for nuns, college students and senior citizens. Plans are in the works for them to play next summer on a cruise ship in Venice.
Judy and the Gefilte Fish, by contrast, is more of a community band than a professional group.
''Our focus is fun, and not to take ourselves too seriously,'' said Judith Plano, who started the group about a year ago.
Members vary widely in their musical training. They include a lawyer, gynecologist, psychiatrist, mental health worker, musician, artist, librarian and two children. All belong to Congregation Bet Ha'am in South Portland.
The Kenduskeag Klezmer Society in Bangor was organized in part as a way to bring together people from different religious backgrounds. The society includes a cantor, rabbi, Congregational minister and former member of the Praise the Lord Orchestra.
''It's perhaps liturgical enough that the Jewish community feels satisfied and represented,'' said Scott Rapaport, a society member. ''And yet it's secular enough that we actually have ministers participating. It's very nice to see that.