Koko Lists
Start a new list
Log in
Sign up
← New random battle
Koko Battle
Tap your pick.
The Klezmatics
The Klezmatics formed in New York's East Village in 1986 and won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album for "Wonder Wheel: Lyrics by Woody Guthrie," built around 12 previously unrecorded Guthrie lyrics the band set to new klezmer-rooted music — making them the only klezmer band ever to win a Grammy. Guthrie's estate had been sitting on notebooks full of unused lyrics, some touching on Jewish and Hanukkah themes from his years living in a Coney Island building with many Jewish neighbors, and The Klezmatics' project turned a selection of them into a genuine cross-genre collaboration decades after Guthrie's death. Across nearly four decades together, the band has released 13 albums blending traditional Yiddish material with jazz, gospel, punk, classical, Latin, and Balkan influences, and topped the Billboard World Music Chart along the way. Their combination of the genre's only Grammy Award and their nearly 40-year run blending klezmer with everything from punk to gospel has made The Klezmatics the most significant band of the klezmer revival movement.
VS
Andy Statman
Andy Statman, born in New York City in 1950, started on banjo and guitar at 12 before switching to mandolin, which he studied briefly under lifelong friend David Grisman, and by 1970 he was playing in the experimental bluegrass group Country Cooking, followed by stints with David Bromberg's band. In 1975, Statman sought out klezmer clarinet legend Dave Tarras and became his protégé; Tarras wrote melodies specifically for him and eventually bequeathed Statman four of his own clarinets, deliberately passing the older master's living klezmer lineage directly to him. His late-1970s album "Jewish Klezmer Music" became a touchstone recording for that decade's klezmer revival, released alongside his mandolin-focused "Flatbush Waltz," and the National Endowment for the Arts later named him a National Heritage Fellow, the nation's highest honor in the traditional arts. His combination of his direct mentorship under Dave Tarras and his rare parallel mastery of klezmer clarinet and bluegrass mandolin has made Statman one of the most historically important figures in klezmer's modern revival.
Next battle
Full comparison
About The Klezmatics
About Andy Statman
Popular Battles
1984 vs. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
1 votes
Friends vs. Curb Your Enthusiasm
1 votes
Ideogram vs. Sora
1 votes
Navy Pier vs. Bishop Museum
1 votes
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree vs. Skittles
1 votes
George Carlin vs. Oprah Winfrey
1 votes
