Jewish Journal,
Album Review
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"Midnight Prayer" (Traditional Crossroads). Like the Budowitz set, this is Old World-style klezmer, albeit with Rubin's clarinet providing the main voice and the presence of trumpeter Ferenc Kovacs adding a little more heft. The set was recorded in four days at the Operetta House in Budapest, and several of the band members are Hungarian, but the tunes are drawn from the historical treasure trove of Soviet-era field work by Moshe Beregovski and his predecessors in the An-Ski Expeditions.
The set has a delightfully jaunty feel to its klezmer numbers, starting with the up-tempo section of the opening track, "Khabno," while the other musical source of the recording, Chasidic nigunim, provides a soul-wrenching counterpoint. Rubin is in fine form throughout but particularly electrifying on the nigunim and, most of all, on the title tune, where he weeps with the best of them.
I particularly like Claudio Jacomucci's lithe accordion lines and interplay between cymbalom master Kalman Balogh and the violinists, Sandor Budai and David Chernyavsky. I realize that Rubin is busier than ever with his teaching, writing and producing duties, but I hope we don't have to wait 10 years for another recording of his own masterful playing. 12/20/07
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