Teruah - Jewish Music

The Passing of Adrienne Cooper...long live badass Yiddish music

2011-12-28T12:04:00.004-05:00

Adrienne Cooper, one of the great singers, teachers, and activists for Yiddish language and music passed this weekend. Obituaries are running in media outlets around the Jewish world including Haaretz, The Jewish Week, the JTA, and the Forward. There is little I can add to all of the great and deep thoughts about her that have been put forth, except this one thing. In a moment of apparent synchronicity, the following tweet circulated yesterday (from @neville_park in Toronto)

Hey, Hey, Down with the Police", "Working Women", "Ballad of the Triangle Fire"—Yiddish music is pretty badass: http://j.mp/rzPZLo

The badass recording @neville_park is referring to is "In Love And In Struggle: The Musical Legacy Of The Jewish Labor Bund" (YIVO) which includes performances by Zalmen Mlotek, Adrienne Cooper, Dan Rous with The New Yiddish Chorale & The Workmen's Circle Chorus. You see, Cooper's involvement in Yiddish music was not limited to the nice songs. The happy songs. The nostalgic songs. To singing yet another chorus of Oyfn Pripetchik or Rozhinkes mit Mandln. Cooper also sang Arbeter-froyen (Working Woman) and the musical Queer Wedding Sweet, and wrote articles for Lilth and The Forward titled "He Beat Me Black and Blue: Yiddish Songs of Family Violence" Cooper, more than any of her peers, helped transmit the wide spectrum of Yiddish song .... including the gritty, raw, anger, anguish, humor and joy that was Yiddish life and song. And in doing this, Cooper has helped inspire a new generation of musicians, including my fav Yiddish anarchist troubadour Daniel Kahn, cut through the schmaltz.

So, yeah. Yiddish music is pretty badass and Cooper will be very missed.

Here's Cooper (center), along with Sharon Bernstein & Jeanette Lewicki, singing a trio of Women's Working songs.

Yiddish Trio - Women's Worker Songs (Yiddish Song)

And, just because I love it and it's badass, here's Daniel Kahn, Psoy Korolenko, Oy Division performing "Rakhmones afn Tayvl / Sympathy for Whom?"

At URJ Biennial, Or… Can anyone can save us from Jewish Boomer Folk Pop?

2011-12-15T08:25:00.003-05:00

Hi folks. I'm at the Union for Reform Judaism Biennial. I'm serving on the board of trustees for my synagogue Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor. It's been pretty interesting for a guy with a Conservative upbringing and Orthodox leanings to settle in a Reform temple, but it's been really great. TBE is just about the most wonderful congregation I can imagine. Any quibbles I have with theology or liturgy are very much secondary to that. The Biennial is the bi-annual conference for the the URJ, the Reform communities organizing body. This year over 6000 people have piled into Washington DC for the event. There will be lots of URJ committee meetings, lectures, hallway discussions, big speakers, and, of course music. I'm going to do my best to see as much music as possible and report in.

First a quick note....the URJ has put a lot of information about the musicians up on their Stage Page including schedules (for attendees), musician info and some videos. If you've ever wanted to get a real sense of what's going on in the Reform music community this is the page to visit.

Day 1

12:00 Noon The “URJ Books and Music” stage is kicking off with Beth Schafer, Julie Silver, Doug Cotler, and Rabbi Joe Black. They’re singing a funky, folky version of “Driedel, Dreidel.” Schafer, Silver, and Cotler are on guitar and Colter is playing keys. It's fun to see them live but I'm really hoping this isn't setting the tone for the week. They're playing into all my stereotypes of liberal Jewish pop-liturgical musicians (I have different stereotypes for Orthodox community musicians). One of the big challenges for me is that while I really appreciate what these folks are doing, I don’t love a lot of the music. I find a lot of it to be pretty shallow both lyrically and musically. I also find a lot of it very dated. I don’t know if this is me pointing out that the emperor’s got pretty shabby clothes or that I’m just a jerk. Probably both.

Before anyone takes me task, let me say..... I know. Lots of it is “family music” aka kids music. And I know… lots of it is intended for easy camp and congressional sing-alongs. And, I know… these folks are talented musicians. But most of what I hear is mediocre and forgettable, a baby-boomer pastiche of 1970’s folk pop with a few Hebrew (sometimes Torah) phrases wrapped in fuzzy good feelings. Like an oldie’s radio station in a Jewish twilight zone. Yawn.

I’m hoping to find a few gems, though. I want to hear some new voices and sounds. I want my world rocked like it when I first heard Girls In Trouble sing feminist midrash over an indie-pop electric guitar and looped violin. I want to hear songs with depth and substance that really speak deeply to Jewish beliefs and dreams.

Is Colter really asking us to sing “take a potato pat pat pat.” Sigh. At 41 I'm the youngest guy in the room at the moment. Why is he singing this?

Ok, now we’re into Rock of Ages. Classic, and a nice arrangement. I think this is Silver’s arrangement. I love her soft descant. Nice. (I really appreciate Silver's work, much more than Shafer’s which for me is vapid fuzzy good feelings and fairly uninteresting song structures). Joe Black is now singing his ‘hit’ “Judah Macabee.” He's got a wonderful voice and this is a well-written song, though I wish it didn’t sound like it was written 30 years ago.

12:30, Jay Rappaport.

I don’t know Rappaport. Let’s see what he’s got. The announcer is crediting him for being a Berklee College of Music grad and a Billie Joel sound-alike. Ok. A little light R&B piano action. He sings well, plays well, works the audience well and sounds like 1970’s R&B oldie radio station instead of a 70’s folk-pop station. Lyrics…. Hebrew chorus? Check. Explanatory English lyrics? Check. Yep. He sounds like a elementary Hebrew school class. So, would my kids dig it? My 9 year-old who’s crank’s Matisyahu on her nano probably would find it really boring. My 7 year old? Maybe, if it was presented in a class situation but not on her own. (She digs Lady Gaga. Let me tell you…she was “born this way” all right). We are Jews. Why? Our people are connected around the world? That’s it? We should do push-ups with Judaism on our back? Sigh. We’re definitely aiming for the 7 year old in all of us. So Rappaport’s a lot of fun. I could see a gang of really young kids really having fun with him, but his songs don’t measure up for me.

Opps. I just got scolded for poaching a power outlet in a dangerous spot. My bad. But they offered me a spot at a table that will later be home to Jewish Rock Radio. Thanks folks! I’ve promised to put in a plug for the convention’s Stage Page (www.urjbam.com/stagepage). I’m not on wireless yet but will check it out as soon as I am. Maybe I can get press credentials and access to the press wireless connection tomorrow?

12: 55 Lisa Levine. (Cantor from Chevy Chase, MD)

Levine is a cantor from here in Maryland and is touted as having a lot of albums and her own song-book and visiting and performing for Jews in Cuba. She’s performing with members of her “inter-generational choir and band.” Yep. More 1970’s folk rock, complete with flute and cello this time. She’s got a good voice, though, and her music, while playing to all the songleader cliché’s, is more varied and better written than much of what I’ve heard from the community. I really dig her V’shamru. It’s up-tempo, but has a dark glimmer that gives it depth. I could easily see the kids’ choir at my synagogue nailing this one. Her “We will sing” is a powerhouse anthem. Listening to it reminds of a Gordon Lightfoot anthem (which is a pretty dated but still high praise, for those of you who don’t the guy.) All in all, Cantor Levine fits into all my preconceptions about songleader music, but there’s some real music here. I hope the folks listening are paying attention and take her songs back to their communities.

It’s frustrating that they’ve programmed music through the main conference lecture/panel sessions. The audience completely clears out. Only a few of us die-hards left. Lots of musicians I recognize wandering around. I see Todd Herzog, Jeff Klepper and Saul Kaye. I’ve got lots of folks to say howdy to.

1: 20 Sababa is next up. This show is getting better and better. In case you’re wondering…yes. more 1970’s liturgical folk-pop, this time with two guitars and a mandolin. Their sound is simple but tight, bright and glittery songleader rock with a bit of a country twang. Sababa’s lovely harmonizing and great control of their dynamics results in a very strong and engaging sound I could easily see on a main stage somewhere (hint hint Detroit JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival). I really want to hear them with a drummer and maybe a horn section. I might just have to get their album. Yep that’s me clapping along. Funny, they’re closing with a anthem with the chorus “God made it and it’s all good.” Very apropos of my Lady Gaga reference earlier. (She’s Jewish, after all).

Yikes. The audience is getting really thin. This is almost as bad as when I gave a Jewish music talk to 4 people at the Detroit JCC recently. Being in the wrong time slot is a real drag.

1:45 Larry Midler. Oops. I missed Rabbi Midler’s intro and will have to look him up later. He’s playing some goofy, happy-clappy, tune and not impressing me yet. Hang on. He’s busting out some serious country flat-picking guitar lines. That’s better. He’s got some action after all. I’m digging this tune about Noah. I wonder if he’s got a video of it I can post? Oy. He’s singing his “hit” “Where I go there’s someone Jewish” which rhymes Jewish and Newish. Cute but oy. At least the remaining audience members are singing along. I guess this is a hit after all. I’d rather hear the flat-picking. Now he’s singing about bar mitzvah’s. I really don’t love songs about Jewish set pieces (bar mitzvah's, dreidles, candles, Torah scrolls, matzoh....). Not that they’re not important, they’re just easy to write and easy to forget. It’s really hard to make them wonderful. Ok, he’s doing more flat-picking, this time a song about Sampson…I love this just like I loved his Noah song. Do more of this and skip the goofy stuff.

One thing that’s clear to me is that I really don’t know this community very well. I’ll need to check in with my friend David, who’s been a part of this community for years. He’ll know Midler’s story.

In case your curious.... Here’s the Teruah guide to music for URJ musicians. (this is tongue in cheek folks.)

1. Play 1970’s folk pop (or R&B) because the history of music ended then.

2. Make sure you have one, and only one, Hebrew phrase in your chorus. Reform Jews like to spice things up. But only so much.

a. If you’re a performer, not a song-leader feel free to replace the one line of Hebrew with Yiddish, Ladino, Russian or whatever comes to mind.

