An Afternoon of Klezmer with Radio KLEZ

It was not so long ago that klezmer music was everywhere as you walked the hot summer streets of “Little Bessarabia” in Bridgeport. Wistful doinas and upbeat sirbas spun from phonographs and out through open windows. They followed you past the union hall where the auxiliary band played stately khosidls and rousing marches, roiling the organizers and activists who themselves seemed bent on reaching 78 revolutions per minute. Later, after a humid day on the Long Island Sound gave way to a steamy southern Connecticut night, a wedding band pounded out joyous freilekhs and loped through sultry horas until the first rays of sun called everyone home to their crowded apartments for a few hours’ rest before the heat sent everyone bursting back into the streets.

Those days are gone now, the old neighborhood replaced by power plants, parking lots and sports arenas. But listening to Radio KLEZ, you can still taste the savory richness of the bourekas, smell the salty fish market air, feel the heft of a picket sign in your hands, and sweat the night away to the traditional music of old Yiddish Connecticut.

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