The following is a verbatim transcription of the dialogue between my id (which we’ll call “Blabbermouth Brendan”) and superego (“Neurotic Brendan”) during a performance by UVA Klezmer Ensemble leader Joel Rubin and Pete Rushefsky, a friend of Rubin since the two performed regularly together in upstate New York.
 Torah the Explorer? No, it’s Joel Rubin and Pete Rushefsky, who put on a brilliant mix of klezmer tunes at Gravity Lounge. |
Rubin and Rushefsky take the stage, the former in a black turtleneck, slacks and black ankle boots, the latter in a black button-up shirt. They open the night with a short traditional tune: Rubin’s clarinet squeaks through klezmer’s quarter-note scales and Rushefsky’s vaguely oriental-sounding tsimbl (a traditional hammered dulcimer) pulls Rubin back into a simple, conversational chorus.
Blabbermouth: Sounds like the score of a Disney movie. And what the heck is Rushefsky playing?
Neurotic: A tsimbl. He hits those strings with the two sticks he’s holding. I think it’s a charming balance to Rubin’s clarinet. Listen—see, Rubin’s trilling and screeching away, but Rushefsky can play quick enough to keep up and mellow enough to complement him.
Blabbermouth: I think those mallets look like Q-Tips. And Rushefsky looks like Jimmy Kimmel.
The duo gets a hearty round of applause from the crowd, 30 or so people counting the students from Rubin’s Klezmer Ensemble that came to listen. Rubin announces that the next number is a suite of music that runs from 19th century traditional Yiddish tunes to “contemporary Sabbath” songs. The suite was written for Vanessa Ochs, director of Jewish Studies at UVA. Without a rhythm section, the pair masterfully shifts through movements with almost undetectable glances.
Neurotic [cowers, looks concerned]: We’re stuck in the only non-Jewish person here, and he’s lanky enough to draw attention to himself! Eep!
Blabbermouth: Tsimbl, hmm? I like it. It sounds like mice running around in organ pipes and knocking each other out.
[Neurotic glances at watch, looks nervous]
Blabbermouth: I can barely see Rubin’s hands move, but he’s going wild. Listen to him, hopping octaves and bending notes so smoothly! Man, that dude shreds like Eddie Van Halen.
Rushefsky makes a crack about the instrument being named after “Ephraim Tsimblist,” and the audience chuckles. He then plays a lengthy solo piece that he calls a “wordless prayer,” a series of firmly struck bass notes that resonate as he slides his two mallets up in tender scales. He and Rubin loosen up a bit and joke about songs for festive occasions; “Are you sure you can dance at a bris?” Rubin asks him. “We’ll have to get a rabbinical ruling,” Rushefsky answers.
Blabbermouth: It took at least five centuries for this to become a traditional style of music, and it will take at least another five centuries until we got out of here. And do all the jokes have to be about speaking Yiddish? [Listens as the song concludes] There! Rushefsky just said it’s a Yiddish audience!
[Ego arrives and wedges himself between the pair]
Ego: I caught the last song from the back of the room. What’d I miss?
Blabbermouth and Neurotic [in unison]: Five others just like it.
Ego: That’s not too fair, is it? I mean, how frequently does a traditional Jewish style of music get a Downtown Mall venue? I think it’s a pretty nice change of scenery. And these two read each other so intuitively.
Blabbermouth: Oy vey.