Making Tracks: Yiddish Twist Orchestra

YIDDISH TWIST ORCHESTRA: Twisted retro roots from the East End

For a short while in the late 50s and early 60s, London was home to ‘der shvitz’, the dirtiest most deliriously danceable music of all – a hallucinating mix of surf rock guitar, West Indian calypso, mambo, skiffle and Jewish folk melodies. When it crossed the Atlantic in diluted form as the twist, the music’s roots remained largely forgotten. Featuring Yiddish Twist Orchestra and DJ Scratchy.

The Yiddish Twist Orchestra revive this one-off cultural collision, paying homage to the genius of its beatnik founder Willy Bergman, lost hero of the sex n drugs British music revolution, who got the slums - and salons - on both sides of the water dancing to the pounding Yiddish beat. Featuring Europe’s retro king Natty Bo on vocals (Ska Cubano), this all-star East End band’s irresistible, bold and brassy musical fusions guarantee to have us all doing the Yiddish twist.

“a band with a mission, and their own quirky mythology”

The Guardian

DJ Scratchy is renowned for his consantly shifting and never predictable Rockin', Roma, Dubbed-Up, Mestizo mixes which take a voyage through the sound-scapes of "London to Louisiana, Kingston to Colombia, Bucharest to Bollywood.

Website: www.yiddishtwist.com