Y'all...
With your help, WE DID IT! 100 tracks in a row going all the way back to "Serpent Maigre," released on May 1, 2014. We never missed a month and even put out two songs a couple times during the Winter Holiday season. I can't tell you what it means to us to have this documented body of work and not be in debt. We can't thank you enough and we just hope that the music itself, plus the satisfaction of knowing you had a hand in bringing it about, is its own reward.

In 1987, when I first became aware of klezmer (traditional Yiddish music), my dad got me a book called "The Compleat Klezmer" by Panorama friend and everybody's klezmer daddy, Henry Sapoznik. In it I discovered a basic "starter kit" for anybody wanting to put together a klezmer band. There were stylistic elements, a discussion of rhythm and harmony and lead sheets to several Yiddish melodies. This was the source for the beginning phase of my first band, The New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars and Panorama still plays a bunch of tunes from that book.

One of them, "Ot Azoy!" has nearly become another Mardi Gras anthem and it is the perfect selection to celebrate our 100th song-of-the-month. The title translates to "that's the way," a Yiddish phrase used much in the way that folks down here say, "yeah you right."

For the session, to make number 100 extra amazing, we pulled in Grammy nominated trumpeter David Buchbinder and Panorama stalwart Tomas Majcherski on tenor sax. You know Tomas as Aurora's #1 sub on alto and from many GMFY tracks including "Towtruck Chocheck," "Blue Star Jubilee," "I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday" as well as the legendary June 2016 session that yielded six of our top tunes in four hours.

Splitting his time between New Orleans and Toronto, David has been playing Jewish music (along with everything else) for several decades. He was the founder of both The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and the Ashkenaz Festival and has gone on to create loads of original music, tour internationally and win some nice awards with several contemporary Jewish music projects. He started sitting in with Panorama before the lockdown and now we've finally gotten him on a recording of ours.

After arriving in the studio on Thursday, April 21st, we got ourselves set up, got levels on everybody, talked through the arrangement, discussed the tempo and got set to play. Then Matt Perrine blew a rowdy tuba intro that set the tone for the party and it was game on! Aurora and I deliver the melody before handing it over to David and Tomas. You'll also hear my old Klezmer All-Stars bandmate, Glenn Hartmann, filling in for Michael Ward-Bergeman and sounding like Art Neville on the accordion.

There are two versions of this track, "Ot Azoy!" and "Ot Azoy! (Party Mix)." The second features an alternate ending with burning hot solos from David and Tomas, cheers from the crowd, some accessory percussion and a second tuba track from Matt.

I want to also take a moment to sing the praises of one of our behind-the-scenes heroes, Lu Rojas, who mixes everything we put out. After we record the music, it doesn't sound this good. It takes the subtle art of massaging all the digital data captured in the session into a delicious meal of complimentary tastes and aromas, a tableau of colors, textures and patterns of sound that dance out of the speakers to play with your attention in various ways and tell a story from start to finish. Lu and I have been working closely since the first one he mixed for us which, I think, was "Ba Moin En Ti Bo Doudou," released January 1, 2017. Give it up for Lu!

This whole effort is a ton of work for your personal clarinet player. It gets lonely at times and I have considered giving it up more than once. One of the things that keeps me going is knowing you're out there, you love us, you give us money and you're counting on us to put a little extra bounce in your step on the first day of every month. SO... here's to the next 100 tracks!

Thanks for all your support, tell two friends about "Good Music For You" and let's make a party, y'all.
Ben