Twenty years ago, inspired by a klezmer tune playing on an Auckland café’s stereo, Hershal Herscher picked up his accordion and started playing the music his grandfather Harry had brought from the Ukraine to New York.

The rhythm he was pumping out acted like a magnet on three musician friends who were in the caf that day: fellow Americans Nigel Gavin (mandolin) and Kelvin Roy (trumpet), and Kiwi singer Linn Lorkin. Next thing you know, they were all jamming along. From that nucleus The Jews Brothers Band was born.