Songs of Our Grandfathers (Mountain Home, 2023)

For those who like their bluegrass with a twist, here is "klezgrass," a blend of bluegrass and klezmer, an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. Klezmer incorporates elements of Greek, Romanian and Baroque music, as well as German and Slavic folk dances, so Zoe and Cloyd figured they'd see what happens when banjo meets clarinet!

Natalya Zoe Weinstein (fiddle, vocals) comes from a long line of klezmer and jazz musicians, and her husband, John Cloyd Miller, (guitar, mandolin, vocals) is the grandson of Jim Shumate, whose resume included playing in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. This release pays tribute to both.

Flatt & Scruggs' "We'll Meet Again Sweetheart" opens, and though it's a bluegrass tune and yes it has a banjo, there's a hint of something different in that fiddle. That "something different" becomes apparent in "Up and At 'Em" (written by Shumate), as Weinstein's fiddle play in the minute-long minor-key intro sets the stage for the klezmer-bluegrass-jazz mix that sets this album apart.

What follows are tunes that generally fall into either the bluegrass or klezmer camp, though overtones of each genre are woven into every song.

The mostly-bluegrass tunes include "Rainbow of My Dreams," done in a gentle swing style; "Rocky Road Blues," a Bill Monroe mandolin-driven tune that is in itself a tip of the hat to Robert Johnson; and the Shumate compositions "Buckle Up the Backstrap" and "Old Country Baptizing."

The klezmer-oriented tunes include "Bulgar Sigansky," with great clarinet work; the standard "Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn," done swing style with a Yiddish vocal; "Ich Benk Noch Mein Shtetele" and "Klezmer Clave Medley"; and "Misirlou," an Eastern European folk song that was rearranged as a worldwide 1960s instrumental hit for surf-music guitarist Dick Dale. Here, that song gets a moody remake with expressive fiddle and guitar play. This album, the duo's fifth Organic Records studio effort and produced by Weinstein and Jon Weisberger, is a tip of the hat to their klezmer and bluegrass roots.