Andy Statman

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Andy Statman is an American klezmer clarinettist and bluegrass mandolinist, born in 1950 in New York and raised in Queens. He began on banjo and guitar at the age of twelve, following the example of his older brother Jimmy, and switched to the mandolin, which he briefly studied with his lifelong friend David Grisman. He also learned to play the saxophone. As a teenager he was already playing in Washington Square Park and with local string bands. His first fame came as a mandolinist, as an accompanist to David Bromberg and Russ Barenberg and in the bluegrass bands Country Cookin' and Breakfast Special.

Music and breakthrough

In his search for roots music of every origin he ended up at klezmer, the traditional instrumental music of the Eastern European Jews. Through this he also found his way back to his Jewish roots. In the 1970s he learned klezmer clarinet from the great Dave Tarras, who left him some of his clarinets. Statman made Tarras's last recording and recorded albums himself that had great influence on the klezmer revival. Later he also played Hasidic melodies and mixed bluegrass, klezmer and jazz. With his trio, with the bassist Jim Whitney and the drummer Larry Eagle, he regularly plays in a synagogue in Greenwich Village.

Influence

In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy for his version of Bill Monroe's Rawhide. In 2012 he received the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest American honour for folk art. Statman shows how traditional music from very different worlds comes together in a single musician.

Listening