When Jewish-American clarinetist David Krakauer decided to form his own neo-klezmer band and record as a leader, the result was David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness! -- an adventurous, risk-taking outfit that has been pointing instrumental Jewish klezmer in exciting new directions since the ‘90s. David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness! has had its share of personnel changes since the ‘90s, but whichever musicians were on board, the New York-based outfit has always favored an experimental approach. Although klezmer-oriented, Krakauer has never been a klezmer purist; Klezmer Madness! has combined klezmer with elements of jazz, rock, funk, soul, blues, and even hip-hop. Jewish dance music is the band's foundation, although Klezmer Madness! shows its multi-culturalism by acknowledging forms of music that came out of the African-American community. No one will mistake Klezmer Madness!' work for vintage klezmer recordings of the ‘10s and ‘20s -- the klezmer recordings of that time were totally acoustic, and even though jazz and blues were around, rock and funk had yet to be created. However, Krakauer has been quoted as saying that he loves the raw, hard, rugged approach of those vintage, pre-‘30s klezmer recordings -- and that Klezmer Madness!, for all its experimentation and multi-culturalism, identifies with that old world spirit.

Klezmer Madness!' multi-cultural outlook is, to a large degree, a reflection of the Jewish-American experience. Although klezmer was created by Jews in Eastern Europe, Krakauer is not from that part of the world -- he was born and raised in the Big Apple, and he didn't start out as a klezmer musician. In fact, Krakauer didn't listen to much klezmer until he reached adulthood. Growing up in Brooklyn, the clarinetist listened to jazz, classical, and rock. In high school, he played jazz -- as a teen-ager, he was in a band with jazz explorer Anthony Coleman. And when he reached adulthood, Krakauer attended the prestigious Juilliard School of Music (where he earned a Masters degree) and pursued a career as a classical clarinetist. Krakauer loved jazz, but he didn't feel that he had anything new to add to it -- and so, he chose to focus on the European classical tradition instead. In the late ‘70s and ‘80s, Krakauer was a successful, accomplished classical musician; he played with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the highly regarded Philadelphia Orchestra. But eventually, the clarinetist decided that creatively, he had gone as far as he could in the classical field. It was in the ‘80s that he discovered klezmer in a major way, and in the late ‘80s, klezmer became Krakauer's primary focus. He joined the Klezmatics and played on their first three albums; in the ‘90s, he formed his own band and called it David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness!. For Krakauer, embracing klezmer was, in a sense, a homecoming -- it marked his return to improvised music (which he had pretty much given up when he switched from jazz to classical). And even though Klezmer Madness! isn't jazz per se, the band's love of improvisation struck a chord with jazz musicians and the jazz media; Klezmer Madness! has received a fair amount of write-ups in major jazz publications, including -Downbeat and -Jazziz.

The first Klezmer Madness! album, which was simply titled Klezmer Madness!, came out on John Zorn's Tzadik label in 1995. On that album (which Krakauer produced), the participants included Anthony Coleman (keyboards), Adam Rogers (electric guitar), Michael Alpert (violin, guitar, accordion), David Light (drums), Juan Ortega (drums, timbales), and Oscar Ortega (congas). Klezmer Madness!' use of Latin percussionists was hardly the sort of thing that a klezmer purist would do, but for those who want to see klezmer evolve and move forward, it was a perfect example of the band's risk-taking spirit.

In 1998, Tzadik released Klezmer, NY, Krakauer's second album with Klezmer Madness!; this time, the band's lineup included Rogers as well as Ted Reichman (accordion), Kevin Norton (drums, percussion), and Oren Bloedow (electric bass). In 1999, Krakauer signed with Label Bleu (a French company), and he produced the third Klezmer Madness! project, A New Hot One, in early 2000. On that CD, Krakauer is joined by Reichman, Norton, Mark Stewart (electric guitar), Pablo Aslan (electric bass), and Nicki Parrott (electric bass). In 2002, Label Bleu released the fourth Klezmer Madness! project The Twelve Tribes; Norton and Parrott were on board, and the other participants included Rogers (electric guitar), Kevin O'Neil (electric guitar), Will Holshouser (accordion), and hip-hopper Socalled (who provides sampling and is a forward-thinking artist who specializes in Jewish/hip-hop experimentation). Guitarist O'Neil should not be confused with the Los Angeles-based singer/bassist Kevin O'Neal, who was a member of the Bus Boys (a predominantly African-American new wave band) in the ‘80s. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi