Kocktail Hour is a traditional Jewish music project, started in 2007 by Samantha Goldberg, Dylan M. Blackthorn, and Kronk (Sick). The band has traveled the world in many formations, learning many different tunes and the history and context of the development of klezmer music and Yiddish folksongs. From Texas to Manhattan, Mexico, Poland, Cleveland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ireland, and Greece, Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour has played at sold out venues, busked for a living on the street, and shared Jewish music with many people.

Jewish music is filled with the spirit of celebration, yearning, and meaning. Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour brings to all this our experience as Texans and Jews, exiles with rebellious spirit. The band features a mix of klezmorim (folk musicians) and muzikantn (master players), all acoustic instruments in a traditionalist ensemble resembling the klezmer orchestras of Jewish immigrant families from Eastern Europe in the early 1900’s.

In the beginning, the band learned two sets of klezmer music and Yiddish folksongs from sheet music and old recordings. The deep exploration of Klezmer began when one of our mentors, Mark Rubin, said that “if you learn music from a record, your understanding is only as deep as the grooves on the record.” He suggested we visit certain teachers, festivals, workshops, and places, to understand the environment in which the music originated.

The band’s adventures began with a trip to Poland with a holocaust survivor to play for the Polish family that hid him during the Shoah. We also ended up playing a sold-out show in Oświęcim, Poland, near the infamous Auschwitz death camp, getting Sig-heiled off the street by neo-Nazis in Warsaw, and drinking with Anti-fa skins and playing for them in their local bar after hours in Krakow. The Poland leg of that journey ended with Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour playing for a large crowd circle dancing in the streets after the final concert in the square in the historic Jewish Kazimierz neighborhood of Krakow, Poland.

Mazel Tov Kocktail Hour has been featured at the San Antonio International Accordion Festival, Austin's Pecan St. Festival, Houston Pride Parade, Honk TX festival, and many Jewish weddings all across the country.