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This is...well, it's a bit of a curiosity piece. I'm gonna recommend it, but keep in mind that this isn't even your standard world music. It makes demands. I'm not the world's biggest fan of klezmer, or jewish folk music. But this CD is worth a listen on at least a couple of different levels.

The first is that a lot of this will sound familiar. Klezmer is a frequently unacknowledged element of jazz, particularly traditional jazz. Additionally, anyone whoa has ever been to an ethnic wedding, whether the ethnicity was jewish or not, has heard music like this. There are echoes of it in polkas and in Italian folk songs and in just about any eastern European music, irrespective of country of origin. Part of it reminds me of the song from "Pinocchio," where the wooden boy is dancing with the puppet and sings, "I've Got No Strings." There is more serious work going on here, however.

The second is the concept behind the project itself. What the Klezmatics do with THE WELL is combine their talents with vocalist Chava Alberstein and adapt verse of some of the 20th Century's greatest Yiddish poets to music. Alberstein writes the music, the Klezmatics provide the arrangements; the result is a seamless collaboration that spans the gamut from quiet folk music, accompanied only with guitar, to full-blown arrangements with horns and percussion. While all of the tracks are sung in Yiddish, the thoughtful folks at Rounder provide translation in Yiddish and English. The poems, for the most part, are wistful; the one that sticks in my mind is "Mayn Shvester Khaye" ("My Sister Khaye"). The sound of sorrow echoes through it, and one when reads the translation, it is obvious why. It is a tribute to the author's sister, murdered in Treblinka during World War II. The personal aspect through which this horror of history is seen is riveting. "Die Elter" ("Old Age"), on the other hand, has an Arabic flavor to it, incorporating middle-eastern rhythms into an observation of the inevitabilities of aging.

THE WELL is a well-done piece of music which may not have broad appeal but which is nonetheless worth a listen as an educational device and as a horizon-broadener. It won't necessarily win any new adherents to the genre but its message is nonetheless important. Every collection needs at least one klezmer CD. This one will do, and then some.