Klezmer Jam
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
[Jan. 5] Fourth-generation klezmorim Susan Watts hosts the jam, and encourages all musicians, as well as the merely curious, to stop by.
When I catch up with Susan Watts on the phone, she’s up in the Catskills at Klez Kamp, the annual week of immersion in klezmer music and Yiddish culture. People travel from all over the world to study trumpet with the fourth-generation klezmorim. Back home in Philly, she hosts free klezmer jams at Main Line Reform Temple on the first Sunday of every month. You could say Watts is on a mission. “There was nothing around here. Literally nowhere to go for klezmer, for Yiddish culture,” she says about her hometown. “So I started a nonprofit, the Community Klezmer Initiative [CKI]. We are the overarching organization that puts on klezmer jams, open mics and dances.” Watts runs down a few of CKI’s highlights, like poet Jake Marmer and Yiddish dance teacher Steve Weintraub. All musicians, klezmer or not, are encouraged to sit in on the jam. Watts has books of lead sheets, including some compositions by her legendary Philly klezmer great-grandfather, Joseph Hoffman. She encourages the merely curious to stop by as well: “You can do whatever you want! You can come and play, or sit and watch and listen, have good times with friends and family.”
Sun., Jan. 5, 1-3 p.m., free, Main Line Reform Temple, 410 Montgomery Ave., Wynnewood, 610-389-6036.
UPDATE: This event has been rescheduled for Feb. 2.
