The Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra Of America & California otherwise known as The Travelling Jewish Wedding
The roots of Hawaii's klezmer ensemble, Kona's Traveling Jewish Wedding Band, date back to the 1970’s in San Francisco when The Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra of America and California, otherwise known as the Travelling Jewish Wedding Band ruled the Jewish music scene. Performing throughout the Bay Area for over a decade, the group featured 3 female vocalists including a Russian operatic soprano, an Israeli cantor and a Yiddish folk-singer as well as violin, balalaikas, domra, accordions, bouzoukia, contra-bass balalaika, guitar, Spanish lute, dumbek and more. A close friendship with Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead and ethnomusicologist, led to the group releasing a high-quality long-playing record of their music, later to become a CD. Mastered in the Grateful Dead Studio in Marin County, the original release sold over 75,000 copies. Several years after Gloria and Barry Blum, leaders of the orchestra, moved from Marin County to Kona they founded Kona's Traveling Jewish Wedding Band with new musicians. Mickey Hart has since turned over his amazing collection of authentic world music, including our CD, to Folkways Records, the non-profit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. You may view the interview with Gloria and Barry describing this collaboration here:
as well as Mickey Hart and Fred Lieberman describing this recording:
