Eyal Vilner Big Band Concert: The New Roaring Twenties!

The Eyal Vilner Big Band is back on Eldridge Street for a concert bringing a unique and fresh voice to classic traditions of jazz, swing, and the blues.

Jazz music is communal music, coming from Black American communities around the country, but especially in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. It helped people rise, process good times and bad, and lift spirits. It is because of the music’s appeal to the full spectrum of humanity—hardship, joy, love, anger, serenity—that jazz, including lindy hop and swing, became so widely loved, and came to define the 1920s and beyond, both at home and abroad.

The history of jazz is also inextricably linked with the Eastern European Jewish immigration story. Benny Goodman, the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants and known as “The King of Swing,” led one of the first integrated jazz groups during an era of racial segregation. Before moving to New York City, Goodman got his start at Chicago’s Kehelah Jacob Synagogue, where he received his first clarinet. The iconic jazz musician Louis Armstrong banded together with the Jewish community of New Orleans over shared struggle, and got his start as a young boy working with the Karnofsky family, recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. He wore a Star of David around his neck for much of his life as an affectionate tribute to them. Of course, you cannot forget Irving Berlin, himself a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, whose music forms some of the most iconic jazz standards, and what would become the Great American Songbook.

Join the Eyal Vilner Big Band as they revive this iconic music for a new Roaring Twenties in 2025. The program will include reimagined classics in addition to a selection of original compositions.