Find below the link to listen their Der Alternative Bulgar. It is their outstanding rendition of the very popular Der Alter Bulgar (the bulgar of the old time), of which you can find many other approaches by artists like Itzkhak Perlman, Quartet Klezmer Trio or Hester Street Troupe.

Bulgar is a danceable klezmer music style. It’s background must be traced from the Bessarabian dance style under the name of bulgărească, documented in the first half of XIX Century. The style would develope after the contact of professional klezmorim from hereditary caste with Gypsy professional musicians. From there, it spreaded as the klezmer bulgarish to parts of Eastern Ukraine.From the last decades of XIX Century, many klezmorim emigrated to the USA and the style started to be identified as a danceable klezmer style shared between musicians from different regions. It took its definite shape in New York between 1920 and 1950, with the work of professional musicians (like Naftule Brandwein, that was our star two weeks ago) and the term bulgar finally epitomized the repertoire of dance music at the USA (but not at all in Europe), according to Walter Z. Feldman (after his work of 1994, that is really advisable, Bulgărească/Bulgarish/Bulgar: The Transformation of a Klezmer Dance Genre, and I just made a super reduced summary).

Back to Meshuge Klezmer band, they released three albums: Dreild (2003), Treyf 1929 (2005) and Musiker! (2008). They were chosen by David Krakauer for his compiltaion Music from the Winery. Der Alternative Bulgar is in their first album. Listen by clicking below. And have a great Pesach Sheni Shabbat!