Checkpoint

"Checkpoint" showcases David Krakauer's virtuosity as one of the foremost reinventors of klezmer clarinet, a player who drags the Eastern European Jewish tradition into dialogue with jazz, funk, and avant-garde improvisation. The piece is instrumental and kinetic, his clarinet wailing, bending, and shrieking with the laughing-crying expressivity that defines klezmer's emotional vocabulary, but propelled by a rhythm section that grooves with downtown New York muscle. Expect swooping glissandi, breakneck runs, and that distinctive vocalized tone — the instrument made to sob and cackle in the same phrase. The title "Checkpoint" suggests tension and passage, borders crossed, a freighted political resonance that hangs over music born of displacement and diaspora. There's no vocal narrative; the storytelling is entirely in the horn's dynamic arc, lurching from frenzied celebration to plaintive lament. Culturally Krakauer sits at the heart of the radical Jewish culture movement associated with John Zorn's Tzadik label, treating klezmer not as nostalgic heritage but as living, mutating language. It belongs to a concert hall, a downtown loft, or focused listening where one can track the improvisational risk. What sets it apart is the refusal of museum-piece reverence — Krakauer plays the tradition with ferocious contemporary energy, honoring its roots by refusing to let it stand still.