And the Grammy goes to ... a klezmer band?

One can only imagine the astonishment and sheer pleasure (or to use a Yiddish word, "naches") that New York neo-klezmer icons The Klezmatics derived from hearing that their 2006 album of Woody Guthrie songs, "Wonder Wheel," received Best Contemporary World Music Album at the 49th annual awards ceremony. The album was recorded in the same loving spirit for Guthrie's work as the "Mermaid Avenue" records by Billy Bragg and Wilco.

For The Klezmatics, marking their 20th anniversary of challenging the perceptions of what an Old World Jewish genre (born in Eastern Europe amongst Balkan, Romany and Turkish strains) can offer to the New World, the Grammy is an apex in a list of "kvell"-worthy accomplishments, including collaborations with violinist Itzhak Perlman (the 1995 album "In the Fiddler's House"), playwright Tony Kushner (1997's "Possessed") and Israeli singer Chava Alberstein (1998's "The Well").

Although The Klezmatics have appeared on American labels such as Rounder and Flying Fish, their longest recorded association is with German imprint Piranha, which also runs the Berlin-based folk festival Heimatklange. The 1988 festival brought the band to the label's attention during a period when the concept of "world music" was being heavily marketed for the first time.

A decade before that, however, came the first stirrings of the klezmer revival, when baby-boomer musicians rediscovered their Jewish heritage via 78 RPM recordings of klezmer bands from 40 to 50 years earlier, and attempted to re-create the Old World flavor in such groups as Kapelye and Klezmer Conservatory Band.

"The klez revival was motivated by the general rise in self-identity politics of the '60s/'70s, but also coincides with the growth of 'world music,' " explains The Klezmatics' trumpeter and bandleader Frank London. "The earliest revivalists had the right impulses, but not always the best results."

In that context, The Klezmatics were born almost randomly, with five musicians arriving in Manhattan from different parts of the country all responding to London's ad in the Village Voice searching for those interested in forming a klezmer band.

"I was part of the first wave as a founding member of the seminal Conservatory Band," adds London, "but it was really the work of the second wavers, and The Klezmatics in particular, that solidified the philosophy of embracing the past while looking to the future. This led to the flowering of the scene we see today."

Nowadays, there isn't a major city without a klezmer band that has attended KlezKamp (the yearly Yiddish culture event held in New York State) and owes a debt to the tumult generated by the Klezmatics. The independent music scene mixed klezmer with avant-garde strains (e.g. John Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture series on Tzadik Records), Jewish indie bands (such as those on the JDub Records label) and the explosion in Balkan music (from Gogol Bordello to Boban Markovic).

Anyone who identifies with that music is sure to be moved by "Tuml = Lebn" (Noise Is Life), the two-decade overview Piranha compiled from The Klezmatics' best work. The album title references their very first release, "Shyvagn = Toyt" (Silence Is Death), a pioneering exploration of gay Jewish identity for a band that originally had two gay/lesbian members: violinist Alicia Svigals and vocalist/accordionist Lorin Sklamberg (who is still with the group).

"The title [of the CD] was a homage to both the ACT UP slogan about fighting AIDS, as well as the parallels toward any form of prejudice, Jewish history and the Yiddish language," says London. "Not only Lorin, but the entire Klezmatics have been active in promoting gay rights and LGBT positive consciousness. We explored queer Jewish identity in 'Honiksaft' and 'Man in a Hat,' which won a GLAMA award, our other favorite besides the Grammy."

So one might deduce that London's stance on gay marriage is to the left of President Obama's. "After many years of playing and having gay marriages, Lorin and I and Adrienne Cooper, Marilyn Lerner and the great performance artist Sara Felder created and performed 'Queer Wedding Sweet,' a multi-media theater-music meditation on Jew-Queer weddings that included anecdotes, songs, juggling, narratives, rants and Biblical exegesis."

