Presenting

The Wholesale Klezmer Band has, since 1982, performed both in the traditional context of providing music and dance leadership for Jewish weddings and other simkhes, on the concert stage, and at school and college educational programs. Credits include performances and workshops at the Conference on Judaism in Rural New England, Conference for the Advancement of Jewish Education, the New England Festival of Folk Arts (NEFFA), a Celebration of Folk Music for the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall hosted by Pete Seeger, and at the Inauguration of President Clinton. Their repertoire includes music for dance, traditional Yiddish folk songs, and Yiddish theater and vaudeville songs, including original compositions.

Calendar of public performances

The Wholesale Klezmer Band at Carnegie Hall April 30, 1991

The Wholesale Klezmer Band at the Presidential Inaugural, January 20th, 1993

The Wholesale Klezmer Band in 1999 (click to enlarge)

The Wholesale Klezmer Band consists of Yosl (Joe) Kurland, (vocals and fiddle), David Tasgal (clarinet, fiddle) Christina Crowder (accordion), Michael Suter (bass viol), Brian Bender (trombone), Richie Davis (percussion), and Peggy Davis (flute & vocals).

The Wholesale Klezmer Band performs in Yiddish and Loshn Koydesh, (Ashkenazic Hebrew), and they specialize in making it accessible to the English speaking world with translations, stories, explanations, visual aids, and that universal language that speaks to your feet and makes them want to dance. They write many of their own dance tunes and Yiddish songs that speak to contemporary concerns.

The Wholesale Klezmer Band performs music for both Jewish and general audiences that expresses Jewish values of justice and peace. By introducing Jewish music and culture to young audiences of diverse ethnic groups, religions and races they work to foster intercultural understanding.

Educational Programs

(see also: Workshops)
(see also: School Programs)

• Introducing Jewish music and culture
• How to dance at a Jewish Wedding
• Yiddish song and music in Jewish life
• What makes Jewish Music Jewish?
• Why would anyone write Yiddish songs today?
• Lakhn mit trern--Laughing with Tears as a theme in Jewish music, prayer, and life

"This performance fascinated our population that is usually very hard to please. Our students enjoyed the unfamiliar sounds and the exposure to a culture so different from their own. It was a pleasure to see the spark that was going over from Joe to the audience." Gunter Nagels, teacher, Holyoke, Massachusetts

Please have a look at letters of reference from Mary Ann Clarkson, Principal of Erving, Massachusetts elementary school, and Alice Grunfeld, Executive Director of Kamp Kinderland in Tolland, Massachusetts.

What they say about Wholesale:

"Music to bridge the gulf of war" Amherst Bulletin

"An unforgettable evening of comedy and drama and joy and sorrow" Dee Sarno, Saratoga County Arts Council

"Wonderfully entertaining and moving" Jewish Weekly News of Western Massachusetts

"The universality of what you do makes this somewhat esoteric art accessible to people from totally divergent backgrounds" Joan Epro, Dean's office, Franklin Pierce College

"Their upbeat, danceable, festive-like music made it hard for me to sit still" The North Adams State College Beacon

"An evening that was a gift of love and spiritual blessing. You helped to transform strangers into a dancing family" Magdalena Gomez, Hadley, Ma

Other references from wedding and bar/bas mitzve customers as well as presenters available on our wedding page, our reference page, and byrequest.

For information and bookings, call Joe Kurland at 413-624-3204 or email us at ganeydn@crocker.com

While you're calling, ask for information about an art show or workshops on Jewish art and manuscripts by band member and calligrapher, Peggy H. Davis.

Multi-instrumentalist David Tasgal (violin, clarinet, bass, piano) had performed in string quartets, marching bands, jazz ensembles, symphony orchestras and rock groups before becoming joining Wholesale in 1998. Yet, he says, ''The idea of playing Jewish music with other Jewish musicians had never ocurred to me.'' Originally from Springfield, Mass., David studied clarinet, piano and cello, and later learned bass and violin. He now teaches stringed instruments and leads and composes music for youth orchestras. Like many American Jews who have found difficulty reconciling personal spiritual values with current religious institutions, he says, "I was suffering from a lot of cultural alienation. Playing with Wholesale filled an important need for me, especially when I saw how much the audiences appreciate being put in touch with a little Yiddishkeit.''
David adds, "I think this kind of music is not just entertaining but of real importance because it delivers the easily forgotten message that there is fun in Judaism."
"In my spare time," says David, "I occasionally like to put on tefillin."

