Nikitov

Nikitov: Vanderlust

by Elliott Simon
January 6, 2007

Original Yiddish/klezmer music was most likely string-based, with a heavy accent on violins, cellos and guitars, evolving during a time when the lines between Jewish and Gypsy musicians were quite fluid. Much later, Gypsy met jazz, and the result was perhaps the pinnacle of string-based jazz, the “hot club sound of guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli. It would seem then that a marriage between Yiddish music and “hot club jazz should be made in heaven. Happily it is, ...