By Michele Alperin, Special To The Dayton Jewish Observer

An ad in the Village Voice in 1986 drew together several musicians who were tantalized by the idea of forming a klezmer band. Five of the original members are still with the band they created, the Klezmatics. The only klezmer band to receive a Grammy Award, the Klezmatics will perform at the Jewish Federation’s Centennial Celebration and UJC Opening Gala on Nov. 20.

“At the beginning, most of us just wanted to perform the music, to play it in a straight, old-fashioned way,” said Frank London, the group’s trumpet and keyboard player.

As they came into their own, the Klezmatics realized they could put their own spin on the music, as they responded to influences in both mainstream and Jewish culture. For the Klezmatics, music is an organic outgrowth and reflection of Jewish culture in its entirety.

“The Klezmatics have always made a point of addressing music in the larger context — not music separate from people,” London said. As a result, the group performs songs of social justice as well as of mysticism, belief, and faith.

Their commitment to the Jewish value of tikun olam, repairing the world, led them to explore the work of other musicians with similar interests, one of whom was Woody Guthrie.

“He was also a musician who was more than a musician, but also an active member of his society,” said London.

Guthrie’s music made its way into the Klezmatics repertoire because of an encounter after a concert. Having recorded an album with Itzhak Perlman and three other klezmer groups in 1995 that raised awareness of klezmer music in the United States, the Klezmatics were again performing with Perlman.

After the concert they were introduced to Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s daughter. Coincidentally they had just played a song by Nora’s grandmother on her mother’s side, the influential Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt.

Nora Guthrie made a match between the Klezmatics and Woody Guthrie’s music. When Woody Guthrie died, London explained, “he left stacks of words, but no one knew what the melodies were.”

Among these were eight Chanukah songs, written in the style of Guthrie’s children’s songs like Riding in my Car. Nora Guthrie invited the Klezmatics to put these and other examples of Woody’s Jewish songs to music.

The Klezmatics’ first big break came in 1988 with an invitation to play at the first annual Heimatklänge Festival in Berlin, one of the first celebrations of “world music.”

In those early days the band drew on klezmer bands’ music of the 1930s and 1940s and developed broad themes that have formed their musical choices: a commitment to spoken Yiddish, an affirmation of socialist anthems of Eastern Europe, and an activism focused particularly on human rights.

The Klezmatics’ music evolved, blending in multi-ethnic and cultural influences in New York, punk, jazz, and classical strains. They also began to emphasize rhythm over pure melody.

The Klezmatics have also joined with Israeli singer Chava Alberstein to perform 15 Yiddish poems she had set to music, and they have collaborated with the Pilobolus Dance Theater.

Attendees at a Klezmatics performance can expect to expand their own musical horizons, London said.

“That’s what’s lovely about a Klezmatics program,” London said. “It offers the audience different song choices that are much older than the ones they are familiar with, and much newer.”

‘Top 10 Comedian’ Modi on program

Jewish comedian Modi, voted one of the “Top 10 Comedians” in New York by the Hollywood Reporter and Backstage, will bring his accents and characters to the Federation’s gala.

A regular at Los Angeles and New York comedy clubs, he has appeared on HBO’s The Sopranos, NBC’s Last Comic Standing and Friday Night Videos, Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd with Collin Quinn and The USO Live Tour, E! Entertainment’s Howard Stern Show, Oxygen’s Can You Tell, and BET’s 10th Anniversary of Comic View.

Mike Halasz is the master of ceremonies for the event, which will also honor the Federation’s past presidents.

Centennial co-chairs are Judy Abromowitz and Pam Schwartz. Howard Abromowitz is chair of the United Jewish Campaign.

Attendees will be asked to make their pledges to the 2011 United Jewish Campaign, which helps meet the needs of Jews in Dayton, Israel, and around the world.