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Klezmer (Yiddish: כליזמר or קלעזמער (klezmer), pl.: כליזמרים (klezmorim) – instruments of music) is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim in ensembles known as kapelye, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations. In the United States the genre evolved considerably as Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who arrived between 1880 and 1924, came into contact with American jazz. 

ompared with most other European folk-music styles, little is known about the history of klezmer music, and much of what is said about it remains uncertain. There is, however, a heavy influence of Romani music, since many Jews and Roma lived side by side in Europe. 

Klezmer is easily identifiable by its characteristic expressive melodies, reminiscent of the human voice, complete with laughing and weeping. This is not a coincidence; the style is meant to imitate khazone and paraliturgical singing. A number of dreydlekh (a Yiddish word for musical ornaments), such as krekhts ("sobs") are used to produce this style.

Various musical styles influenced traditional klezmer music. Perhaps the strongest and most enduring is Romanian music. Klezmer musicians heard and adapted traditional Romanian music, which is reflected in the dance forms found throughout surviving klezmer music repertoire.

History

The Bible has several descriptions of orchestras and Levites making music, but after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, many Rabbis discouraged musical instruments. However, the importance of merrymaking at weddings was not diminished, and musicians came forth to fill that niche, klezmorim. The first klezmer known by name was Yakobius ben Yakobius, a player of the aulos in Samaria in the 2nd century CE. The earliest written record of the klezmorim is in the 15th century. It is unlikely that they played music recognizable as klezmer today since the style and structure of klezmer as we know it today is thought to have come largely from 19th century Bessarabia, where the bulk of today's traditional repertoire was written.

Klezmorim based much of their secular instrumental music upon the devotional vocal music of the synagogue, in particular cantorial music. Even so, klezmorim—along with other entertainers—were typically looked down on by Rabbis because of their secular traveling lifestyle. Klezmorim often travelled and played with Romani musicians ("lăutari"), because they occupied similar social strata. They had a great influence on each other musically and linguistically (the extensive klezmer argot in Yiddish includes some Romani borrowings).

Klezmorim were respected for their musical abilities and diverse repertoire, but they were by no means restricted to playing klezmer. They sometimes played for Christian churches and local aristocracy, and taught some Italian classical violin virtuosos. 

Like other professional musicians, klezmorim were often limited by authorities. In Ukraine they were banned from playing loud instruments, until the 19th century. Hence musicians took up the violin, tsimbl (or cymbalom), and other stringed instruments. The first musician to play klezmer in European concerts, Josef Gusikov, played a type of xylophone which he invented and called a "wood and straw instrument". It was laid out like a cymbalom, and attracted comments from Felix Mendelssohn (highly favourable) and Liszt (condemnatory). Later, around 1855 under the reign of Alexander II of Russia, Ukraine permitted loud instruments. The clarinet started to replace the violin as the instrument of choice. Also, a shift towards brass and percussion happened when klezmorim were conscripted into military bands.

As Jews left Eastern Europe and the shtetls, klezmer spread throughout the globe, to the United States as well as to Canada, Mexico, and Argentina.

 As U.S. Jews began to adopt mainstream culture, the popularity of klezmer waned, and Jewish celebrations were increasingly accompanied by non-Jewish music.

While traditional performances may have been on the decline, many Jewish composers who had mainstream success, such as Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland, continued to be influenced by the klezmeric idioms heard during their youth (as Gustav Mahler had been). George Gershwin was familiar with klezmer music, and the opening clarinet glissando of Rhapsody in Blue suggests this influence, although the composer did not compose klezmer directly.  Some clarinet stylings of swing jazz bandleaders Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw can be interpreted as having been derived from klezmer, as can the "freilach swing" playing of other Jewish artists of the period such as trumpeter Ziggy Elman.

At the same time, non-Jewish composers were also turning to klezmer for a prolific source of fascinating thematic material. Dmitri Shostakovich in particular admired klezmer music for embracing both the ecstasy and the despair of human life, and quoted several melodies in his chamber masterpieces.

In the mid-to-late 1970s there was a klezmer revival in the United States and Europe, led by Giora Feidman, The Klezmorim, Zev Feldman, Andy Statman, and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. They drew their repertoire from recordings and surviving musicians of U.S. klezmer. In 1985, Henry Sapoznik and Adrienne Cooper founded KlezKamp to teach klezmer and other Yiddish music.

The 1980s saw a second wave of revival, as interest grew in more traditionally inspired performances with string instruments, largely with non-Jews of the United States and Germany. Musicians began to track down older European klezmer, by listening to recordings, finding transcriptions, and making field recordings of the few klezmorim left in Eastern Europe.

What is "Klezmer Music"?

Klezmer is a Hebrew word, a combination of the words "kley" (vessel) and "zemer" (melody) that referred to musical instruments in ancient times. It became colloquially attached to Jewish folk musicians sometime in the Middle Ages.

Working under various restrictions in different centuries and cultures, Jewish musicians (klezmorim) developed their own unique style out of a variety of local musical styles. Figuring most prominently are Ottoman Turkish modes and Balkan gypsy and clarinet stylings.

The advent of the Chassidic movement in the 1750s stocked the klezmer's pot with an endless supply of melodies and dances based on nigunim (wordless prayer melodies). The style of the performance became impassioned and soulful, reflecting the spirituality of the Chassidim.

While "klezmer" referred originally only to instrumental music played by clarinets, violins, basses and tsimbaloms (hammer dulcimers), it has come to mean Yiddish vocal music as well, encompassing both folk songs and music from the Yiddish theater, which thrived in the early 20th century in both Warsaw and New York.

At the present time, klezmer music refers to a large variety of revivals. There are those at one end of the spectrum, who play very traditional instruments and melodies in imitation of the European klezmorim; and those at the other end, who play modern fusion music, combining klezmer with world music such as Afro-pop, rock or hip hop. The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band focuses on the 1920s-40s immigrant style in America, but also creates its own arrangements and compositions inspired by the deep spiritual well of klezmer music of the Eastern European past.

By the later sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries in Bohemia and then in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jewish musicians began to form their own guilds. The formation of guilds raised the social status of Jewish musicians, and led to the abandonment of the older term leyts (scoffer, clown), applied in Central Europe to singers, instrumentalists, clowns, and dancers, in favor of the new, more respectable term klezmer (from kele zemer, musical instruments or vessels of song; pl., klezmorim), designating exclusively an instrumentalist. The term klezmer made its way to Germany only in the eighteenth century, with the influx of Jewish musicians from Bohemia and Poland. Klezmer was a more favorable term for a Jewish musician, in contrast to the derogatory muzikant. This distinction persisted until the later nineteenth century, when Jews gained admission to conservatories in Russia and Austria-Hungary in significant numbers.