Feature: Event - Tune in to a weekend of Jewish roots music - Klezmer in the Park, Sunday September 5, 1-5pm, Regent’s Park bandstand

Published: 02 September 2010

WHEN Radio 3 DJ Max Reinhardt was a child, his father Morris would gather his chums round the record player and giggle at an album by legendary American  clarinetist Mickey Katz. 

Katz, a contemporary of jazz legend Benny Goodman, was a jobbing musician in Hollywood – but also found the time to perform in a band that played humorous ditties paying homage to his Jewish roots. 

“It used to have standards like That's Amore changed to That’s A Morris,” recalls the DJ. 

“My dad thought it was hilarious. And in between each song was a 90-second musical break, and music these musicians were playing was klezmer.”

Max is hosting this weekend’s annual Klezfest in Regent’s Park, which celebrates the London klezmer scene: the term klezmer music was coined in the 1970s by  American Jewish musicians researching their roots. It comes from a style of traditional 19th-century Jewish music played in eastern Europe.

“I discovered roots music at a world music club in Brixton,”  Max recalls. “That coincided with the klezmer revival reaching a critical peak and records being sold. I saw a whole new generation enjoying Jewish music in a way that I had never seen.”

• Klezmer in the Park, Sunday September 5, 1-5pm, Regent’s Park bandstand (Regent’s Park inner circle). Entry free. www.klezmerinthepark.org.uk/ 

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