From the Rubin Archives: Interveiw with Martin Kalisky, Moldovan Muzikant

From the BDAA Newsletter, "the Official Journal of the Balalaika and Domra Association of America," September 1997.

Shared here today is an interview with Jewish Moldovan musician Martin Kalisky. Interesting conversation which evidently included mandolinist Mike Marshall and touches on Andy Statman's beginnings in East European music. When I was first interested in the mandolin in "klezmer" music, several folks in the "International Folk Dance" community recommended I find Mr. Kalisky, but alas he passed before I could meet him. His influence lives today however in the hands of anyone playing Yiddish music on the mandolin.

The drive from Denver to Aspen and back for Andy Statman

So my pal Andy Statman calls and offers me a date with his amazing trio. Just so happens it's a day before I head to Pickathon to play with Bad Livers, and on the map Colorado is half way there from home.

After some frantic Skype phone calls from Kracow to the Southwest Airlines customer service desk, I make it happen. All I have to do is snag a rental car in Denver and head the short 156 miles to Aspen, right?

Ok, I travel quite a bit and thus really I should have known better. What Mapquest neglects to mention on the route map it prints out for you is that you have to CROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS to get there. That's a 15 MPH crawl for the last quarter of the journey.


Look ma, no guardrails!

The mountain top in the center of this pic is the pass at the GREAT DIVIDE.


I had to split Aspen right after the gig at midnight to make the 6am flight to Portland and a highly anticipated Bad Livers gig, so the original plan was to retrace my steps back to the Denver Airport. After making the white knuckle trip in a wonderly sunny day, I decide to drive 140 miles out of my way to avoid doing these cliff hugging turns on the way home.....

Andy Statman, Arkansas Traveller, excerpt

From the 2007 Klez Kamp staff concert, Andy Statman and myself work out a little bit on the old Arkansas Traveler.