Joseph Hoffman

Joseph Hoffman, a cornet player, came to Philadelphia circa 1904. Hoffman taught other family members klezmer music he learned as a child in Eastern Europe: horas, Russian shers, polkas, mazurkas, Russian kamaratskies and kazatskies, czardas, waltzes, freilachs, bulgars, and tunes named after towns: Kishinev, Bogopolier (the town the family came from, near Odessa). Played by the Hoffman family and other musicians at Jewish weddings, and in the parties that followed, this music became part of a distinctly Philadelphia klezmer repertoire.