Viva Yiddish! Project is a glimpse at vintage L.A. music

The Viva Yiddish! Project is a look backward and forward into L.A.'s polyglot musical heritage. In decades past, neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights had significant populations of Yiddish speakers whose uptempo klezmer tunes made unlikely but easy bedfellows with the pachuco and mambo of their Latino neighbors. Though L.A.'s neighborhoods are more broken up today, this dozens-strong ensemble -- founded by Frank London of the Klezmatics, Yiddish music scholar Michael Alpert and USC professor and music writer Josh Kun -- is a fond remembrance of the era, a thoroughly contemporary example of the possibilities of localized world music, and most important, a giant, giddy dance party. They play at 8 p.m. on Saturday at California Plaza.

-August Brown

Photo: Courtesy of Yiddishkayt Los Angeles