3. Draw your lyrics inspiration from a Shabbat prayer with additional English lyrics that may or may not relate to the prayer. Non-Shabbat prayers are discouraged because no one remembers them and Lenoard Cohen’s already done the Unetanneh Tokef.

4. Skip the English lyrics and just sing the prayer lyrics in a new, uptempo, folk-pop arrangement because no one has done that yet.

5. Write something silly about one of the great Jewish set pieces (e.g. driedles, bar-mitzvah’s)

6. Make sure you write kids songs and then sing them to adults. Because they're cute. And maybe we won't notice there are no kids in the room.

Will I come up with new rules as the Biennial progresses? Inquiring minds want to know.

2:15 Todd Herzog. I’ve blogged about Herzog before. He’s a really strong singer/songwriter with a lot implicit and explicit Jewish themes in his lyrics. (and yes, he sometimes does the one line of Hebrew thing). Definitely a performer and not a songleader, though he got some nice call and response from the audience at times. And not stuck in a formulaic 1970’s folk pop vibe, though his warm voice and guitar playing is very accessible to the Biennial audience. The great thing about Herzog is that doesn’t fall into a lot of the cliché’s of Jewish pop music (see Teruah’s Rules above). He’s a storyteller with a lot of spiritual depth. His song Tree of Live, which he’s playing right now, is wonderful and deserves a lot more attention than it’s gotten. (Ok. It does have the ‘one Hebrew phrase” cliché). I had Herzog’s previous album in heavy rotation when it came out and seeing him play live reminds me why. (Hmm. Bring Herzog to Detroit? What a good idea)

Great. I just ran into Miriam from the Biblepop band Stereo Sinai. They rocked the house last year at the Detroit JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival. They’re huge crowd pleasers. Miriam is here representing the non-profit DarimOnline and the URJ funded social media bootcamp for URJ synagogues. (http://on.fb.me/urjbootcamp)

2:30 The Levins. I’m not familiar with The Levins. They’re a duo (keys and guitar, both on vocals), with some lovely warm harmonies. And yes, they’re following Teruah’s Rules. But like Herzog, they’re performers not songleaders, and play with a lot of style and much more interesting songs. (Bring The Levin’s to Detroit? They played the SF Jewish Festival Family Stage). Wow I’m digging these folks. Their song “Let me see you as myself” is pretty awesome. Ok. Now not digging them so much. Now they're getting goofy. Are they seriously singing The Who in Yiddish. Yes. Yes they are. They don’t have Herzog’s deep spirituality and probably won’t end in heavy rotation but are a lot of fun. I’d go see them live again.

3:00 Noah Aronson. Aronson hit the stage with four guys… two acoustic guitars, a six-string bass, a keyboard and a percussionist. Clearly a performer not a songleader, though it appears Teruah’s Rules are being followed to the letter. The songs happily alternate between English and liturgical Hebrew in a uptempo strummy arrangements. Credit should be given…Aronson’s music draws as much on mid 90’s alterna-pop guitar as from 1970’s folk-pop. Whew. Aronson’s a young guy with a solid, driving voice. This song rocks and I could see high-school NIFTY kids who normally groove on Rick Recht and Dan Nichols loving him. (Another possible for Detroit… perfect for the Progressive Jewish Music Showcase?). Yum. Love the Spanish rhythms and the spacey keys under the second song. The percussionist needs a full kit but is doing his best with the drum box he’s got. Ha! He just pulled a bunch of NFTY Leadership Program kids up on stage with him to sing harmonies and just said “I’m going to break it down Dan Nichols style.” And then did. And here comes a closing pop version of the Shehikanu. grin. nice work. Jewish rawk.

Speaking of which, the Jewish Rock Radio gang including Rick Recht is setting up shop behind me. And the conference session must be over because the audience is filling up again.

3:25 Max Jared Einsohn. Whew. Quick stage swap. Max was playing rhythm guitar for Noah and now Noah is playing keys for Max. (And Noah is killing the keys). Max is also a Jewish rawk performer but with a softer and funkier sound. Finally, someone’s ignoring Teruah’s Rules entirely. About time. And of course, since he’s not taking the easy road the Jewish content of the music becomes harder to hear. With songs with titles like “We’re all connected” I get the positive messages that he’s interested in, but are these Jewish positive messages or American progressive pluralistic positive messages? (There is a difference, people.) That aside, this is a fun set. I’m going to need to talk to Einsohn and get more of his story.

3:45 Mikey Pauker. Ok, so clearly there’s Jewish Rock cabal here. Pauker’s got Aronson on piano and Einsohn on guitar. But Teruah’s Rules are back in play, at least to a degree. He’s leading off with arrangements of Sim Shalom and Hinea Matov, but there’s no 70’s folk-pop in sight. Strummy, but with more of a 90’s acoustic rock bite and a languid jam-band presentation. Hinei Matov? How great it is for brothers and sister to hang out on this day? Pretty great. Thanks for asking. Pauker’s is playing a song he wrote at Hava Nashira that’s been picked up for a reality TV show on OWN. It’s a great tune, I see why they picked it up. Let it rain! Strong, dreamy, impressionist lyrics but with a surprising Jewish liturgical hook in the middle. Avhat v’simcha v’shalom! At the end of his set, he talked about how he’s influenced by going to Hava Nashira and playing at camps. Clearly Pauker, Aronson, and Einsohn are the story of the day. It’s great to see that a younger generation is defying Teruah’s Rules. Note. I talked with Pauker after the set and he plays gigs at camps, Jewish festivals, and rock clubs and is building a career in all these places. He's opened for Matisyahu and the Moshav band, but also for a lot of prominent LA area bands.

4:15 Mark Bloom. This is my second time seeing Bloom. He played last year at the Detroit JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival. He’s a jazzy piano player guy who plays some originals and lots of Jewish standards. He’s a fine musician but I find his set tedious…. a Jewish lounge nostalgia fest. Very much not my thing. Not much to say here.

Ok…the URJ saved the best for last.

4:40 Saul Kaye. Ok, I’ve been waiting for this show all day. I’ve seen Kaye on YouTube but not live and his music has been in heavy rotation lately. He plays a mean blues guitar and has a strong bluesy voice. “Let my people go!” “Some one please call my brother!” Metal slide grinding …. giving me chills. His song “Two Wolves,” which was based a concept from the Tanya regarding on the ideas of Yetzer Tov and Yetzer Hara, was Dan Akroyd’s “Blues Breaker of the Work” on the House of Blues radio show last October. It’s a fantastic song. And yes…it has the terms Yetzer Tov and Hara in it. This is, in my opinion, what we need. Musicians who deeply understand the Jewish tradition making new music that picks up those ideas and makes seriously good new music out of them.

Saul Kaye is married to Elana Jagoda? Jagoda is a fine family music performer (and up next.) How cool.

Yikes. I may not get talk to Saul and Elana…I have to get to evening T’filah (in the Cherry Blossom Ballroom. Just in case you were wondering.)

5:15 Elana Jagoda. Ok. Teruah's Rules are reinstated, Jagoda is leading off with her own Sim Shalom. And that’s followed by a classic Jewish music set piece… the Hanukkah candles. But I dig her contemporary folk sound and where she goes with her lyrics. Go check out her Hanukkah track on the Craig and Co Hanukkah sampler on Amazon. Double yikes. Jagoda just explained that the version on the sampler was uploaded at the wrong speed and she sounds like a man. Ouch. It’s being fixed today. Ok. I've got to run and didn't get to hear all of Jagoda's set. Bummer.

10:30 Colter, Black, Silver, and Schafer. It's late and the late show is starting. The openers Julie Silver, Rabbi Joe Black, Doug Colter, and Beth Schafer are back on for a full set. I'm watching the show with Saul Kaye and comparing notes. Once again I'm struck with how this music seems dislocated in time...it all sounds like a baby boomer nostalgia fest. Which, considering the audience, it pretty much is. And don't get me wrong... they're all fine musicians. I particularly love Julie Silver. I'm just bored. I think what bugs me isn't that the music style is dated. I love 1800's klezmer music right? It's that there's no acknowledgement that the music is a period piece. It's being presented throughout the community as if this was the best of current music. Which it's not. My other bug became clear to me when we were celebrating Debbie Freedman earlier in the evening. Freedman deeply knew her Judaism, the texts, the ideas, the liturgy and her music and lyrics resonated with it. The musicians that follow after her? Not so much. Too much of it is empty of any real Jewish depth. So I'm at a late night, very average, folk-pop concert.

By the way..I'm well aware that these folks are mainstays of the community, have been loved for years and that this show is as much about the community enjoy itself as it is about anything else. And I haven't been part of the community so I just don't get it. Yep. Pretty much.

Hanukkah Sampler from Craig Taubman

2011-12-06T12:30:00.004-05:00

Craig Taubman, of Craig & Co, has a great Hanukkah offer. A nice mix of Hanukkah tunes, mostly from his label's stable of Jewish liturgical-pop musicians, offered up free on Amazon. Check it out.

Here's one of my favorite tracks from the disc. It's the Klezmatics performing Woody Guthrie's "Hanukkah Gelt" from their recording "Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah."

Hanukah Gelt (Klezmatics)

Update: I just not this note in the comments, presumably from Craig Taubman.

"One minor clarification. Of the the 18 tracks on the cd none of the artists are currently signed to our label. Furthermore, outsde of my “liturgical pop music” the balance of tunes comes from a very eclecltic selection of artists including folk (Mare Winningham,Yael Meyer and Ilana) , classical (Milken) Cantorial (alberto), rock (Naomi and Rebbe Soul) Gospel (Joshua Nelson and hip hop (Smoothe e ) genres. Keep spreading the news!"

Eden and Prodezra Beats rock Chanukah

2011-11-17T12:56:00.004-05:00

Last Friday, the Shades of Grey blog put up a nice post about the Brookly based Jewish rock trio Eden. I was going to post the Eden track "Yigdal" that SoG put up, but you can check it out here.