With such activism naturally comes political views, and the members of The Klezmatics fill the bill as well as their Jewish ancestors did in the '30s defending workers' rights or in the '60s marching for civil rights. But these days, with anarchist Black Blocs protesting the G-20 and globalism, there are Jewish bands such as Montreal's Black Ox Orkestar, who espouse international socialism and sing about Israeli soliders dancing on Arab bones, or New York's queer-punkers The Shondes, who disavow a two-state Israeli/Palestinian solution and pass out buttons with the slogan "Hebrew Anti-Nationalist."

Where do The Klezmatics fall in the mad Chomskyite rush toward the ultra-left? "The band does not and never will have a party line, which is against our nature," explains London. "Each has his or her own beliefs. [We are] about openness, inclusion, human rights, dignity and support for those who struggle. We don't give a damn who we [anger], Jewish or otherwise, as long as we stay true to our ideals.

"We reiterate Susan Sontag's message to 'articulate complexity' and not fall into simplistic thinking," he adds. "It's possible, for example, to critique Israel both historically and qua Jewish state, lambasting its treatment of Palestinians, while supporting its right or even necessity to exist. And to support Palestinian self-determination and critique them on feminist or human rights grounds. Mutual respect is a good first step."

Politics aside, klezmer tends to be an ecstatic experience, involving dancing and "freilichkeit" (happiness), which is what you can expect when the sextet (also including violinist Lisa Gutkin, bassist Paul Morrissett, reedist Matt Darriau and Herbie Hancock's drummer Richie Barshay) hits the stage Saturday at Carnegie Lecture Hall.

"We'll do a cross section of our 20 years of repertoire -- songs and instrumentals from all recordings and areas, covering a lot of ground, including the Guthrie material and new stuff," says London.

The band found surprising fodder: a set of Jewish songs written by Guthrie, whose wife, Marjorie, was Jewish and whose mother-in-law was influential Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. This discovery resulted in an additional release, "Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah."

"Woody's daughter Nora, head of the WG archives, did the research and uncovered the songs," recalls London. "The Hanukkah tunes were among the very first she sent us to whet our appetite in the project. Writing the music was a joy, an honor, and a challenge. Each of us wrote in our way -- there was no band consensus. I consciously used traditional Ashkenazic and Hasidic music as inspiration, but tunes that had a simultaneously American effect."

According to London, it's a bit too early to pull out the Hanukkah material. But a chance to play for the Calliope Folk Music Society's audience will demonstrate how the band members grew up on American folk music.

"This project allowed us to go to our authentic roots as musicians and as people. Listen to [bassist] Paul [Morrissett's] 'Heaven', [violinist] Lisa [Gutkin's] 'I'm Gonna Get Through This World' or my 'Mermaid Avenue.' That's who we are."

Earlier this year, The Klezmatics joined in celebrating a milestone for a Jewish-American folk legend: Theodore Bikel's 80th birthday party at New York's Carnegie Hall. Those under 40 probably only know Bikel from his science-fiction roles as Worf's father on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or Rabbi Koslov on "Babylon 5," but to boomers (especially Jewish ones), he's an icon who starred in numerous films, defined the role of Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," and co-founded the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 with Pete Seeger and George Wein.

"[Bikel] is amazing -- over 80, and his politics, spirit and voice are strong!" exclaims London. "We are so lucky to have met and worked with folks whose lives have been about making the world better. Everyone who was there left in an elevated state -- the whole event was a benefit for poor people's and children's justice."

Another badge of authenticity The Klezmatics proudly wear is their staunch dedication to the preservation of Yiddish culture. Why is it so important to keep Yiddish culture alive when Jews speak English in America and Hebrew in Israel? London rolls off a polemic laundry list.

"To reject mass consumerism and corporate hegemony, to encourage looking at history and micro-cultures, to support diversity and complexity, variety and lucidity. There's a visceral, semiotic link between the music and the language."

"We preserve our history and culture not only through the study of the old but by creating the new, become a bridge between what was and what will be. The Klezmatics are less about being traditionalists or iconoclasts, but see ourselves as links in a glorious chain. Our work [becomes] a template for how any artist can use a traditional culture as a source of endless creativity [that is] tied to history [while being] contemporary and forward-looking."

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