A Black Musician Plays Traditional Klezmer

Clarinetist Don Byron. Byron's black, but he plays klezmer, the music created from the mixture of American jazz and European jewish culture. Byron's an alumnus of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, and he performs on a new anthology album called "Live At The Knitting Factory." It's on A&M records.

Clarinetist, jazz musician, and klezmer virtuoso Don Byron. He's an unlikely candidate to play klezmer, a product of Eastern European Yiddish culture: Byron is African American and dreadlocked. Byron has become best known for klezmer, but musically he's all over the map: He plays jazz with his Don Byron Quintet, modern classical music with the Semaphore quintet, and he toured Europe last fall with Music for Six Musicians, an Afro-Cuban ensemble. He's also currently writing a classical piece for the avant-garde Kronos Quartet.

The New York City band Golem describes its music as punk-klezmer. On Tanz, they mange to find new ways to balance urban irreverence with folk tradition.