world on a string band

wosb
Harris Wulfson with the World on a String Band at the Ukrainian National Home restaurant, December 6, 2007, New York City. I love this photo and these amazingly talented people!

left to right: Sarah Alden, Patrick Farrell, Benjy Fox-Rosen, Ljova, Harris Wulfson, Photographed by Anna Rozenblat.

This was one of the last bands Harris played with. The last time I saw him, he told me he couldn’t wait for Sarah to get back from tour so they could all get together and play! I took the audio clips from Flickr and added the fades to make the clips less choppy. If anyone has any recordings, let me know. They may not exist.

I’ve included the links to the Flickr movie clips below as well as the mp3 clip I made of their audio.

01.flikr clip 1
Freddy’s Backroom, 2007. Here is the moment during the jam where they played “world on a string” ! Harris played the ukulele for this one.

02.flikr clip 2
Freddy’s Backroom, 2007. World on a String played and then there was this fantastic jam. Pure joy. A magical night. The movie is really dark but we can see (and hear!) Harris behind Patrick.

03.flikr clip 3
At Banjo Jim’s, June 08, 2007.

04.flikr clip 4
At Banjo Jim’s, June 08, 2007.

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metropolitan klezmer

metropolitan klezmer

Metropolitan Klezmer between sets at Tonic, early 1999: Debby Karpel, Ismail Butera, Michael Hess, Steve Elson, Pam Fleming, Eve Sicular, Dave Hofstra and Harris Wulfson in the wine cellar on the Lower East Side. photo by Dennis Kleiman

Metropolitan Klezmer‘s Eve Sicular has kindly allowed me to share some music tracks from two CDs on which Harris played:

Yiddish For Travelers, 1997
Harris performs as guest violinist on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, and 13 (5 & 6 below)

and

Mosaic Persuasion, 2000
Harris performs as guest violinist on tracks 9 and 15

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With Metropolitan Klezmer

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Remembering Harris 7.31.08
Our dear musician comrade and friend, Harris Wulfson, died suddenly last week. We remember him fondly, for his sweetness with the violin and all else. His intellect and humor were tremendous yet unassuming. He had a great smile, endless enthusiasm, and an easy sense of irony. And he just loved music.

Harris had a deep devotion to Yidishkayt, and also applied his talents to his many other interests, such as bluegrass, funk, rap, new and electronic music of types I am at a loss to describe. He could play le jazz hot as well as Irish tunes, Yiddish swing or Bulgarian 11/4, and imbue it all with gorgeous, fun spirit. His gifts could also be heard through mandolin, accordion, guitar, and however else he expressed his natural musicality.

Many of our New York-area fans may remember Harris as our genial guest artist and outstanding soloist on Metropolitan Klezmer shows at Tonic, Makor, Fez, Cornelia Street Cafe, and others; he also appeared as a guest Klezbian on occasion (I will soon post pictures just found again from Harris on an outdoor Isle of Klezbos show in front of St Mark’s Church in 1999). We even created a New Year’s Eve klezmer band once at Caravan of Dreams. His most recent public performance with us was at Nuyorican Poets Cafe last year, a special Isle of Klezbos show; we also enjoyed performing together for recent weddings in Manhattan and verdant settings upstate. If memory serves, he also performed in our accordionist Ismail Butera’s project Sharqija, playing Music of the Silk Road.

Harris had a special ear for music of Eastern Europe, and called certain parts of that region the Klez Belt (as one of his friends posted this week). Anyone who has listened to our first two CDs Yiddish For Travelers and Mosaic Persuasion has heard Harris’ violin stylings on several tracks where he was a featured guest. It was a joy to mix studio sessions he had recorded, every take was a fresh delight. In the MP cover art, he is the soulful young fiddler in the red shirt all the way to the right side of the Metropolitan Klezmer band photo. This 1999 picture is by Dennis Kleiman.

Harris was also the person who first set us up with a website, which he could casually encode in a few minutes during early dot com days. His own creative adventures took him in so many directions, he leaves remarkable memories for us all. He was also a deeply principled, dapper, occasionally yet adorably spacey mentsh who was constantly open to learning.

To learn more about Harris, and hear his very moving and innovative original compositions, here is his own website. (He attended graduate studies at Cal Arts as well as CUNY; one email to me included a p.s. reading: “Dr. Harris eventually.”)

He has left us much too soon, but we are grateful for having known him. It is still very hard to believe he will not be here to play with us next time. We miss him deeply and send his family wishes for strength and peace. May his memory continue for a blessing.

All best,
~Eve for Metropolitan Klezmer and Isle of Klezbos

http://metropolitanklezmer.com

harris wulfson’s all star klezmers december 3rd 1994

The recordings below are from This Was Chanukah Live December 3rd 1994. I’ll need some help identifying the tunes on some of the tracks and confirming the players because as you can see, the poster I have is from a different year.

I BELIEVE it is Barak Tulin singing.

Track 03 is a klezmer version of Tom Waites’ Rain Dogs

 

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Harris Wulfson’s All-Star Klezmers December 3rd 1994

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