About the Film
A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden was the first film to document the
klezmer revival, tracing the efforts of two founding groups, Kapelye and Boston's
Klezmer Conservatory Band, to recover the lost history of klezmer music. For
nearly a millennium, this vigorous and soulful music was part of the
celebration of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. In the early decades of this century, the
music took root in America. Klezmer musicians learned hundreds of tunes by ear
and their ears were open to Gypsy, Ukrainian and Greek melodies of the old
world, as well as to the new sounds of American jazz. Music born in Eastern
Europe lived on in the imaginations of composers for New York's Yiddish theater,
men whose tunes entered the mainstream through such unlikely adapters as the
Andrew Sisters. Eventually Klezmer went underground as its audience assimilated
into mainstream American culture.
A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden is about musical process, taking
klezmer tunes through transcription and rehearsal into performance. Lively, clever,
and often humorous, this film contains rare footage of klezmer's immigrant
elder statesmen, now no longer alive - including Dave Tarras, Leon Schwartz, and
Ben Gailing. - and their dynamic encounters with the younger musicians who
have become Klezmer's leading luminaries - Henry Sapoznik, Hankus Netsky,
Michael Alpert, Judy Bressler, and the jazz musician Don Byron are all here in their
early days.
Streamed in part only -- the first 26 minutes of this 1 hour 15 minute film.