Trombonist Brian Bender, who hails from California, is a graduate of the New England Conservatory's Third Stream Studies Department, with an emphasis on Jewish music.
He says, "Klezmer has become the most meaningful way that I can experience being Jewish as a professional musician. It is a great honor to be involved in the revitalization of a culture." The trombone's role in klezmer is a fascinating one, says Brian, because it shifts from a pure bass line to rhythm to a tenor counter-line to pure melody.
Brian is also active in playing jazz, Dixieland, reggae, rhythm and blues, Latin , Celtic, Brazilian and other music, and teaches trombone, trumpet and piano, as well as klezmer and jazz ensembles.

Christina Crowder (accordion), our newest member trained in classical piano, but caught the folk music bug in college and switched to accordion. She later studied Scandinavian and Bulgarian accordion in Seattle and performed with the acoustic folk-rock band Bad Karma Banjo. Christina moved to Hungary in 1993, where she studied Hungarian folk dance and became a founding member of the Budapest-based Yiddish music ensemble Di Naye Kapelye. She appears on their albums Aleph (1995), Di Naye Kapelye (1998), and A Mazeldiker Yid (2001). Di Naye Kapelye focused on both researching and re-creating the sound of the musicians that served rural and urban Jewish communities in the early 20th century. Christina and her husband John DeMetrick continued this research with Fulbright grants to Romania in 1999-2000. Their work encompassed field-work with musicians, archival research and collecting commercial recordings related to Jewish music in Romania.
Christina also plays old-time music on banjo and fiddle and travels to various fiddlers conventions and gatherings in New England and West Virginia. She finds a strong connection between the Appalachian and Klezmer traditions: “I find that playing traditional music – of any kind – is a unique way to connect to history. At a dance or a party, you can really feel yourself connected to essentially the same scene, maybe fifty, a hundred, even 150 years ago. I really enjoy trying to capture the essence of tune, as passed on to me through the musicians or recordings I’ve learned it from, and then convey that spirit to dancers or an audience”.

Peggy Davis (flute, vocals) grew up in Minneapolis, where she studied piano, flute and guitar. She first listened to Yiddish music through the recorded singing of Theodore Bikel, Ruth Rubin and Martha Schlamme. Her first encounter with native singers was when she worked with Russian immigrants in Italy, many of whom spoke with her in Yiddish. In Minnesota, she helped found the group, "Yiddishe Folksmenshn." Peggy also sang Balkan and Russian folk music in the Ethnic Dance Theatre Choir.
Of klezmer, she says, "I think of the music as having been written in Yiddish, even if there are no words attached to it.'' Peggy is a calligrapher and is married to Joe .

Although Michael Suter (bass) had early brushes with music, playing recorder and appearing in "The Wizard of Oz" while growing up in southern Connecticut, he didn't start playing bass (electric) until age 16. At the University of Connecticut, he studied string bass with Robert Black. Michael's musical interests have led him to several ensembles including a Sun Ra tribute group, jazz poetry, a funk/ rock, world music groups featuring mainly African and middle eastern music, as well as several orchestras and pit bands for dance and theater presentations. "Klezmer deeply touches my roots in northern Serbia's Voivodina region where my grandfather grew up,'' he says, "and gives me a real sense of positive connection to my European heritage -- something which is valuable and healing."
Michael is also interested in mycology ( the study of mushrooms), gardening and wildcrafting, backpacking and Native American culture.

Richie Davis (drums) began banging on assorted beer trays and metal objects (similar to ones he still uses) even before studying percussion formally beginning at age 9. Within a year or so of getting his present drum set as his bar mitzvah present, Richie was performing professionally with Greek bands from Houston to Montreal, at Greek Catskill resorts and throughout the Northeast. It took 15 years , however, before he found his way back to the Jewish music he'd heard smidgens of at simchas in New York, where he grew up.
Richie's love of ethnic music and international folk dancing, has helped to draw him back to klezmer: "I feel the music surge through me kinetically, and try to give that back to the band and the dancers out on the floor. It's the next best thing I know to being out there dancing myself."
By day, Richie writes for a newspaper.