Emerging out of New York City’s East Village in 1986 with klezmer steeped in Eastern European Jewish tradition and spirituality, the Klezmatics have combined contemporary themes such as human rights and anti-fundamentalism with eclectic musical influences including Arab, African, Latin and Balkan rhythms, jazz and even punk.

With 20 years and nine albums under their gartels, bright costumes and a cache of very old instruments, the Klezmatics invoke two main emotions on stage: pure joy and melancholy. The music is wild, reflective and, according to the band, “ecstatically danceable.”

“A couple of us come from jazz, a couple people in the band are deeply into Celtic music and Americana stuff, and some of us are into different folk musicians from different places,” said the band’s Frank London. “So we all bring different influences. [But] it’s not just about the influences we bring, it’s about the way that we put them together as a band.”

London, sometimes called the “mystical high priest of avant-klez jazz,” plays trumpets and keyboards in the band. His mile-long resume includes concerts and recordings with John Zorn, They Might Be Giants, Mel Torme, Iggy Pop, Pink Floyd, Youssou N’dour, LaMonte Young, Allen Ginsberg, LL Cool J and many others.

But no matter where the influences come from, London said, the melting pot is where the magic is.

“We’re all Americans,” he said. “We’re not from Eastern Europe.”

It’s fitting, then, that the Klezmatics have been working with Woody Guthrie’s estate for two decades. The partnership grew out of a chance meeting when the Klezmatics played the Tanglewood Music Center, in western Massachusetts, with violinist Itzhak Perlman. After the concert, Nora Guthrie, Woody’s daughter approached the band.

Woody Guthrie lived in Coney Island, Brooklyn, across the street from his mother-in-law, the Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. According to the estate, “the Oklahoma troubadour and Greenblatt — the Jewish wordsmith — often discussed their artistic projects and critiqued each other’s works, finding common ground in their shared love of culture and social justice, despite very different backgrounds. Their collaboration flourished in 1940s Brooklyn, where Jewish culture was interwoven with music, modern dance, poetry and anti-fascist, pro-labor activism.”

As a result of the backstage conversation, the band got to write music for a dozen Guthrie lyrics that were never recorded. In 2007 the group won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Recording for Woody Guthrie’s “Wonder Wheel.”

In classic folk style, London said, the Klezmatics feed on the kind synergy that Guthrie and Greenblatt had, with their music and performances interwoven with connections of all kinds.

“We’re on tour at the end of December,” he said, “and played in Berkeley, California, where we have played many times, and it was a big sold-out show. They know us and we know them. We don’t have to prove anything, but with a place like Jackson, it’s a brand-new experience. We structure our show in a way that, by the end of the show, the audience feels like they know each of us kind of as a person as a musician.”

The Klezmatics’ range of music, from rock ballad to traditional Yiddish songs, comes with just as wide a variety of instruments — violin, trumpet, clarinet, traditional East European instruments including a kaval, which is a Bulgarian flute, and tsimbl, a hammered dulcimer.

London admits he is a little concerned about the assigned seating at the center. His goal is always to get people up and dancing.

The Jackson Hole Jewish Community Gala culminates with wine and dessert in the lobby after the show.