Instead I'm going put up my first Chanukah video of the season. It's only a few weeks away now. The video's got Eden backing the Savannah Georgia rapper Prodezra Beats at the Square 2010 festival in Charleston, SC last year. I dig Prodezra and it's great to see him backed by a live band. I love the classic heavy heavy bass guitar and the stratospheric guitar behind the rap. Would love to see them live.

Hinei Ma Tov/Come Clean with Prodezra

Proderzra Beats and Eden both have new tracks out. (well, new for me) I love Prodezra's production skills more than his rhymes but Connection Revealed is solid and worth checking out. I particularly dig "Wake Up, Rise."

Eden 's "Knock at the Door" came out last year, though it's not clear how to buy it. You can check out the tracks on myspace.

Tikkun Olam in Brazil, Talat's Jewish jazz

2011-11-07T12:53:00.003-05:00

I got an email recently from a Jewish jazz group that I hadn't heard about before. The band is called Talat and is led by composer and piano player Alon Nechushtan. Talat's debut album, Growl, on Tzadik Radical Jewish Culture has garnered praise from both the jazz and Jewish communities. I haven't heard the album yet, but I dig the Vimeo videos I've heard. To my ears, their sound, particularly the video below, is very much in keeping with other Tzadik acts, which is a fine thing. I'm a big fan of that sound. (Though I'm also a fan of non-Tzadik Jewish jazz groups including the Afro-Semitic Experience and Enrico Fink). That sound is typically based around jazz improvisation using klezmer modes. Talat's press material talk about also mixing in middle-eastern sounds, though I haven't heard that in any of the videos I've seen. What I have seen though is a nice blending in of Israeli pop music sounds, which is lovely.

For more info, check out their website.

Alon Nechushtan and TALAT perform 'tikkun Olam'

Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart on recording a klezmer in a gym

2011-10-21T11:31:00.003-05:00

Ok, it's way too short but this video of Mickey Hart describing recording a klezmer band is a hoot. Mickey Hart is a world-class percussionist, both as a member of the Grateful Dead and through a variety of performance and recording projects.

The album, The Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra's "The Traveling Jewish Wedding," was released back in 1980 and was just re-released on Smithsonian Folkways as part of the Mickey Hart collection. It's a fine early klezmer revival recording and is actually one of the one of the first klezmer album's I owned. It's loaded with fine, though not outstanding, cimbalom, violin, and folkie vocals and in true klezmer revival form it's regionally omnivorous and indiscriminate. It including traditional Yiddisn and klezmer tunes, Sephardic tunes, and one or two that sound very influenced by Israeli folk music. Great stuff.

I had no idea, though, that Mickey Hart recorded it. Guess I didn't read the liner notes on that one.

Mickey and Fred on Recording Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra

While the Golden Gate Gypsy Orchestra is no more, if you happen to be in Hawaii GGSO's Barry and Gloria Blum would be happy to perform at your wedding, bar mitzvah or bris.

Yehuda Katz going solo

2011-10-03T11:49:00.005-05:00

It's funny. Historically, I've never been a big jam-band, Grateful Dead kind of guy. I'm not sure why I so love Shlomo Carlebach and his psuedo-hippy Chassid protégés so much. But I do. Which is why I was thrilled when I got an email Aryeh Kunstler pointing me to Yehuda Katz new videos and album. Katz was one of the founders of popular Israeli Hassidic music group Reva L’Sheva and in the new album expands on his joyful Shlomo Carlebach / Grateful Dead sound. Love it. Check it out.

Yehudah Katz - Biladecha/Not Without You

For more info on Katz, check out this recent Jerusalem Post article. His other new video, Hudo, is also excellent. You can grab the new album through iTunes and follow Katz on Facebook.

The Groggers. Holding a fun-house mirror to Orthodox Jewish life.

2011-09-08T21:55:00.011-05:00

To paraphrase one of my favorite rock critics, (Paul Williams "Rock and Roll The 100 Best Singles"), there are two primal rock and roll traditions.... angry stupidity and cheerful stupidity. But there's a counter tradition too, smart stupidity. The court jester. The smart guy (or gal) playing dumb. Sometimes with snarky bite, like Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys. Sometimes with nerdy-bafflement, like They Might be Giants. But always that sense that you'd better press rewind and listen to that one again. They just said something that needs to be heard.

The first time I heard The Groggers, I didn't press rewind. The song was Get, and the band bumbled along with a power-pop finger shake at a guy who didn't deserve his girl. A well-played Orthodox novelty song, but (to my ears at the time) nothing more. I wasn't hooked yet. But tonight they sent me their new video "Upper West Side" and they got me. Court Jester. Smart Stupidity. Press Rewind.

Check it out

"Upper West Side Story" - The Groggers

Under the wide eyed naivete of singer/songwriter L.E. Staiman's vocals, is some sharp satirical bite. The phrase "I want to live on the Upper West Side where the girls always stay 29, accountants by day, speed daters by night" was delivered deadpan, but dead on the mark. (As are the hysterical West Side Story "be cool" finger snaps in the video.)

Ok, now go listen to the even better Groggers ballad "Eishes Chayil." I winced when I saw the title. Eishes Chayil, the Woman of Valor, is a regular motif in Orthodox pop music. Derived from a (sometimes touching, often awkward) Shabbat ritual, the Eishes Chayil pop song is usually over-earnest and condescending in it's celebration of the vague awesomeness of the Jewish woman. (Here's Orthodox crooner Yaakov Shwerky singing a representative example.) The Groggers skewer it beautifully. Staiman's version pushes the vague detachment of the Eishes Chayil concept as far as it will go... straight into a Weird Al Yankovic-style voyeuristic creep-fest. "If you ever need me... I'll be right out your window."

In a post on Frum Satire that went up this morning, Heshy Fried lauded them for being a Jewish band that didn't spend their time singing about religious topics, but instead sang about (Orthodox) Jewish life. That's true, and Fried's right that the Orthodox community needs more bands like that. But I think that misses the point a bit. The Groggers aren't singing about frum life, they're holding up a fun-house mirror to it.

Under their dumb lyrics are a smart insiders critique of Orthodox life. And that's brave thing to do. Smart stupidity. Court Jester. Rock and roll.

Update: I forgot to mention that The Groggers debut album "There is no I in Cherem" dropped in August. Go get it.

Coda....A Short Film

2011-09-01T11:41:00.004-05:00

Coda is a short film in the making about music and identity. The storyline (see below) points to the main character being a violinist who loves klezmer though the bit of music she plays in the film clip below doesn't sound particularly klezmer inspired to me. But it's a neat piece and I'm looking forward to seeing the final version. The film-maker is running a Kickstarter fundraiser right now, so if you like what you see consider helping out.

Coda Test Shoot

"CODA is the Graduation Film of Writer/Director Jonathan Tomlin from the MA Filmmaking Course of the London Film School. In particular, this film is concerned with the relationship between self-expression and self-preservation. The struggle to survive is as important to an artist as her instrument or her talent. An extraordinary artist is someone who can transform suffering into inspiration and vice versa.

This film strives to travel the world through music and reach audiences with a story that can be felt across any border and in any language. Music is a universal language with as many styles as there are cultures in the world. Music is at the core of CODA’s narrative. There is no dialogue and no subtitles. The film will run approximately 10-12 minutes.

THE STORY

The story of a classically trained Violinist travelling through Eastern Europe in search of a deeper connection to music and to her own life. She has chosen to live as a full-time Traveller and Street Performer (Busker) leaving behind the rigid confinement of her Classical formation in order to push the boundaries of her life and her music. She plays with exquisite technique, but her style is as varied as the stamps on her passport. She is particularly inspired by Jewish Folk music, known as ‘Klezmer’. Whether it’s expressing joy, sadness or anger Klezmer is as intricate as it is emotional.

One morning, while playing in a busy train station in Budapest the Violinist encounters two characters: A Young Girl and an older woman. The Girl is enamored by the Violinist’s performance and by her proud and strong presence. The Older Woman watches the performance too, but she appears resentful of the Violinist who has decided to play on the exact spot where the Woman comes to beg for money. Passing men and women drop coins into the violin case, but take no notice of the Beggar. After the concert the Violin is stolen and the Violinist’s self-sufficient, carefree life quickly spirals out of control as she desperately tries to reclaim the instrument of her inspiration."

Shabbat Shalom from Camp Ramah Philly

2011-08-26T11:46:00.003-05:00

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

My eight year old daughter has been visiting her grandparents all week. I've been missing her a lot. sigh. So for my 'get in the Shabbat grove" video, I thought I'd share this great video of the kids at Camp Ramah Philly, led by Rosh Shira Jimmy Costello, singing Not By Might, Heiveinu Shalom, and the Machaneh Ramah Yomi song in perfect 50 part cacophony. Great job, kids.

Machaneh Ramah Yomi Whole Camp CD Recording Session

The Joseph Achron Society

2011-08-25T21:32:00.005-05:00

Joseph Achron was a highly regarded classical violinist and composer at the turn of the 20th Century. He was Jewish and, as is noted in Wikipedia "[h]is preoccupation with Jewish elements and his desire to develop a 'Jewish' harmonic and contrapuntal idiom, underscored and informed much of his work". Sadly, while Hebrew Melody, his most popular piece, is relatively well known, few of his other pieces have been published or are played regularly.

To help correct this problem, the Joseph Achron Society, founded in 2010, is "publishing his unpublished works, recording his unrecorded music, and promoting new scholarship and performances." The Society created the first published edition of Joseph Achron's Third Violin Concerto, which was performed in May 2011, by the Brandenburg Symphony. This was the first public performance of the piece in over 70 years and met with excellent reviews. (For the more on the performance, check out The Forward's interview with Joseph Achron Society founder Sam Zerin.)

The Society is currently working on creating and publishing the first performance edition of the Achron-Paganini Caprices for Violin and Piano. These transcriptions of Paganini's Caprices were prepared by Achron for his friend, violinist Jascha Heifetz and have never been published. (The Society is looking for support to complete the editing and publishing of the works. If you're interested in helping, check out their fundraising page.)

