MYRTLE STREET KLEZMER
Myrtle Street Klezmer
MUSICIANS
Bea Carlson
Bea Maxwell Carlson (they/them) is a Western-Mass musician, composer/arranger, writer, linguist, media enthusiast, and curator/managing editor for Klezmer.com. Bea studied linguistics at University of New Hampshire with a focus on languages in contact and diasporic languages including Yiddish and Romani as an expansion of their musical interests. When not playing Klezmer accordion; you can find them playing guitar in the style of Joe Pass and Django Reinhardt, singing and accompanying Brazilian choro, or working on their indie-rock project “Call Me Bea”; which takes a sardonic and humorous approach to writing about gender, social interaction, and the internet.
Dan Baker
Dan Baker is a multi talented musician and performer who lives, works, and plays in western Massachusetts. Believing that musical cross-pollination is at the core of building community and culture, he has always sought out new and unique opportunities to play with performers in his local area. As a young adult he studied tuba and classical guitar with private teachers, and went on to get a bachelor’s of music in performance from Rhode Island College in 2011, all the while playing in any band, orchestra, or ensemble he could find. In the past ten years he has played electric guitar in an experimental heavy metal band, provided an acoustic americana soundscape for theatre performances, and played tuba on screen for a major film production. Dan first began to collaborate musically with the Myrtle Street crew during the initial Covid quarantine period of 2020, literally playing music together in the street, nightly, to stay *sane*. That trying moment in time was the seed of musical relationships that are continuing to bear fruit to this day. Now, going into 2023 Dan is extremely excited to be raising his tuba (and banjo!) to the modal melodies of Myrtle Street Klezmer!
Jesse Olsen Bay is a composer, performer and teacher who lives in Western Massachusetts. At home in a wide variety of musical forms and styles, he creates aural landscapes and narratives that explore the depths and extremities of the human experience. Ranging from art-songs and folk ballads to instrumental music for dance and film, from soundscape collage to experimental performance art, his music is always rooted in a search for meaning, truth, and human connection.
Jesse’s work has earned him awards and support from the American Composers Forum, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, Meet the Composer/New Music USA, Ucross Foundation, Zellerbach Foundation, California Arts Council, East Bay Fund for Artists, and Paul Dresher Ensemble.
Currently, Jesse directs and performs with miners, an ensemble that explores traditional folk music from the United States as a vehicle for improvisation and sonic experimentation, and Myrtle Street Klezmer Band. Jesse is on faculty in the dance program at Umass Amherst, and is pursuing a credential in music therapy (MT-BC)
Jason Ditzian
Jason Ditzian (clarinet/Manager) is a wind instrumentalist who has composed and performed numerous works for dance, movie and theater. He is clarinetist/leader of old-world klezmer ensemble, Kugelplex. He has been manager of Kugelplex for over 15 years.
Jason has performed, recorded and toured internationally with artists such as Charming Hostess, Oakland Symphony, Dohee Lee, Joan Baez, Frank London, inkBoat, Kitka, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Lord Loves a Working Man, Kiosk, Hadi Tabatabai, Faun Fables and Kunst-Stoff.
Currently, Jason is the Managing Director of Dohee Lee Puri Arts and Director of Communications for Asian Refugees United. Jason founded nonprofit arts consulting firm, Narluga Arts in 2019 to further his capacity to support amazing artists realize their visions and to help further the field of socially-engaged arts.
Composer, leader, and performer Myk Freedman is a Toronto native and two-time Canada Council for the Arts grant recipient. Myk is an active member in the Brooklyn creative music scene and can regularly be heard in various projects and ad hock ensembles led by local luminaries. Since 2001 he’s lead the Toronto ensemble Saint Dirt Elementary School, a nine piece junk yard jazz band dedicated to his numerous tunes. In Brooklyn he fronts Myk Freedman and the Mykfreedmans, a quintet of distinctly unique improvisers who interpret his music. He is also a consummate member of Kenny Warren’s otherworldly country band Laila and Smitty, Joey Weisenburg’s Hadar Ensemble specializing in modern Jewish vocal music and Yoshie Fruchter’s Turkish-Americana quartet the Sandcatchers.
Myk has performed with John Zorn, William Parker, Elliot Sharp, Cyro Baptista, Erik Friedlander, Kenney Wessel, and many others. His compositions have been recorded by his own groups, as well as by The MK Groove Orchestra, In a China Shop, and Laila and Smitty. The Toronto duo Martin & Haynes, has released two records dedicated to his music. In 2008, Myk worked with iconoclast John Oswald, arranging Strauss’ music for the Sun Ra Solar Arkestra.
Myk’s arrangements have been premiered at venues such as The Blue Note, John Zorn’s The Stone, The Knitting Factory and the Distillery Jazz Festival, where he was nominated for the Emerging Artist Award.
Doug Plavin is a drummer and vocalist who plays and dreams in service to the song, and a music teacher who is always in service to the student.
Doug's education at Berklee College of Music taught him to strive for musical versatility while always remaining authentic and true to any musical genre. He's had the good fortune of touring and/or recording with singer-songwriters, producers, and music session luminaries including: Joan Baez, Bill Morrissey, Dar Williams, Mary Gauthier, Mark Erelli, Duke Levine (current guitarist w/Bonnie Raitt), John Scofield, Michael Gregory Jackson, Mason Daring, Steven Schoenberg, Deb Talan/The Weepies, and many others.
Doug has toured internationally with Dar Williams as the supporting act for Ani DiFranco's Little Plastic Castle tour. His drumming can also be heard in the following film and television scores:
John Sayles' City of Hope (1991) and Passionfish (1992)
The 1992 ABC television series, Parenthood. The PBS series, American Experience, and on dozens of advertising jingles and station IDs for clients such as Baybank, WPXI, Levitt's, and many others.
My advice is to anyone who wants a unique, tradition-infused, wedding with gorgeous music to book these guys now for your wedding. I don't think you will regret it for even a millisecond, they didn't skip a beat for us.
These guys are absolute rockstars! They made our wedding... in addition to providing the party music, marching music and a killer "Sea of Love" to walk down the aisle, they played the most epic Hora we've ever seen... In addition, they are a joy to work, with and Jason was so helpful as we were planning our wedding. We can't recommend them enough!!!
Their sound is lively, traditional, yet wild and fun enough to keep both the elders and the teens dancing (or at least nodding their heads in a subtle yet interested manner). Even now, several months since our wedding, people have still been sharing how much they loved the band, their eyes entranced by a faraway moment, lost in the memory of that wild, and magical experience.