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Concept
Naftule Brandwein
Summary
Naftule Brandwein, or Naftuli Brandwine, (נפתלי בראַנדװײַן, 1884–1963) was an Austrian-born Jewish American Klezmer musician, clarinetist, bandleader and recording artist active from the 1910s to the 1940s. Along with Dave Tarras, he is considered to be among the top klezmer musicians of the twentieth century, and has a continuing influence on musicians in the genre a century later. Along with Tarras and other contemporaries like Israel J. Hochman, Max Leibowitz and Harry Kandel, he also helped forge the new American klezmer sound of the early twentieth century, which gradually gravitated towards a sophisticated big-band sound.
Brandwein was born on September 20, 1884 in Przemyslany, Austro-Hungarian Galicia (now Ukraine). He was born into a dynasty of klezmer musicians, part of the Stretiner Hasidic dynasty founded by Rabbi Yehuda Hirsch Brandwein of Stratin. His father Peysekhe (Paul) played violin, clarinet, and was an improvising wedding poet (Badchen); of his thirteen sons, Moyshe played violin, French horn, and valve trombone, Mendel played piano, Leyzer played drums, and Azriel played cornet; Azriel became Naftule's first music teacher, and had a lasting impact on his playing. He married his wife Dora, and they had their first son Moses, shortly before emigrating to America.
Brandwein emigrated to the United States in April 1909 (although some sources say 1908), sailing from Hamburg to New York City. He was joining his brother Israel who was already living on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side; Naftule and his wife and son settled on nearby Pitt Street. He applied for US citizenship in 1912, adopting the Anglicized name Nathan Brandwein, although in his music career he continued to be known as Naftule. He finally became a naturalized US citizen in 1919.
Upon arriving in the US, Naftule was already a highly skilled clarinetist and used his skills of self-promotion to build himself a reputation as a klezmer and bandleader.
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