Here's a video of Achron's Hebrew Melody, by the legendary violinist Joseph Hassid.

Josef Hassid - Achron - Hebrew Melody Op.33

Izabo's Summer Shade

2011-08-23T20:50:00.005-05:00

This is my summer for Israeli music. Israeli bands are pushing hard to get traction in the American market. I've skyped with Israel's Oleh! Records, found out that Israeli bands took SXSW by storm, and exchanged email and tweets with Israeli bands and promoters asking me to blog about them. That's new for me but I'm game. There's a lot of great music coming out of Israel and I'm happy pass it along.

Today's find is the Israeli band Izabo. Here's their official blurb....

"Best described as a “brilliant, action packed combination of Psychedelic Rock, Disco, Punk and Arabic spices,” these psychedelic rockers secured a spot as one of Israel’s most successful alternative pop bands with the 2003 release of their debut album “The Fun Makers.”

To me they fit in the same 'Israeli beach party' orbit with my fav's Boom Pam and Electra and their new video, Summer Shade, is a perfect summer track..buzzy and languid at the same time. Like Electra Izabo sings in only lightly accented English, making it an easy listen for an American audience. In fact, the light accent and the lightly Mizrachi flavored tunes lends Izabo a perfect sense of friendly exotica.

C'mon. Even the ice cream cones have bushy mustachio's. How much more friendly does it get?

Summer Shade

Right now, Izabo is running a giveaway on their facebook site. "Like" them and get Summer Shade and two other tracks for free download.

Sharks Have No Bones!, or The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement

2011-08-22T20:59:00.005-05:00

When I was a kid I loved books of trivia. Hundreds of pages of random facts (sharks have no bones! ) that sparked my curiosity and gave me a random sampling of information (often horribly wrong) to base my forays into the library or encyclopedia and lunchtime discussions with friends. To a budding info-junkie, those raw facts were pretty addicting.

As a kid, I might have loved Stephen L. Pease' book "The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement". With a studious tone and a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" enthusiasm Pease spends 500 pages chronicling amazing accomplishments by Jews. Did you know that

Jews invented both holography (Gabor) and the ball point pen (Biro)!
Between 2002 and 2008 fourteen Jews played major league baseball!
After 1853 all De Beers' diamonds were sold to a London syndicate of 10 Jewish buyers!

You do now. You can thank me and Pease later.

This book's strength, and it's weakness is Pease voracious appetite and unrelenting boosterism. Like a true trivia book, there is no sense in the book of how any of the facts relate to each other and to Jewish history and no sense what facts were left out (it is only 500 pages, after all). It's all just a large pile of evidence for how cool Jews are. And, based on Pease's evidence, we are pretty cool.

This is a music blog, so of course I immediately turned to the music section. In this section I found a page and half jammed full of references to Jewish contributions classical music (there are LOTS) and three quarters of a page acknowledging that we've pretty much played no role in country music. As counted by awards, and paragraphs, we were pretty influential in rock and roll, musical theater, and jazz. And we have Babs. Pease awarded Jewish musicians one multi-page biography and that bio honor went Barbara Streisand. And, of course, no recognition at all of Jewish music. No klezmer, cantorial, or Yiddish musical theater. Debbie Friedman or Shlomo Carlebach never existed.

As a kid I might have loved the quirky randomness of the book. But as an adult I find it a joyless slush. There may be folks out there for whom the book, as Rabbi Harold Kushner says in his hyperbolic puff, "strengthens [their] pride in being Jewish."

It might.

But it also diminishes my sense of what being Jewish is. What ever being Jewish is, it is not to be found in this book. Knowing that sharks have no bones (and that they have several sets of replaceable teeth) really doesn't tell you anything about sharks. Knowing that, in 2008, 8 of the top 16 major department stores were either owned or started by Jews tells us even less about ourselves.

Israel's Visual Art Rockers Eatliz produce dreamy stop-motion animation mini-masterpiece

2011-08-18T07:14:00.004-05:00

I love synchronicity. Earlier this week I was going over the lists of Israeli bands that played SXSW over the last couple of years (and fantasizing about going this year to see the next crop). One of the videos that stood out was "Lose This Child" by the Israeli "visual art rock/ complicated prog pop" band Eatliz. A couple of days later I got a note from the bands promoter suggesting I blog about the video. Yep. Good plan.

Eatliz, Hebrew for "butcher shop," has a great bass heavy funk drive and a wonderfully floaty, squawky vocalist. They meet my requirement for a band to continually surprise me while remaining true to a central music vision. They haven't knocked the Israeli rock band Electra out of my heavy rotation band of the week yet. But they just might. For more details, check out their website and this "hi, we're Eatliz" video.

Eatliz recently teamed up with the Grammy nominated directors Yuval & Merav Nathan to produce one of the most gorgeous and haunting music videos I've seen in a long time. The video has been screened at 40 film and animation festivals, winning 14 awards, including in the US, Israel, Australia, Korea, the US and all over Europe.

Eatliz - Lose This Child

According to the band's promoter,

"The making of the video took 6 months. The video utilizes moving sand sculptures, which help make the characters part of their environment. The majority of the video was painstakingly photographed frame by frame at a beach in the early morning hours over three months at night. Each night, the crew had limited time and were up against the elements, but were able to create this mini-masterpiece :)

The song "Lose This Child", is taken from Eatliz band latest album. Eatliz is an internationally acclaimed visual Art Rock band from Tel Aviv, which are known for spectacular live shows that are a visual treat, outstanding genre crossing music, beautiful award winning animation music videos. Recently, Eatliz finished a full North American tour which included several shows at sxsw and Canadian Music Week festivals, followed by a east coast tour and a European tour. In 2012 they will tour China and Japan and will continue to spread their artistic music and animation music videos."

Saul Kaye live every night this month

2011-08-17T11:12:00.004-05:00

Saul Kaye is a fine blues musician (see my 2010 post) who's exploring the intersections of Jewish and African lyrical and musical traditions. As he puts it...

"Jews have been enslaved in many countries over the centuries including Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Rome, Greece, Germany, and Malta. So, like the African Slave experience proved to be a catalyst for blues, so the path of Jewish history fostered its own form of soulful tears, from Jews crying out in Egyptian slavery ( Exodus) to the prophet Jeremiah weeping over the destruction of the Temple in Eicha ( Lamentations ) , Jews know the pain of spiritual crisis and call to Hashem with their own form of blues. You can hear it in the synagogue when the Torah and the books of Prophets are read, chanted in tropes passed down through time, recounting forbearers' sorrows on days of tragedy like Tisha B'Av, or remembering celebrations of freedom on Passover, when Jews recall the Israelite's "Song at the Sea," as the waters of freedom parted."

Kaye is experimenting with a new online approach to giving concerts between his live shows. Every night this month (August, 2011) except for Saturday night, he's giving an intimate live show via StageIt.com. The shows are at 9pm US Eastern / 6pm US Pacific time. I just found out last week and haven't caught one yet, but will try to catch tonight's show. I'm not exactly clear how StageIt works, but I get the impression that Kaye's shows are a 'pay what you feel appropriate' sort of thing.

I'm excited to catch one of the shows. This is a great opportunity for folks not in one of the big metro areas to catch a really talented performer. Check it out.

To give you a taste, here's Kaye playing the Desert Blues.

Desert Blues

Update: I caught the Saul Kaye show on StageIt last night and thought I'd report on both Kaye's performance and on StageIt. Kaye gave a casual 30 minute, from his living-room, performance, that included songs from his new albums, a few covers, some 'day in the life' stories and some chat with the audience. For a new fan (e.g. me) it was a great opportunity to get to know Kaye a bit and see that he really has the vocal and guitar chops you hear on the album. Now I really want to see him live.

The StageIt experience was reasonably good. Sign-in was easy (it took my Facebook account info). I was able to buy $5 worth of 'notes' to use as my ticket to the show and then another $5 worth to leave as a tip. The division of ticket and tip is smart. It gave me two different opportunity to decide how much I valued the performance, both before the show started and during the show. Sound quality was surprisingly good, though I suffered with some occasional screen buffering (which was probably a problem at my end).

One interesting thing is that Kaye was playing to a rather small audience, but has been doing so all month. He didn't get rich on last nights show, but brought in a few bucks and made at least one new fan (me!).

All in all the StageIt experience was a good one and I'll be interested in seeing if other bands start using it as a way to stay connected with their fans between tours and to build audiences in places they haven't played yet.

SoulAviv's Joyful Noise

2011-08-12T13:24:00.002-05:00

Shabbat shalom everyone,

For this week's 'get in the shabbat groove' video, I thought I'd share "Joyful Noise" by SoulAviv. SoulAviv were semi-finalists in the International Jewish Music Competition in Amsterdam last year (and one of the only non-klezmer bands to make it that far). Soul Aviv has lovely harmonies and an uptempo gospel-influenced bounce and are a hot ticket on the synagogue, JCC and camp circuit and were included in the recent UJR compilation CD, Ruach 5771 along with songleader luminaries Craig Taubman, Rich Rect, Dan Nichols, and Josh Nelson.

Soul Aviv. Joyful Noise.

For more info or to snag one of their CD's, check out their website.

Serge Gainsbourg. A Heroic Life

2011-08-10T11:45:00.004-05:00

Serge Gainsbourg was a highly influential French singer-songwriter, actor, director. He was Jewish, the children of Russian Jewish parents, and his extensive discography includes a darkly comic rock album called "Rock around the Bunker" about Nazism that was influenced by his experiences wearing a yellow star and hiding from the Nazi and Vichy governments.

A new film about Gainsbourg was just released. The film, called "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life" was directed by Joann Sfar, one of my favorite comic book artists. Sfar, himself, is also French, Jewish and known for incorporating Jewish themes and ideas into his work (see The Rabbi's Cat, The Rabbi's Cat 2, and Klezmer: Tales of the Wild East.)

I can't wait to see this. It looks great.

