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Jim Guttmann's Bessarabian Breakdown

The Homegrown Coffeehouse presents bassist Jim Guttmann's Bessarabian Breakdown, an exciting, eclectic excursion through klezmer music that ranges from traditional performances to fusions that stay true to their idioms.

Klezmer music is the party music of the eastern European Jews, the folk music behind Broadway's Fiddler on the Roof. The music developed hundreds of years ago and has traveled with the Jews of eastern Europe throughout Europe and to the New World. Wherever they went, the Jewish musicians - known as klezmorim - would pick up the musical styles of the host culture and integrate it with their own klezmer music. In America the klezmorim fell in love with jazz and Latin dance music. Jim Guttmann's Bessarabian Breakdown continues that tradition, blending traditional klezmer with various jazz styles, salsa and rhythm & blues.

Bassist Jim Guttmann's career has taken him from smoky dives to Carnegie Hall, performing with the Klezmer Conservatory Band, violinist Itzhak Perlman, Broadway star Joel Grey, jazz singers Eartha Kitt and Mark Murphy, the legendary Boston string band Cheap Trills, blues masters Johnny Shines and James Cotton, Texas Swing legend Tiny Moore, guitar virtuoso Russ Barenberg, jazz & bluegrass violin wizard Matt Glaser, the Artie Shaw Orchestra and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra. The music in this program showcases his versatility as both a soloist and an ensemble player.

The band is made up of some of Boston's finest ethnic, jazz and improvising musicians including violinist Mimi Rabson, clarinet and sax man Ted Casher, Tom Hall on baritone sax, several current Klezmer Conservatory Band members including drummer Grant Smith, trombonist Mark Hamilton and cornetist Mark Berney. Percussion virtuoso Ernesto Diaz, jazz guitarist extraordinaire Jon Damian and pianist/accordionist Joe "Sonny" Barbato fill out the rhythm section. Truly a killer band.