Our grandparents had Groucho Marx. We have A.J. Rubin, a multi-hyphenate entertainer, musician, circus performer and unicyclist with a fondness for Jewish vaudeville traditions and a contagious enthusiasm—or what he calls “generalized clowning.” He also heads up the Klezmer Klub, a group devoted to klezmer performance, and AJ Rubin and the Ghost Notes, a six-piece jazz dance band.
“I’m a collector of arcane skills,” he says. “But, in the Jewish tradition, I’m also a lifelong learner.”
Rubin graduated from Berklee College in May 2024 with a trumpet performance degree; since then, he’s toured the country with his singular blend of brass, guitar, singing, juggling and more. Close to home, he’s a regular at Boston’s City Winery. And just like Groucho Marx had his brothers, Rubin also frequently performs with his three siblings—the Rubin Brothers—who also juggle, unicycle and play instruments.
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He grew up in Portland, Oregon, enjoying old-time TV shows like “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” and Marx Brothers movies in a musical household, where Barbra Streisand was considered the ultimate icon. His dad is a jazz guitarist, and his mom has a degree in clown work from NYU. From a young age, he witnessed the power of performance to unite communities.
“What I want to do with my art—what I want to do with my life—is engage audiences of all ages, abilities and backgrounds, especially minority communities that have been underserved and underrepresented in the past, especially in art forms like vaudeville and jazz,” he says. “Vaudeville was a Jewish American art form, a Black American art form and an Irish American art form. It was created as a performance art form for the people, as opposed to what was otherwise available, such as going to the opera or symphony, which was for the aristocracy.”
Inclusivity is especially important to him because he has dyslexia, ADHD and sensory processing disorder. Growing up, he often felt like an outsider in class and at temple. Performing was an outlet and a refuge.
“I couldn’t sit still. This came up in classrooms, of course, but also in Jewish communities, like at temple. It’s part of the reason why I didn’t really have a strong foothold in the Jewish community or feel connected to it in Portland, something that I’ve always missed and longed for,” he says.
He found that community at Berklee, where he studied abroad in Valencia, Spain. There, he started a klezmer band, performing several songs with classmates at the International Music Festival in a rather improbable venue.
“It was kind of funny, because we were in a 13th-century abbey in Spain. But the audience was dancing the hora, because I had Jewish friends in the audience who led everyone, and we were playing klezmer music. It was beautiful,” he says.
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He’s grateful that the CJP and JArts Creative Fellowship will sustain his art, which requires unusual hours and doesn’t lend itself to stability. He sees himself in the vaudeville tradition, traveling the country and wrangling performers, never staying still for long. In the coming months, he’ll begin a theater residency at Brooklyn’s City Tech, a public college that, among other disciplines, trains stage workers in production.
“As a multimedia performing artist, booking manager, band leader and events producer, I wear many hats, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes, I’m working 14-hour days. I’ve had three gigs in a day before. My goal is to lift up other voices of artists who perhaps haven’t had their voices lifted up in the past,” he says.
Follow A.J. Rubin at ajblows.com and on Instagram.
A.J. Rubin is part of the 2024–2025 CJP and JArts Community Creative Fellowship, a program dedicated to elevating local creators who transform Jewish life through storytelling, music and art. Now in its fifth year, the fellowship highlights diverse voices and traditions, expanding the contemporary Jewish canon with work that resonates deeply with Greater Boston’s communities. Learn more about this year’s cohort.