Here's the official blurb and trailer.

Taking the best from LA VIE EN ROSE and AMÉLIE, renowned comic book artist Joann Sfar’s GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE is a completely original take on one of France’s greatest mavericks, the illustrious and infamous Jewish singer-songwriter, Serge Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino). Born Lucien Ginsburg to Russian-Jewish parents, Sfar follows him from his precocious childhood in Nazi-occupied Paris, to his beginnings as small time jazz musician and finally pop superstar. Along the way he romances many of the era’s most beautiful women, including Juliette Greco (Anna Mouglalis), Brigitte Bardot (Laetitia Casta) and Jane Birkin (Lucy Gordon). Employing a witty surrealistic style and a soundtrack that includes many of the musician’s greatest hits, GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE is a quintessential time capsule to ‘60’s Paris.

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life - Official US Trailer

For more info on the film and a listing of theaters, check out the Music Box Films website.

I'm currently bouncing back and forth between cranking up some Gainsbourg tunes and some covers from the "Great Jewish Music: Serge Gainsbourg" album put out by John Zorn's Tzadik: Radical Jewish Culture label. The album includes covers by John Zorn, Fred Firth, Marc Ribot, Cibo Matto, Elysian Fields, Kramer, Franz Treichler (of the Young Gods), Blonde Redhead and others. I don't have a copy of Rock around the Bunker but I'm hot on it's trail.

Sunny Klezmer ... the new Klezmer Juice video.

2011-08-08T20:11:00.002-05:00

Klezmer Juice, a fine klezmer band from sunny southern California just released an honest-to-gosh MTV style music video. Ok, so it's mainly the band leader Gustavo Bulgach, biking, driving, and dreamily noodling his clarinet in all sorts of sunny California locals. But they get credit for a real video. Before this moment of sunny cinematography, Klezmer Juice's credits included being the on-screen band in the Owen Wilson and Vince Vaugn film "The Wedding Crashers," being nominated for a Grammy and putting out two fine contemporary klezmer albums. Good job, gang.

Papirosen - Gustavo Bulgach KLEZMER JUICE

Black Ox Orkestar

2011-08-02T11:33:00.002-05:00

Emerging from the vibrant Canadian art-rock music scene of the early 2000's, Black Ox Orkestar released two albums, Ver Tanzt? and Nisht Azoy (Not Like This) of contemporary Jewish music that are dark, haunting and intense. The albums clearly draw on Askenazi Jewish roots, with evocations to klezmer, cantorial and Yiddish folk motifs. The albums draw on contemporary jazz, folk, and art-rock influences as well, but without the 'aren't we clever and eclectic' feel that often mars musical hybrids. These albums are on a short list of my favorites, both for their musical depth and for their ability to evoke, for a few moments, a world where new Jewish culture thrived and renewed itself instead of degenerating into apathy, nostalgia, or pastiche.

Nisht Azoy
Nisht Azoy - BLACK OX ORKESTAR by Constellation Records

Here's the Orkestar's official blurb. Gotta love the phrase "Anchored to tradition without being suffocated by it." Exactly. We need more of that.

"The second record by Montreal’s Black Ox Orkestar placed the group at the forefront of a ‘new Jewish music’ that rejected contemporary fusion and musty nostalgia in equal measure. With backgrounds in folk, punk-rock and free jazz, the group’s four musicians distilled Balkan, Central Asian, Arabic and Slavic sources into a coherent, impassioned sound that gave teeth to old Jewish songs. Never relying on museum-piece reverence or an obvious, forced collision of musical forms, Black Ox rewrote a Yiddish songbook in ways that sound organically anchored to tradition without being suffocated by it."

The YouTube Audition: Three Klezmer Videos

2011-07-27T20:42:00.006-05:00

I think this is obvious, but is worth mentioning. Every video of a band on YouTube, whether put there by the band or not, is an audition for the band's next gig. The thing is, if you've seen as many videos as I have you'd realize that either band's don't understand this or haven't thought it through. So, being the ever helpful fellow I am (helpful meaning self-appointed know-it-all), I thought I'd offer some suggestions.

But first let me provide some context. The volunteer committee that helms the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest is about the best gang of folks you could hope to work with. And two weeks ago we were in rare form. After going through some general planning discussions about the upcoming Adat Cohen (last week), Mandy Patinkin (September) and Chava Alberstein shows (January), we started in on next March's full festival lineup. Since I'm a helpful guy (see definition of helpful above), I was prepared with a pile of videos that I'd collected and that had been suggested by others on the committee. We had a great discussion and I remember leaving it wishing that all those bands hoping to play festival gigs could have been a fly on the wall. Oh yeah. I write a blog. They can be.

To simplifying things, I'm not going to talk through all the videos we watched. I'm just going to use some video's by some great regional klezmer bands as my examples. I've never seen any of them play live (shame on me), but know band members from each. I personally enjoyed each of the videos and hope that I can book each of them either this coming festival or a future one. I hope none of them mind using them as examples.

First up was the Michigan State Klezmorim.

Good stuff. Lyrical, stately, lovely. Easy to imagine them playing a private party or small club or restaurant. What happened when I played the video? I was immediately asked if they could play uptempo. You see, we're a big festival with a big stage and are envisioning a more uptempo affair, possibly with dancing. This video just didn't match the committee's vision of the event. Unfortunately, this is the only MSK video I could find.

Observation #1. I know videos take time and effort to put together; but if you want more than one kind of gig you need to have more than one video available. Make sure that there are enough videos that one of them will make us say "Yeah..I want them to do that for me!"

Second was the Heartland Klezmorim.

Ok. This was more like it. Good bouncy klezmer. The band was up on stage, obviously playing a festival gig. But iffy sound quality didn't help show off the band's musical ability and the band's tight, straight up playing didn't show off their stage presence. There is more than one Heartland video, but this was pretty representative...good band, but based solely on this video, are they good enough?

Observation #2. Just because the musicians are good, doesn't mean the video will be a winner. I'm not sure if the video was commissioned by the band or shot by a fan at the show, but either way this video didn't do Heartland justice. Having videos of your band playing gigs in front of happy fans is a good thing. But also make sure there are some videos with good sound and good camera work that really show off your musicianship and stage presence.

Last was the Chicago's Maxwell Street Klezmer

This was the best received video of the set. Good (enough) sound and lights, clear and evident musicianship, lots of stage presence. It was really easy to imagine what they'd look and sound like on our festival stage. Equally important, Maxwell Street has 25 videos put online by the band, as well as others by fans. It made it easy for me to find one or two more that confirmed their abilities.

Observation #3. A little show goes a long way. Ok, so the clarinet vs violin shtick is a bit theatric. But the relaxed, casual, control that the band shows as they goof around onstage makes them look like professional entertainers. For a festival gig, that's a good thing. We're looking for entertainers as much as artists. So bands, if you're going to shoot a video... make sure you're doing something that will look good on film. Make me want to see it live.

So to recap... bands, your videos are your audition performances. Even if you don't intended them to be. So put some thought into them, make sure you're showcasing your variety and musicianship and ability to entertain.

Oleh! Records... Israeli Music Export

2011-07-26T06:42:00.006-05:00

Keeping track of Israeli music is much harder than you'd think. Outside of the occasional reviews in Haaretz, Israel National News, JTA, and the Forward, there are few English language websites that provide any regular coverage of the Israeli scene. The only specifically Israeli music focused sites I know of are the online catalog Israel-Music.com and Ben Bresky's excellent Isreal Beat podcast. Until now, that is.

Jumping in to help fill the void is Oleh! Records, "Israel's Music Export Office." Oleh! is not a fannish gossip, releases, and reviews sort of site (though we really need one). Oleh! focused on the business of music and helping promoters and venues outside of Israel make connection, book, and promote Israeli musicians. Wearing my other kippah as (current) co-chair for the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival I'm going to be getting in touch with these folks.

But to the average fan, Oleh! is still a goldmine. Yes it has information about Israeli superstars including Noa, Dana International, David Broza, and the Idan Raichel Project. But did you know that Israel has 7 excellent heavy metal bands? You do now. Oleh! lists Xenolith, Winterhorde, Viscera Trail, Orphaned Land, Midnight Peacocks, Gevolt! and Matricide. Whew. In addition to metal, Oleh! provides information on a range of genres including urban and soul, punk and metal, jazz, middle eastern, instrumental, folk, classical, reggae and funk. While these lists do not capture every band in Israel, it's a fine start for the budding Israeli music fan. I did a quick scan for some of my favorites and found info about Boom Pam, The Teapacks (but not Kobi Oz), Yidcore, Balkan Beat Box, and Hadag Nechash. In bumping around their site I also learned about the Israeli 'psytrance' scene (check out Skazi and Void) and got totally hooked on the "Kasbah Rock" sound of Electra (see below).

In short, where has Oleh! been all my life?

Oleh! just launched recently, so it will be exciting to see what the site matures into over time. For more information, check out the Oleh! website, as well as their Twitter and Facebook pages.

Electra - Coming To Get You! - official video

Update: In the comments Ilan, of the Jaffa Jive radio show, just pointed me to another resource on Israeli music:

"A small addition to the available resources: Audio Montage - a small record label from Tel Aviv (more of a "co-op" label). A hub for some of my favorite musicians.
http://amontage.net/wordpress/

Thanks Ilan!

End of JDub. What's next for New Jewish Culture

2011-07-23T15:00:00.004-05:00

The news broke about a week ago. JDub, the not-for-profit hipster Jewish music, is shutting down. Zeek has more info and an excellent summary of the state of "New Jewish Culture." This is a sad day, without a doubt, but not unexpected. I've heard lots of rumblings about JDub for a while now, they've had money problems, questionable management, maybe a bit overreaching in projects. Sounds like a typical not-for-profit, right? But they'll be missed. They were a focal point for folks like me to point to when trying to get people excited about New Jewish Culture.

