KlezKamp 25:

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Elaine Hoffman Watts: A Living Tradition

Over four days at the 2007 KlezKamp, master percussionist Elaine Hoffman Watts, together with a hand-picked orchestra of today’s greatest Yiddish musicians, recorded some of the music learned over a lifetime via her illustrious klezmer family: music she is passing on to a new and enthusiastic generation.

Elaine Hoffman Watts (drums, xylophone)
Aaron Alexander (producer)
Susan Watts (trumpet
Ken Maltz (alto sax)
Mark Rubin (tuba )
Mike Cohen (clarinet)
Dan Blacksberg (trombone)
Jeff Baker (Engineer)
Henry “Hank” Sapoznik (tenor banjo)
Adrian Banner (piano)

Songs:

Elaine Hoffman Watts was born into circumstances few of us could relate to today. On the one hand, she had the great good fortune of being part of a vibrant musical household, as the daughter of famed percussionist and xylophone virtuoso Jacob Hoffman, heard to great effect on recordings of Harry Kandel’s Orchestra in the ‘twenties. Hoffman, with his young daughter, Etelle (Elaine) on snare drum, played Yiddish melodies for family entertainment in the home (a few moments of which we are honored to be able to share as “Bonus Tracks” on this CD) and outside the home as a full time professional. How few of us can attest to having played and lived Jewish music entirely within an authentic context?

But on the other hand, she found her desire to follow her family’s legacy, not only in Jewish music, but also in the profession of music period, stymied simply by dint of her gender. As hard as it is to imagine for us today (thankfully,) women –outside of singers and a few rare pianists -- were not to be seen on a Jewish bandstand. To say that it has been an uphill battle for Elaine to follow her dreams can be a vast understatement. Given the social and cultural barriers both from the American social landscape of the day and the conservatism found in traditional Jewish homes, she chose to pursue her calling on her own terms, eventually breaking through with dogged determination, unquestioned musicality and legendary good humor.

Her accomplishments are thus made all the more remarkable; not only becoming successful percussionist of great renown and a music educator, notably the first female graduate of the Curtis Institute with a degree in percussion, but also mother of the devastatingly talented trumpeter/singer Susan Watts. After being an advisor and source for a documentary about the Philadelphia klezmer scene in the early 1990’s, Elaine began to seriously revisit the music of her childhood. She became KlezKamp staff drum instructor in 1998, and a frequent featured performer and instructor at Jewish cultural events across the US and Canada. Her efforts were further validated in 2007 when she was awarded National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

And so we come to this recording.

Producing the sessions is Aaron Alexander, roundly acknowledged as an avatar of Jewish drumming in the modern age and is but one of many young musicians who have benefited from Elaine’s instruction. “When I was asked to produce Elaine's record,” he explains, “ I felt honored to be involved and excited to have a chance to document her sound and her groove in a way that had not been captured before. “I felt she had the most authentic bulgar groove of any drummer alive today and, although she had all these other interests and experiences, when she plays the bulgar, she channels her descendants in a way - her father, her grandfather -- the people she learned from as a little girl. It's like a momentary vision into the sound of a world past, but something becomes very clear for that moment,” said Alexander.

To illustrate that point, Elaine starts each track unaccompanied, setting both the tempo and tone of each number in a way utterly devoid of the rock, jazz and other popular musical influences that have shaped modern dance drummer’s conception of the beat. One it’s own, they present a stylebook for the finest examples of traditional Jewish drumming.

Under Alexander’s direction and with the assistance of Susan Watts, Elaine selected material exclusively from her grandfather Joseph Hoffman bandstand book, tunes played by the coronetist Hoffman for the Jewish community in his native Bagopolier. Ukraine and brought with him to Philadelphia. They then assembled an all-star band of KlezKamp teaching staff to accompany her. Along with pianist Adrian Banner, reedmen Mike Cohen and Ken Maltz, Henry Sapoznik on tenor banjo and vocals, (and yours truly on tuba) the crew up in a disused recreation room in the basement of a old Catskills resort and recreated the classic Philadelphia Jewish Dance Band sound that was popular when the hotel was first built.

With Jeff “King Django” Baker at the controls, Elaine recorded everything from typical dances such as bulgars and waltzes (and even the epic 20-odd minute long famed “Philly Shers”) to “Ershte Etelah,” a never before recorded tune composed just for her by her father and, like the records which he himself made back in the 1920s with Harry Kandel -- all recorded live with no overdubs in the course of only a few hours recording time.

With this CD, and with Elaine’s many students sitting behind their drum kits at Jewish dances and concerts all around the world, the Hoffman Family musical legacy is assured to continue for generations to come.

Mark Rubin