The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, among the Midwest’s earliest klezmer revival groups and headquartered in Chicago, has performed its fusion of Yiddish pop songs, dance repertoire, and Jewish folk material without interruption since 1983. Taking its name from the city’s historic marketplace, the ensemble drives traditional sources with brass-powered force.
Guitarist and vocalist Lori Lippitz—co-founder of the Yiddish Arts Ensemble and cantor at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston—guides the fifteen-piece ensemble, honoring classic Klezmer figures while encouraging stylistic growth. Established in 1983, the band has undergone repeated membership turnover; only Lippitz and Mintz-born violinist, arranger, and music director Alex Koffman, formerly concertmaster of the Byelorussian Pops Orchestra, remain from the founding lineup. Saxophone, clarinet, and flute player Shelley Yoelin, professor of music and director of bands at Triton College in River Grove, IL, joined in 1985.
As of June 2000 the roster comprises Kimber Leigh Nussbaum (vocals), Donald Jacobs and Jeff Jeziorski (clarinets), Ralph Wilder (clarinet, saxophone, flute), Gail Mangurten and Bob Applebaum (pianos), Sam Margolis and Audrey Morrison (trombones), Ivo Braun (trumpet), David Rothstein (bass), and Mark Ponarovsky and Steve Hawk (percussion).
In 1989 the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band partnered with choreographer Lynn Shapiro to create the nonprofit Yiddish Arts Ensemble, focused on family-oriented theatrical productions. That organization became the Klezmer Music Foundation in 1994; under its auspices the weeklong Klezmer and Yiddish Music Institute of concerts and workshops occurs each year across the Midwest, and the foundation also directs the teenage Maxwell Street Junior Klezmer Orchestra.
Since 1996 the band has appeared annually with Peter, Paul & Mary’s Peter Yarrow and Jewish singer/songwriter Debbie Friedman in a Hanukah concert that draws devoted audiences. Its busiest year arrived in 1998, when the ensemble performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in February and Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park in June before traveling to London, Munich, Vienna, and Amsterdam in November.