But just because the organization is folding up doesn't mean the bands are going away, the fans are going home, or the enthusiasm is diminishing. It's more a question of what kind of organizations are needed and what kinds of business models work. So what comes next? Should someone else try to make a go of a Jewish label? Does the New Jewish Culture scene need record labels? And if so, for what? A&R and advance funding on recording (audio and video)? Public relations & marketing? Band management and tour management? Album distribution?

What about on the fan side? I've been expecting that someone will start a slick and stylish Pitchfork style website with a wide vision of Jewish music. There's finally a decent online radio station in Jewish Rock Radio. But it's pretty narrowly focused. There's an "International Jewish Presenters Association" but it doesn't seem to be particularly active. Shemspeed is still turning out great music, mostly hip-hop. There is, of course, the always active Orthodox & Chassidic scene, but they don't make much effort to reach outside their primary audience. (And, yeah, I'm still doing Teruah).

So what's next? Not sure. But, to paraphrase a recent tweet from the klezmer-punk band Golem....exciting new Jewish music was happening before JDub and it will continue to happen after JDub. But JDub will be missed.

So...here's a quick blast from one of my favorite current JDub groups...Girls in Trouble. I've raved about GiT before and will continue to do so, led by Alicia Jo Rabins, Git is somewhere between the next Regina Spektor and the next Debbie Friedman. And I don't take either comparison lightly. Who's going to help me champion GiT and all the other new Jewish bands out there?

Girls In Trouble - We Are Androgynous

The Russian Jewish Experience Part II: Shalom Comrade!

2011-07-08T01:59:00.005-05:00

In doing a little more homework on Russian Jewish music, I came across a wonderful archive album titled "Shalom Comrade! Yiddish Music in the Soviet Union 1928-1961." The album, which was produced in 2005 by ethno-musicologist Ritta Ottens and ethno-musicologist / klezmer musician Joel E. Rubin, both through it's music and extensive liner notes helps fill a critical gap in Russian Jewish history. As I noted in yesterday's post, there is a tendency by American Ashkenazim Jews (including myself) to marginalize the history and experience of Soviet and post-Soviet Jews. It defies the 'escaping the old world of the Shtetl (poverty, orthodoxy, anti-semitism) to the new world of America (opportunity, liberalism, assimilation)' foundation myth that underlies a lot of our cultural narrative. The Soviet Jews didn't escape. Instead, under pressure of the Soviet system they were slowly transformed, with results no less dramatic than the transformation Ashkenazi Jews experienced in the West.

One of the drivers for the Russian transformation was the conflicted view that the Soviet leaders had toward Judaism. As Ottens and Rubin note,

"Stalin’s cultural ideologues planned to deploy the music of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of the Soviet Union as a building block for the new Soviet music, whereas the Jewish religion with its traditional way of life was damned as counter-revolutionary."

As I've written previously, when talking Russian Jewish art music, there was an amazing output of art music in the early days of the Soviet system that drew on Yiddish folk and Jewish liturgical music. This music was composed by Jews and non-Jews alike, including Dmitri Shostakovich, one of Soviet Russia's premier composers. This activity faded though as the religious life of Soviet Jews came under more and more attack by the Soviet regime. As Ottens and Rubin note, not more than 200 to 300 (Yiddish popular and liturgical music) recordings were released up to 1967. They compare this with approximately 10,000 similar pieces recorded in the West.

This scarcity of these recordings make the Shalom Comrade! album that more special. At 24 tracks, it contains over 10 percent of the entire recorded output of Soviet Jewish music of that period and covers a range of thematic topics the show integration and tensions of Soviet Jews. This first sample (from Rubins website) is a Yiddish art song composed by B. Bergolt, lyrics, and Moses Milner (score). The song is performed by Misha (Mikhail) Aleksandrovich, who was born in Latvia, lived in Britain, and after World War II became one of Soviet Russia's most popular performers. Here's a translation of the lyric from the album liner notes.

Last night grandma suddenly remembered how grandpa came back from the Civil War front. Her big tears shone happily as she embraced him, danced and cried. That’s how they partied, into the deep of night, the tables broke under all the honey-cake and wine. A glass and another glass, higher and higher in the hand, to spite the enemies and to the joy of our country. Many years pass by with peace everywhere, and an old lady sits with her grandchildren around her and tells of the Great Fatherland War [World War II] and what a holiday it was when grandpa came back in victory.

Misha Aleksandrovich / Di bobe hot zikh dermont (Grandmother Recalled)(M: Moses Milner; T: B. Bergolts)

This second sample was, as Ottens and Rubin note, "belonged to the handful of warhorses which every Soviet interpreter of Yiddish song had to have in his or her repertoire." This version, performed by Zinovii Shulman, was the one that popularized the song.

Oh dear! Where do you get flour to make varnitshkes? [A plain
dumpling ]?
Without yeast or salt, or pepper or fat. Where do you get a board
to roll out the varnitshkes? Where do you find a stove to cook
the varnitshkes? And where do you find a lad to eat the
varnitshkes? Without yeast or salt, or pepper or fat. Where do
you find one, where?

Zinovii Shulman / Varnitshkes

The album can be purchased through The Workman's Circle and, of course, Amazon. And did I mention the extensive liner notes?

The Russian Jewish Experience: Soviet Jewish alienation with excellent production values

2011-07-06T19:52:00.009-05:00

I've been chatting on twitter with Russian/Canadian Jewish blogger @vladislavab. She did a fascinating mini-documentary recently called "Soviet-Jewish Alienation within the "Bagel-and-Lox Culture" with an accompanying blog and now radio program & podcast. She's interested in how her experience, the Soviet Russian Jewish experience, differs from and enriches the dominant North American Ashkenazi Jewish culture. I'm looking forward to chatting more with her. We share (I think) very similar views about a mutually enriching trans-national, trans-denominational Jewish community.

What we've been chatting about is, of course, Jewish music. She was looking to add to the collection of interesting Russian Jewish musicians that she plays on her show. I tossed out a few of my favorites including Lampa Ladino, Lana Ross, Psoy Korolenko, and Turetsky's Choir. This got me obsessing about Russian Jewish music and needing to find more.

Enter Yakov Yavno. Actor. Singer. Russian Jewish Icon. My new music crush.

Like Turetsky's Choir, he mixes the over-the-top theatrics and earnest sincerity that I love about Russian productions. There is no ironic detachment here. This is the Russian Jewish experience to the max, baby. More is definitely more.

Here's his blurb...

Yakov Yavno, also known as YaYa, is one of the most preeminent performers to immigrate to the United States from the former Soviet Union.

He was raised and came of age surrounded by the intertwining of a variety of cultures and peoples that have shaped and developed whom he is as a human being and as a performing artist. Within this melding of cultures, he often faced a difficult daily reality, witnessing firsthand the struggle between the ancient and modern, opposing religious factions and cultures, and in particular, the unique journey of the Jewish people of Russia.

Following studies at the Gnesin's Academy of Music in Moscow, Yavno became the leading star of the Jewish Musical Chamber Theater of Moscow. In 1987 the Russian government awarded him the coveted title of “Artist of Special Merit”.
His captivating performances are filled with a sense of purpose; a vision, as is evident with numerous sold-out concerts throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. His festive staged showcase "The Road Home" incorporates an orchestra with choirs and contemporary dancers as well as cameos by well-known local guest-stars from the countries in which he performs. It was filmed as part of a documentary by the same name. Yavno’s solo show, “Revelations”, intersperses a musical program with tales of the artist’s journey from Russia to America; it features international combos integrating storytelling and philosophical discussions. His memorable solo performance, “Songs of Our Soul”, premiered at New York’s Kauffman Concert Hall in 2007.

The Yakov Yavno Promo Video

Unlike Turetsky's Choir, he's based out of New York City, which means I have a chance to see him perform live. I will make this happen. I will. I will.

Getting back to vladislavab's point about how Russian Jewish culture should be thought of as enriching Ashkenazi culture, and not being an inferior shadow of it. Who in the Ashkenazi community hits the stage with the energy of Yavno or Turetsky's Choir? Yeah we've got some great cantors concerts. And no shortage of klezmer bands. And my favorite Jewish pop bands. (Yes Matisyahu, I'll be seeing you on Sunday night). But they don't even get close. We Ashkenazim have got a lot to learn.

Michigan Jewish Music - upcoming events

2011-07-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Lots of great Jewish music happening on the North Coast this summer. Check it out.

July 10: Matisyahu plays at Detroit's St. Andrews Hall

"Known for blending traditional Jewish themes with Reggae, rock and hip hop beat-boxing sounds, Matisyahu's single "King Without a Crown" was a Top 40 hit in the United States of America" I've seen Matisyahu twice before. He's fantastic live.

July 16: Michigan State Klezmorim and Wisaal play at Detroit's Concert of Colors.

One of Lansing's two great klezmer groups hits Detroit as part of a huge two day free music fest. While you're there also check out Arab fusion band Wisaal, who "attempt[s] to fuse elements of the Arabic musical heritage with Klezmer, Indian, and American influences while respecting the spirit of these traditions.

July 20: Israeli jazz saxophone / clarinet player Anat Cohen plays the Detroit Jazz Fest (at the Detroit Jewish Community)

Since arriving in New York in 1999, Israeli born Anat Cohen has established herself as one of the primary voices of her generation. The saxophonist/clarinetist is a bandleader and composer, conversant in jazz, classical, Brazilian, Argentine and Afro-Cuban styles. Her historic engagement at the Village Vanguard in 2007 marked her as the first female reed player and the first Israeli to headline at the club. She topped the Rising Star-Clarinet category in DownBeat Magazine’s critics poll in both 2007 and 2008, and placed prominently in a total of four categories including Rising Star Jazz Artist.

I'll probably be ushering. Come say hi!

July 20: Heartland Klezmorim play at the Meridian Historic Village in Okemos

Detroit's other great klezmer band play an outdoor show at the Meridian Historic Village.

July 23: Heller, Steyer & Green will be playing Java Havdallah at Temple Kol Ami

Heller, Steyer & Green features the talents of Cantor Penny Heller Steyer of Temple Shir Shalom and her children Tiffany Steyer Green, cantorial soloist at Temple Kol Ami, and Matthew G. Steyer, visiting cantorial soloist at Temple Kol Ami and Temple Shir Shalom. They stole the show at the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest a couple of months ago.

