West Philadelphia Orchestra
Black Squirrel Club
1049 Sarah St.
Philadelphia
July 10, 2026
For the past 20 years, the West Philadelphia Orchestra has been a bright light in Philadelphia’s music scene. Combining jazz and klezmer with a variety of sounds from around the world, the self-described “Avant village folk brass band” is an institution born from the richness and diversity of our city’s music culture. On a hot and humid Thursday night, the WPO staged a summer dance party at the Black Squirrel in Fishtown. When I pulled up to the venue, the person at the door told me that the show was happening in Black Squirrel's back room (which I had never been in and didn’t realize existed). Inside the massive, brick-walled space there were wooden chairs and couches randomly placed around the room. What looked like a VW buggy(?) had been deconstructed with lit up chandeliers fixed through its body as it hung suspended from the towering ceiling. As the band played scales and warmed up, about a dozen people made their way to their seats. During these warm ups, one of the two tubaists played a bit of Ozzy Osborne’s “Crazy Train” to the delight of the band and audience. Another dozen or so people eventually made their way into the backroom and the WPO jumped into their spirited, celebratory set.
The opening song was a dramatic and jazzy klezmer tune. The drummer and tubas were locked in with a tight, syncopated groove before Philly avant-garde jazz legend Elliot Levin cut through with a thorny, roaring solo. The second tune they played was built upon a marching, propulsive rhythm. The interplay between WPO’s instrumentalists was delightfully inexact, full and human. Clarinetist Dr. Larry Goldfinger took one of a handful of particularly strong solos that night. As the band moved through the set, a liberating, celebratory energy began to permeate the humid, sticky room. Whether it was their cover of a Turkish protest song from the '70s or the moment when trumpeter Dawn Webster invited folks to get moving, encouraging the crowd — “The dance floor is open. No pressure!” — before jumping into a groove that coaxed a few attendees to get out their seats and dance. I couldn’t stay for the evening’s second set, but the first was a profound example of multiculturalism in practice. Music, the most expressive and human of activities, carries the distinction of being impossibly complex and varied while being fundamentally universal. By uniting these disparate folk musics from around the world, the West Philadelphia Orchestra reminds us of our cultural heritages while offering a glimpse at how powerful (and joyous!) we can be when we share those heritages.
