Rough Guide to Bachata [Audio CD] Various Artists

The Rough Guide couldn't have gotten this klezmer anthology off to a better start if it offered free clarinet lessons with every disc. Spanning seven decades of Yiddish music, the first two cuts juxtapose the Klezmatics' raucous reading of "Fun Tashlikh" with the trailblazing original by Naftule Brandwein, whose charisma and raw talent set an impossibly high benchmark for the genre. The old versus new approach takes a twist with side-by-side modernistic and traditional versions of the Yiddish standard "Der Gassen Nigun." But here Harry Kandel's Orchestra strikes a blow for innovation back in 1923, while Klezmokum flaunts its chops with a delightful 1992 arrangement that tempers jazz borrowings with anachronistic rumblings. Thanks to 19th-century roots in the widely traveled Gypsy music of the Black Sea region, klezmer has enough elasticity to absorb a range of styles and influences without compromising its identity. The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band exercises hipster cool in its rekindling of a Brandwein classic, while the Klezmer Conservatory Band keeps tradition in its vest pocket on "Meron Nigh." Kroke's chamber-music meditation lends "The Secrets of the Life Tree" an esoteric edge worthy of the Kabbalah. For sheer energy, Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars prove that the real heavy metal issues from a horn ensemble. Whatever the permutation, klezmer emerges unscathed, fresh, and instantly recognizable. --Bob Tarte