August 26 to 29: Adrienne Cooper, Daniel Kahn, Susan Leviton, Judith Eisner and Douglas Cole, Neil Alexander and Klezmer Fusion Band, Cantor M. Smolash, and Cantorial Soloist Neil Michaels, along with the PuppetART theater of Detroit and dancer Steve Weintraub, perform at the International Association of Yiddish Clubs 14th Conference in Novi

Check out the IAYC conference entertainment page for bios of all the bands. So much great music. I may have to crash this party.

The Red Sea Pedestrians play pretty much everywhere and everywhen.
My favorite local roots jazz klezmer gang have a crazy busy gig schedule and a brand new album out. They'll be playing near you soon, so no excuses.

Steve Klaper, The Jewish Troubadour, will be hanging out at the Song & Spirit Institute for Peace in Berkley MI and Congregation Shir Tikva in Troy, MI

Ravid Kahalani's Yemen Blues

2011-07-05T06:37:00.002-05:00

The excellent music blog Aspara "genre- and tradition- crossing music from around the world" recently ran a nice piece on Yemen Blues, an Israeli group led by Ravid Kahalani. As Aspara notes, Kahalani mixes "blues blended with Yemenite Jewish chants, West African percussion, funk, and much, much more. Great stuff. Check out the Asapra article for the full story.

Um Min Al Yaman - Yemen Blues

You can get more info on Yemen Blues at the usual places including YemenBlues.com, twitter, and their MySpace and Facebook pages. YB is touring North America right now, so check out their gig schedule (this means you NY, Chicago, Calgary and LA).

Lana Ross: Jewish Classical Guitar

2011-07-03T07:50:00.004-05:00

Here's what I know. Lana Ross plays classical styled guitar and has three recordings on CD Baby, two of which are Jewish themed. Lana Ross based out of Canada and is ~~associated with~~ married to Russian - Canadian classical / flamenco guitar player Andrei Krylov. That's it. That's all I've got. Which is very weird, normally musicians go to great lengths to provide all sorts of bio material and contact information. Ah well. We can just enjoy the music.

Variations on themes of Odessa, Klezmer, Sephardic, Hasidic, Jewish Folk Songs and Dances for Classical guitar, (2011) and Fantasy on Themes of Sephardic, Hasidic, Odessa Jewish Folk Song and Dances (2009) are sprawling series of finger-picked folk and classical style guitar pieces that, as the title suggests, cover a lot of territory through Jewish music. Which in itself is a small wonder. I rarely see that much specific knowledge of Jewish music repertoire in single recording. Ross plays beautifully, with a lot of bounce and humor, weaving classical and folk sounds in a manner that reminds me a bit of John Fahey style 'primative guitar." Not quite at Fahey's level, but very solid.

To get a feel of her work, check out these tracks. From Variations, the lyrical and lush Bessarabia Romance sits next to aptly named Klezmer Guitar - Funny And Sad. From Fantasy, her Fantasy to theme of Jewish folk song Avinu Malkeinu and Variations to theme of Jewish folk song Lo Jisa showcase her classical and folk styles.

Bessarabia Romance

Klezmer Guitar - Funny And Sad

Fantasy to theme of Jewish folk song Avinu Malkeinu

Variations to theme of Jewish folk song Lo Jisa

If anyone knows more about Ross, please let me know. I'd love to track down a live recording or video or, even better, to catch her performing live. I've contacted Krylov and will report back if I get more information.

Update: I was able to reach Krylov, who confirmed that Lana Ross is his wife and that they live pretty far out in the country and don't use the internet much. Anyone interested in Ross's work can grab the albums from CD Baby or get in touch with her through Krylov's website.

Jewish Rap music? Not for this kid.

2011-07-02T23:00:00.006-05:00

YouTube user likewowwowwow does NOT like Jewish rap. Nope. Not a bit.

My thoughts on Jewish Rap Music

Specifically, she's not impressed with the following BibleRaps track.

Moses Rap - A Pesach / Passover Music Video

She isn't wrong. BibleRaps is an educational outfit, but even for 'educational' Jewish music, this is pretty weak stuff.

But it isn't all weak. Check out Prodezra's Rosh Hashana Song for more thematic Jewish rap done right. For more straight up Jewish rap, likewowwowwow should check out Matisyahu, Socalled, YLove, Kosha Dillz and Eprhyme. (I'd recommend the Hip Hop Hoodios too, but maybe they're a bit adult for her. Hey, I'm a dad... I haven't played HHH for my girls yet either).

So, likewowwowwow... good job! If you do any more reviews let me know.

The Wondering Jew Talks Jewish Music

2011-07-02T22:00:00.002-05:00

I was catching up on Jewish music vids to hit Google recently and stumbled across this gem. The Wondering Jew, ~~an anonymous~~ "Benjamin something-that-sounds-like Chielminitzy", an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, recently started a video blog. One of his first topics is frum Jewish Music, and why he just can't get into it. If you want a crash course in contemporary frum Jewish Music that's laugh-out-loud funny in spots and dead on accurate, check it out.

The Wondering Jew: Jewish Music

To be fair, there are some really good and really interesting musicians who are frum and playing to frum audiences. Yosef Karduner may not be Sting, but his voice and music work are as deep as it gets. And I have to differ...I really dig Lipa and actually listen to Carelbach for the music as well as the stories. Really. But still, this is priceless.

Ofra Haza & Jonathon Elias' The Prayer Cycle'

2011-07-01T11:52:00.004-05:00

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

This isn't exactly a 'get into the Shabbat grove' video, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I recently ran across an Ofra Haza track that I'd never heard. The track is called 'Forgiveness' and comes from composer Jonathon Elias composition / album "The Prayer Cycle." In this song-cycle, Elias explores faith through music and invited a wide range of top-flight vocalists to sing in a wide variety of languages. Haza's Forgiveness track is the Hebrew language offering. She sings with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who is singing in Urdu.

Forgiveness

I nabbed the album from eMusic and found the entire composition quite moving. It's also available through Amazon. Enjoy.

Hat tip to YouTube user SuperShims for posting the video.

Reb Yosil Rosenzweig - Still rocking and davening

2011-06-30T22:30:00.000-05:00

You want to hear a track that rocked my world recently? Press play.

Mah Ne'Daber by Yosil and the Kosher Gravy Co.

Now go read the story.

Wow. What an wonderfully simple, wonderfully intense recording and an immediate add to my playlist.

So who rocked my world? Reb. Yosil Rosenweig, my (handsome and modest) pal Benji's dad, and long time Jewish music fixture. I want to say icon, but can't quite. Reb. Yosil has written songs and made music with two of the most important folks in Jewish music in the 20th century; Chassidic rabbi and folk singer Shlomo Carlebach and Avraham Rosenblum, founder of the Diaspora Yeshiva band, the seminal Israeli Jewish rock group. But he, himself, never rose to the icon status of Carlebach or Rosenblum. But, icon or not, Reb Yosil has been making great Jewish music for a long time. And as evidenced by the track above, he's still doing it as well as anyone.

About a year ago Reb Yosil released Pitchu Li, his first solo album. It's a recording of Reb Yosil with his Kosher Gravy Company live in concert, with Reb Yosil telling stories, giving Torah, and singing some of his many songs. He's backed by a fine, bluesy jam-band. Doing a more detailed review of the album had been on my to do list for a while (sorry Benji), but I'd had trouble getting started. I'm not much of a fan of fine, bluesy jam-bands. Just not my style. And Reb Yosil's voice is a bit rough in spots. I bet I would have loved the show... but the album? Good, but not great.

But then I heard Reb Yosil's Rosh Chodesh recordings. Particularly the Mah Ne'Daber. And I was hooked. There's a fire to his solo recordings that I didn't get from Pitchu Li. Mah Ne'Daber is incandescent. I now look forward every month to his next Rosh Chodesh song. They're offered monthly for free download. If you've missed them, go get them. Or wait a couple weeks. Pretty soon they're going to get bundled up as Reb Yosil's next album. It'll be a great collection. Then he'll start the process over with a bunch of new songs, one per month.

I got the chance to sit down recently with Reb Yosil and hear a bit of his life story. I was really interested in finding out more about his relationship with Carlebach and Rosenblum and, given his obvious talent, why he ended up in their shadows. And why the new recordings now after all this time? The answer revolves around the life of a Canadian pulpit rabbi and musician who found himself in Israel in the late 1960's, a moment when North American ba'al teshuva were coming to Israel in waves and creating a new Jewish music scene that mixed rock music and spirituality, Zionism and Torah.

Reb Yosil, far right with glasses and white yarlmuke, and Shlomo Carlebach, left with silver yarlmulke and guitar)

Reb Yosil moved to Israel in 1968 for "a four year summer." During that time he started composing music and met and played with Carlebach. Like Carlebach, Reb Yosil was interested in being able to use music as an emotional component of prayer. (And like everyone who knew Carlebach, he has some great Carlebach. Listen to the intro to Reb Yosil's Gam Ki Eilech for classic from the days of the Yom Kippor war.) At the same time he met and married his wife (whom he met at a Carlebach wedding) and opened a restaurant, and in 1971 started a band with Avraham Rosenblum called B'nai Tzion that included original material and popular Jewish song by The Rabbi's Sons and the Simchatones. B'nai Tzion played regularly on the stage in Reb Yosil's restaurant and at NCSY event. At that time he composed the songs Tzadik Katamar Yifrach and Pitchu Li, songs that went on to be hits for Rosenblum's next band, The Diaspora Yeshiva Band. Performed by DYB, Pitchu Li won Israel's 1976 Chassidic Song Festival. In 1978 DYB won again, this time with Reb Yosil's song Hu Yiftach Libeinu.

