‘It’s Never Happened Before’

Taking a page from the “Great Day in Harlem” photo shoot, 100 Jewish musicians gather on the steps of the Eldridge Street Synagogue. The day’s events were turned into a documentary film.

Taking a page from the “Great Day in Harlem” photo shoot, 100 Jewish musicians gather on the steps of the Eldridge Street Synagogue. The day’s events were turned into a documentary film.

by George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week

It probably won’t show up in any history of the Jewish people or even a history of Jewish music, but Oct. 12, 2007 was a memorable morning in klezmer history. On that day, more than 100 Jewish musicians of almost every conceivable musical persuasion — but mostly either scions of klezmer, leaders of the klezmer revival or, in a few exalted cases, grand veteran survivors of the music’s golden age in the goldene medina — gathered on the steps of the newly restored Eldridge Street Synagogue for a Yiddish equivalent of the famous photo of jazz greats usually called “A Great Day in Harlem.”

At the center of this giddy vortex of energy was Yale Strom, who had pulled off one of those “it

can’t be done” moments. So it is neither surprising nor inappropriate that Strom is the one who documented that day’s festivities with a short film, “A Great Day on Eldridge Street,” which will have its premiere on May 17.
Although Strom has some detractors in the Jewish music world — I’m not one of them — his importance as an organizer, producer and violin-slinging-Eveready Bunny energy source is something for which everyone should be grateful. “A Great Day” is not one of his major filmmaking efforts; it’s more like a delightful appetizer for a meal yet to come. The film moves back and forth between the chaotic scene inside the building, photographer Leo Sorel’s preternaturally serene preparation for the photo itself, excerpts from the concerts surrounding the event and the spirited musical march through the Lower East Side that followed the picture-taking.

Strom punctuates this friendly frenzy with four montages of black-and-white photos, first a series of shots taken during the musicians’ procession on the Great Day, then selections of archival photos documenting klezmorim of the early 20th century, life on the Jewish Lower East Side of the past and, finally, the shtetls of the Old Country. These stills serve a double purpose: formally, they are meditational moments out of time while, thematically, they underline the historical continuity from which our contemporary Jewish music emerges, a series of communities held together by the slender but strong threads of culture, faith and family.

On a single viewing, it’s hard to take away from a kaleidoscopic film like this one more than a few cherished moments and initial impressions. At the very least, the assemblage in the synagogue basement — where the musicians checked in before the shoot on the steps —includes what is undoubtedly the greatest collection of men’s hats seen in one place in Manhattan since the 1950s. It is also delicious to realize that when you put a bunch of working musicians in a room — or on the street — with their instruments, they will spontaneously burst into melody.

One of the liveliest moments in the film features Pete Sokolow, Marty Confurius and Paul Shapiro jamming on a bebop standard; suddenly, Shapiro starts tap-dancing wildly to the accompaniment of his own sax and the impromptu rhythm section. It’s a great, thoroughly spontaneous moment (and it reveals that Shapiro is a much better sax player than dancer).

The film is full of similarly spur-of-the-moment felicities. One such moment occurs after the musicians finished the shoot and marched to a nearby park, where reedmen David Krakauer, David Julian Gray and Hankus Netsky traded eight-bar solos as the bright October sunlight bathes them in its glow. Another was a sterling trombone solo by Brian Bender that reminds listeners of the ties between salsa and Jewish music.
But it is the photograph itself that rightly occupies pride of place at the center of the film, its primary structuring principle. As Leo Sorel explains to a passer-by, “It’s never happened before. That’s what makes it so special.” n

“A Great Day on Eldridge Street” will have its premiere at the Museum at Eldridge Street (12 Eldridge St., between Canal and Division streets) on Sunday, May 17 at 3 p.m., with a live concert by Yale Strom and many of the musicians who were in the photo. For information, call (212) 219-0888 or go to www.eldridgestreet.org.

Signup for our weekly email newsletter here.

Check out the Jewish Week's Facebook page and become a fan! And follow the Jewish Week on Twitter: start here.