Global Rhythms, Local Stage: Krakauer and Tagg Bring ‘Good Vibes Explosion’ to Shelter Island

Virtuoso clarinetist David Krakauer and his intrepid pianist partner, Kathleen Tagg, have created a long-term collaboration that defies genre categorization. It has advanced into a constant means of self-discovery. The musical partitions come down, the cultural dialogue begins, and the return to basics opens into an adventure.

At Shelter Island Presbyterian Church on Sunday, August 31, 6 p.m., the Shelter Island Friends of Music presents the spirited duo in what promises to be an entertaining fest of Multikulti music. The Grammy Award-winning Krakauer and innovative keyboardist and composer Tagg will open several windows into their unique classical-meets-jazz-meets-klezmer improvisations.

The Brooklyn-born Krakauer and the South African-born and New York-based Tagg have been pushing the boundaries of standard concerts since 2012. Most noteworthy has been their touring project Good Vibes Explosion, formed with a multi-generational, multicultural ensemble during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020. The group amalgamated straight-up classical, funky world music, traditional roots music, hip hop and avant-jazz, with a sound design of loops, samples and vocals. At heart, Krakauer and Tagg envision original material that celebrates cross-cultural connections and embraces cultural diversity.

In 2022, Good Vibes Explosion released its rhythmically combustible, sound-layered album “Mazel Tov Cocktail Party.” Leading the way were Krakauer’s klezmer-influenced clarinet wails, trills and circular breathing and Tagg’s eccentric keyboard voicings and electronic explorations. There’s a reimagining of a square dance, a newfangled polka, a percussive funk party, lots of dance-friendly music with exotic instrumentation and rapper/singer Sarah MK’s vocals in Québécois French and English.

“Our music is really an intersection of many things that we love of our own things,” says Krakauer. “But it’s also about the people that we love, people in our lives, people who are close to us.”

“I met David in the early 2000s and then reconnected with him in 2012,” Tagg says. “We got back in touch and then through a series of chance meetings, we started hanging out and playing together music by classical composers like Brahms and Debussy. Then we started to make our own arrangements. We said, what if we did this instead and that led to a full-scale life of insane inventions. It’s been a really wild ride and a hell of an adventure.”

At the Shelter Island show, the duo presents a scaled-down version of Good Vibes Explosion. It’s more similar to “Breath & Hammer,” the duo’s compassionate 2020 album featuring Krakauer’s clarinet and bass clarinet and layers of sampled and electronic music by Tagg.

“This show is about making the emotional connection,” says Krakauer. “I don’t want people to think they have to read a manual to appreciate our music. It’s direct and we play music from the heart. That’s what we want to convey to our audience. We want to make the music as multifaceted as possible by using that essence.”

“This is a listening concert,” says Tagg. “We hope that we keep the same element, energy and the visceral drive when we take it into a concert hall. While many of our shows are dance affairs, most likely people at the church are not going to be up and dancing. It’s a listening audience.”

It will be a small and intimate affair for Krakauer — unlike what was on his plate during a video call conversation from Italy where he was preparing as a headliner for the mammoth festival La Notte della Taranta on August 23. Located in Salento at the southernmost heel of the boot of Italy, the festival is centered around Southern Italian music.

“I am what they call the maestro concertatore,” he says. “Apparently 150,000 people are going to attend this event. I’ve been working on it since February. I’ve come to Italy four times. I was here in February and then June, earlier in July and then now in August. It’s a huge thing. I’ll be the maestro of a folk orchestra playing Southern Italian traditional music.”

After what he calls was “the fun of this madness,” Krakauer will welcome the Shelter Island show.

“It’s going to be so much fun to be there,” he says. “I know it’s a beautiful part of the world. It’s going to be a very special place for us to perform our duo show. It’s the perfect time of the year to be there.”

“I’ve never been to Shelter Island, so I’m very excited to come,” says Tagg. “I’m very excited that it’s part of a series of dear friends like Richard Weinert who run it. This will be my first time there, despite having lived in New York City for 24 years. So, I can’t wait. Perfect time of the year.”

The duo sketches out some of the music that will be performed in the Shelter Island show. There will be ample nods to klezmer music, which is Krakauer’s legacy specialty. They will also play a composition by their dear friend, renowned Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeca.

“We’ll also play a reflection on the Book of Daniel by my previous duet partner, the incredible South African jazz musician Andre Peterson. It’s a grand, epic biblical piece that’s expressed as a reflection,” says Tagg, noting that this will be a memorial piece to Peterson who died from COVID-19 at the age of 43.

The pair will perform a work by New York avant-gardist John Zorn as well as music by Debussy. “We’ll play some original pieces, plus our rendering of the great Billie Holiday standard ‘Body and Soul’,” says Krakauer.

A highlight will feature Krakauer’s poignant “Love Song for Lemberg/Lvov.” In concert with the full band, the clarinetist opens with a quiet, balladic, lyrical melody that at times is suddenly interrupted by the crash and bash of his multiple percussionists. At the Shelter Island show, Tagg will emulate that noise on the piano, “in a friendly way,” she says. “I play on the keys to do my very best to get as much sound as possible.”

“I wrote that piece 25 years ago,” says Krakauer. “Lemberg was the name of a city that is today the city Lviv in Ukraine. Before World War I, it was Astro-Hungarian, and then after World War I, it was Poland and then after World War II, it became the Soviet Union in Ukraine. Lemberg was where my grandfather was born. It was a town that had a large Jewish population with a big Jewish presence. But it also suffered a lot. The borders changed. With the Nazis and then the Soviets, it was a very intense place. In writing this piece, I was trying to sort this all out. The juxtaposition of the beauty and then the explosion of insanity and anguish.”

Krakauer sums it up as the exploratory essence of music. “We always try to arrange things in a way that makes sense for us,” he says. “It’s always very personal. Everything that we’re playing is music that we absolutely adore. It’s music that we love and feel close to.”

Shelter Island Friends of Music present David Krakauer and Kathleen Tagg performing at the Shelter Island Presbyterian Church, 32 North Ferry Road, Shelter Island, on Sunday, August 31, at 6 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit sifriendsofmusic.org.

Dan Ouellette is a writer/author who lives on Shelter Island. His most recent book of archival jazz and roots interviews is “The Landfill Chronicles — Unearthing Legends of Modern Music” (Cymbal Press via Amazon).