All of a sudden, instead of 100 or 200 people in the audience we were playing for 1,000 to 2,000 people. People wanted to re-discover this stuff that was gone for 60 years.

People were sort of stopping having the traditional Jewish music in weddings and ceremonies. And I kind of liked that stuff.

When I was 19, I started taking it seriously. I started copying my grandfather's 78s and talking to the older generation who played it, learning their stories and their music and eventually teaching it at the New England Conservatory of Music.

If they (the audience) are Jewish, they can express their identity without going to church or praying. It is not about beliefs, it's about music.

When I was 19 I started pestering my relatives who were willing to teach me.

I was raised to ignore it. It was something my mother's generation saw as an embarrassment. It was corny and archaic and not pushed as something an up-and-coming musician wanted to learn. My mother wanted me to write Broadway shows.