World-jazz-folk ensemble Joellen Lapidus & the Urban Gypsies perform at Boulevard Music at the weekend, so band leader Joellen Lapidus told the News about what they have in store for Culver City…
When did you start playing and performing?
I started playing music at age 7 when my elementary school offered accordion lessons for 50 cents a pop. I played classical and marching music in school orchestras and bands, but was forced to take up the clarinet when they wouldn’t let me in my junior high school orchestra with the accordion.
Describe your sound/style?
During the ‘60s, I got hooked by folk music, living in New York City and going to the Greenwich Village folk clubs, and eventually playing those clubs several years later. I hitchhiked to the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and heard Richard and Mimi Farina. He played the dulcimer with Afro Cuban rhythms and the sound captured me. I’ve been playing and making dulcimers ever since. I moved to Big Sur, CA in 1967, which was a hotbed of improvised music, so different than the precision of classical music. I moved to Northern California in 1969, and studied at the Ali Akbar College of Indian Music which has had a huge influence on my music.
What are your career highlights so far?
When I came to Los Angeles in 1975 I had my first folk band, the Shimmering Orchestra. In the 2000’s I started The Urban Gypsies, the name reflecting the nomadic nature of the trio’s musical journey: traveling through folk, pop, jazz, rock, Indian, Middle Eastern and Klezmer. I play mountain dulcimer, accordion, clarinet, Arabic drum, and write the original music and do the vocals. Yvette Devereaux is an extraordinary jazz violinist who explodes every possible style of music. Oliver Steinberg, likewise, has played upright bass with every genre of music known.
What recorded music is available — particularly the most recent?
We recorded one studio album, Dulcimer Music for the Pelican Ballet, and will be working on a second CD later this year. You can hear our CD on my website: lapidusmusic.com. It features music from The Urban Gypsies as well as selections from my prior klezmer band: Extreme Klezmer Makeover.
Have you performed at Boulevard Music before?
We play mostly at small venues, weddings, bar mitzvahs, house concerts, McCabes Guitar Shop (where I taught dulcimer for many years) and are regulars at Boulevard Music with Gustavo Buglach’s Klezmer Juice.
What can the audience expect from the set this time?
This show features an all mountain dulcimer set of traditional Appalachian dulcimer folk music, traditional music that has been reworked by our “nomadic” musical interests that includes fast paced upbeat music with world music and jazz rhythms, and absolutely gorgeous slow songs and ballads showing off the haunting drones, chords and open tunings of the dulcimer mixed with the earthy grounding of the bass and the soaring solos of Yvette’s violin.
Joellen Lapidus & the Urban Gypsies, and Gustavo Bulgach & Klezmer Juice, perform at 8 p.m. on Saturday, February 8 at Boulevard Music. Go to boulevardmusic.com for more information about the show.
Elsewhere this week
The Culver Hotel will be hosting the likes of Sylvia & the Rhythm Boys, and Scotty Bramer. Go to culverhotel.com for more info.
There’s a full program of music at the Cinema Bar this week, as usual. The Hot Club of Los Angeles plays every Monday, and Wednesdays are singer/songwriter and open mic night. Other artists performing this week includeYeah Buddy!, the Hollywood Rivieras, Adam Smith and more. Go to thecinemabar.com for more info.