Yiddish Twist Orchestra

For a short while in the late 50s and early 60s, London was home to the shvitz, the dirtiest, funkiest dance style it had ever known.

It was Calypso, Mambo, Twist, Skiffle, Klezmer: a one-off collision of roots and cultures that spawned London’s first truly homegrown dance craze.

When years later it crossed the Atlantic as ‘The Twist’ its origins were forgotten, and remained so, with the exception of a select few who recognise Willy Bergman, its deranged founder and greatest bandleader, as the lost hero of the sex n drugs British music revolution.

The Yiddish Twist Orchestra, under the guidance of trumpeter Lemez Lovas, twist guitarist Ben Jamin and chef d'orchestre Robin Harris, pays homage to the genius of Willy Bergman, the anonymous beatnik funkateer who got the slums - and salons - on both sides of the water dancing to that pounding London beat.