Lou Lippman gave up the piano once. But when his kids asked him to perform with them, he couldn’t resist—and that fateful decision propelled him into a whirlwind of parties, celebrity, international touring and Yiddish.
Well, more or less. Certainly there’s been a lot of Yiddish. Lippman performs with What the Chelm, the self-proclaimed “finest klezmer band in Whatcom County, Washington.” (Chelm was the fabled Yiddish-speaking “town of fools” in Poland.) The nine-member ensemble may never make it onto the Top 40 list, but it did release its second CD—titled “Oy! They’re Back!”—in 2000 and has firmly established a niche in the Northwest.
Klezmer, a jazzy form of traditional Jewish music featuring dense arrangements of instruments like clarinet, fiddle and piano, isn’t widely known outside the Jewish community, but its longtime association with dance and celebration makes it a mainstay at weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and other parties.
What the Chelm had its beginnings about eight years ago when several members of the local temple in Bellingham, Wash., began gathering in each other’s homes to play a few tunes and have some fun. After hearing them play at temple, Lippman’s teenage daughter and son started practicing with the group. “They kept coming home and asking me questions about harmonies,” Lippman recalls, “and eventually [they] went back and said, ‘Can our old man come down and play with you, too?’” The kids have since grown up and moved away, but Dad is still with the band.
A San Diego native, Lippman wasn’t raised with klezmer, but he adjusted quickly to its strident chords, sudden tempo changes and frequent dissonances. “The first time you hear one of those tunes, you twitch—it’s like a cat in a microwave,” he says. “But after a while, you start to hear a real feeling.” The group’s repertoire ranges from Yiddish songs to show tunes and Ladino, a Spanish-influenced style sung in a form of medieval Hebrew.
After building its reputation in the Bellingham area, What the Chelm has played festivals and concerts in Seattle, Tacoma, even Vancouver, B.C., though Lippman says the “international touring” is probably over.
What’s next? Lippman, a psychology professor at Western Washington University, won’t be quitting his day job anytime soon, but he is pursuing a few side projects, performing classic rock and lounge songs for private parties. One way or another, music will stay in his life.
Jeff Cooper, ’01
