Rubinchik’s Orkestyr – Flipnotics Freilachs
Perhaps because Austin has grown past its ability to offer cheap rent (but not its ability to offer cheap beer), a number of its denizens are busily re-examining acoustic musics from the barely remembered past. Witness the Asylum Street Spankers, Hot Club Of Cowtown, and the most unlikely Rubinchik’s Orkestyr.
The Rubin is Mark Rubin, whose principal musical address as bassist and tuba star is in the (now duo) Bad Livers. His Orkestyr digs into a heritage that must have been fairly remote for a Jewish lad growing up in Oklahoma: klezmer music.
Klezmer seems to be the result of traditional Eastern European Jewish musicians coming to the United States and encountering jazz. It is Django on Beale Street with Woody Allen on clarinet. Something like that, and rather richer than that shorthand could describe.
This dodges the question: Is Rubinchik’s Orkestyr any good at this klezmer stuff? One proposes to keep dodging, for it would be the height of hubris to pretend to any great expertise. Settle for this: It sounds good.
Recorded in two live batches, seven songs for a show on KUT radio (where Rubin works part-time as a DJ) and four cut live at Flipnotics Coffeehouse (where Rubin’s notes indicate the Orkestyr gathers to play once a week), the music is filled with the solemn joy of living. It is also played with obvious musical dexterity (though one wishes for a translation of the lyrics). And that, for this listener, is plenty good enough. Tonight, anyway.