KLEZMER CLARINET GREAT MARGOT LEVERETT FUSES COUNTRY AND OLD COUNTRY MUSIC AT CLUB HELSINKI

KLEZMER CLARINET GREAT MARGOT LEVERETT FUSES COUNTRY AND OLD COUNTRY MUSIC AT CLUB HELSINKI ON SATURDAY, DEC. 20

(Great Barrington, Mass.) Club Helsinki's annual Hanukah bash this year features the return of Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, a supergroup of klezmer and bluegrass talent that combines country and Old Country music. The evening also includes a special Hanukah-themed dinner menu.

Margot Leverett is a co-founder of groups including the Klezmatics and Mikveh, and along with Andy Statman and David Krakauer, is one of the three top klezmer clarinetists in the world, according to klezmer expert Seth Rogovoy, author of The Essential Klezmer. Leverett is one of the only musicians who could justifiably call a CD The Art of Klezmer Clarinet, as she has to her credit. And with the Klezmer Mountain Boys, Leverett mines the surprisingly natural affinities between these two rural-based folk musics, where Ralph Stanley meets Naftule Brandwein and the two swing together like a bar mitzvah in Birmingham.

The musicians in Leverett's band read like a who's who of American roots music, including bassist Marty Confurius, who has played with Vassar Clements, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, and klezmer greats Andy Statman and Dave Tarras, guitarist Joe Selly, whose credits include Phoebe Snow, Vassar Clements, Barbara Eden, Melissa Manchester and Tex Logan, fiddler Kenny Kosek, who played with Jerry Garcia, John Denver, James Taylor, and David Byrne, and the legendary mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff, a sideman with Tony Trischka, John Gorka, Jorma Kaukonen and Hazel Dickens.

Classically trained at Indiana University School of Music, Margot Leverett was involved in avant-garde music when she first heard klezmer, the dynamic East European music traditionally played at Jewish weddings. Leverett was a founding member of the Klezmatics in 1985, before moving on to establish a solo career. Her first CD, The Art of Klezmer Clarinet, a tribute to classic klezmer of the 1920s and '30s, was released in 2001 to glowing reviews.

With The Klezmer Mountain Boys, Leverett joins forces with today's stars of klezmer and bluegrass to explore the shared musical spirit of two genres literally worlds apart. Appalachian and southern fiddle tunes by Bill Monroe meet klezmer melodies from pre-war Russia and Eastern Europe, some newly discovered. The resulting medleys and improvisations are at once raw, funny, soulful and footstomping.

A special menu of traditional Hanukkah fare will be served before the show. Reservations are recommended and are available at (413) 528 - 3304. Tickets are $15 and are available at Club Helsinki (reet - Great Barrington), or by calling (413) 528 - 3394.