Reb Yosil (guitar, on right) Avraham Fried (standing and singing) and friends

But DYB won these songfests without Reb Yosil, who was never a member of the band. Yosil wanted to be a rabbi, not a full time musician. Prompted by that and the opportunity to work with the Canadian Zionist organization, Yosil and his wife had already moved back to Canada when Pitchu Li won the festival. Yosil spent the next 30 years as a pulpit rabbi and raising a family, using music in his rabbinic work and playing community concerts and kumzitz. After a recent bout with illness, Reb Yosil retired from the pulpit and started playing music regularly again, putting together the Kosher Gravy Company band and playing concerts around Ontario and Detroit.

It's pretty exciting for a Jewish music geek like myself to see someone writing and performing new material in the style that was popular in Jewish music the late 1960's / early 1970's at that birth of Jewish rock. Particularly, it's exciting to see that music from someone who was there at the time and contributed classic songs to the repertoire.

Prodezra Beat's "Proud To Be"

2011-06-26T21:36:00.003-05:00

Prodezra Beats is best know for doing the production work on Y-Love and Describe's "Change" video. He dropped a new track "Proud to Be" recently. Good stuff. I wasn't keen on his first solo outing but this is definitely on the right track.

Proud To Be

Even better than Proud to Be, though, is the track Shofar Calling that he did for the ever awesome G-dcast website last year. I missed it when it came out so here it is...

Shofar Callin': The Rosh Hashanah Song

Love the detail in the lyrics and the shofar break. Get more info on Prodezra and his new album at Shemspeed.

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra...US-wide live on July 28th

2011-06-25T22:23:00.004-05:00

The Israeli Philharmonic will be doing a cool live concert on July 28 that will be broadcast live* to movie-theaters around the US. To promote the show, the sponsors are doing a free ticket giveaway. See below for details.

On July 28th, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta join the extraordinary talents of soprano Renée Fleming and tenor Joseph Calleja to honor the legacy of the great American tenor Richard Tucker. Although the concert takes place in Jerusalem, we are pleased to be able to extend you an invitation through Fathom Events, who will be presenting a live* broadcast in theatres across the country. Fathom is giving away a pair of tickets per participating theatre, which means over 1,000 tickets will be given away to this event! To enter to win, just write the name and location of the participating theater where you plan to attend the live broadcast, along with the phrase “Free ‘Live from Jerusalem’ Tix”, on the Fathom Events Facebook wall (here: http://on.fb.me/FreeFathom Tix You must click “I am Attending” in the upper right to access the event wall). One winner per theater will be randomly selected from the qualifying entries to receive a pair of tickets.

To find the closest participating theater in your area, visit the ticket order page: http://bit.ly/LiveFromJerusalem (no purchase necessary), and enter your zipcode in the “buy tickets” field. You will be directed to a list of the closest theaters. Simply copy+paste the theater name and address into your entry.

*Broadcast will be delayed to play at 7pm in all time zones around the United States.

Sponsors of this event include EL AL Airlines, (who are sending me additional prizes soon), The American Friends of the Isreal Philharmonic, The Richard Tucker Foundation, and Mod 3 Productions.

Enter the contest to get free tix: http://on.fb.me/IPO-tix

Watch a video about the event: http://youtu.be/qIQBiusOdpg

Buy a ticket/see more info: http://www.fathomevents.com/performingarts/event/reneefleming.aspx

Who are we that dream and what is that dream? Kutiman, Lawrence Dermer, and the perils of making music about Israel

2011-06-21T17:54:00.008-05:00

Music about Israel is tricky thing. And I don't mean music from Israel. Israeli musicians can grab a guitar or an oud and have at it with no complications. Just do their thing. But music about Israel is fraught with all the tensions and complexities of Israel itself. If the music is written by a non-Israeli, it also comes with all the tensions and complexities of our Diaspora perceptions. Which ends up with writers like me thinking much to hard (or not hard enough) about what it all means.

Israeli mashup-phenom Kutiman recently released a brand new track called "Thru-Jerusalem." Like his previous collection of "Thru-You" videos, "Thru-Jerusalem" stitching together fragments of found sound and video into something brand new. Unlike T-Y, which featured video clips that Kutiman discovered on YouTube, T-J features video clips that Kutiman shot himself. What was found was the musicians and the moments, which Kutiman discovered walking around Jerusalem. Stitched together by Kutiman, they become a moving sonic landscape of a hopeful multi-cultural city. If you dig it, like I do, the track can be downloaded for free from SoundCloud.

Thru Jerusalem

Lawrence Dermer, an American BMI Award winning & Grammy nominated Songwriter and Producer (and Cantorial Soloist) released "We are Strong" back in 2008. I missed it then, but got pointed to it recently. We Are Strong has an upbeat 'We are the World" kind of 'unity through music' vibe and contemporary world-beat sound. This is an earnest, big anthem stuff. If you dig it, which I don't, you can get the track or album from CD Baby.

We are Strong

Of the two I find Kutiman's "Thru-Jerusalem" the more compelling effort. Partially this reflects my personal taste... I'm not a big fan of Dermer's smooth, radio-friendly anthem sound and wish he'd lose whatever effects processing he's using to obscure his voice, but I love Kutiman's sensibility. Kutiman has a great ear for the texture of sound and makes surprising sound combinations fit together beautifully.

This also reflects my read on the song narratives. Kutiman is an insider. His assemblage of Jerusalem musicians reflects both a realistic portrayal of Jerusalem (these are real Jerusalem musicians, after all) and Kutiman's optimistic vision of Jerusalem (this varied group of musicians blending together into a unified, but not homogenized) whole. From the perspective of a Diaspora Jew who's never been to Israel, it sounds about how I'd hope Jerusalem would sound if I could visit and wander around as Kutiman does. I wonder how real and how constructed that vision is. Is it a better version of reality than news reports show, or a delightful fiction?

Dermer's song on the other hand feels jingoistic. When he sings "We are strong" it's unclear who "we" are. He could mean all Israeli's, but I don't think so. Instead it feels inclusive of Jewish Israeli's with only a passing nod at non-Jewish Israeli's. Where Kutiman's videos showing real musicans of different backgrounds being themselves, explicitly acknowledging the complexity of Israel, Dermer's repetition of vague and banal slogans such as "what we believe we will become" and the constructed reality of him mugging in front of children who sing his song on cue, leaves "We are Strong" feeling strangely out of touch. This doesn't seem to be a song for Israelis, instead it seems like a song to raise spirits of Diaspora Jews? If we're strong, all Israel's problems will just go away.

So who are we that dream and what is that dream? Do we (American Jews) fall behind Dermer's sentimental utopian vision of happy children of all (Jewish?) races singing in unison? What dream do this children really share? Or do we (Israeli Jews and Muslims) accept Kutiman's vision of Israeli adults existing together peacefully in a complex shared space? (Remember that this too is a dream. The collaboration of Kutiman's musician's only happen inside Kutiman's mind and computer...they never actually meet in real life).

Maybe the answer is that either way, all we can do for now is dream.

Di Niggunim & The Barons of Tang, a hot mess and a wild ride

2011-06-16T20:52:00.005-05:00

This past Tuesday I bopped over Detroit to the anarchist art collective Trumbleplex to see San Diego based "anarcho-klezmer punk collective" Di Niggunim. I had a blast. Trumbleplex is my kind of place. Not a club. Not a bar. A place where happenings happen. Lots of independent minded folks with a lot of great energy. I spent a good chunk of the evening looking longingly at the mosh pit wishing I had left my camera in the car and could jump in.

The opening band, Detroit Party Marching Band, (not a Jewish band. duh.) was a riot. I don't mean they were funny. The gang of them (there at least 12. I lost count) were hooting and squawking in full marching band gear and marching band instruments and sounding like they were about to take to the streets. Shake something up. Burn burn something down. Riot. whew.

Di Niggunim, sadly, was a hot mess. They'd had gear stolen in Chicago. Their drummer had been sentenced (just that day) to three years in prison for "stuff." Their clarinet player couldn't make the tour and the guitar player'd gone home. The bass player was borrowed. The singer was sick. Life on the road folks. That said, they gave it their all and played the best they could and a fine time was had by all.

Here they are, sounding an awful lot better than they did Tuesday...

Fascist Degradation - Di Nigunim

I love these guys. They've got a lot of heart and I proudly threw some extra cash into the hat that got passed and added their sticker to the back of the Teruah-mobile before I went home.

The big surprise of the night was The Barons of Tang, from Melbourne, Australia. BoT is a "gypsy deathcore" band. Klezmer influenced, but really a melange of music styles. They were tight and talented and reminded me of Gogol Bordello or an early Pouges. Maybe not as good on the vocals, maybe not as strong on the songwriting, but they could get there. They'll be hitting Toronto's Ashkenaz tonight (Thursday). I didn't love them enough to drive to Toronto from here...but I thought about it the whole drive home.

Dogs of Rotterdam by Barons of Tang

hat tip to my buddy Noah for tipping me off to the show and to Youtube users commander and UndergrowthMagazine for the videos.

The Feenjon Group - Israeli music in 1960's NYC

2011-06-01T07:09:00.004-05:00

NYC is a churning, transient city. In the 1960's, Israel had been around long enough for Israelis to find themselves part of that churn. Menachem Dworman, an Israeli ex-pat, started a folk club called the Feenjon Cafe and it's house band, the Feenjon Group. The group also contained Jewish-American musician Jerry Sappir as well as range of Greek, Turkish, Russian, and Arabic music and musicians. The Feenjon group recorded 4 or 5 albums, the only one of which that is still easily available is alternately titled "Bellydancing at the Cafe Feenjon" and "An Evening at Cafe Feenjon" and is available through Smithsonian Folkways (and, believe it or not, through iTunes). Check it out.

Feenjon Commercial

I love running across albums like this. For someone my age, who wasn't born yet when this album was recorded, it's a bit of lost American Jewish history. Yes, we really did have an Israeli ex-pat scene in the 1960's. And yes, Israeli and middle eastern folk music did exist in the US at that time. And yes, it sounded great.

See the excellent Record Fiend article "The Feenjon Group - Belly Dancing at The Cafe Feenjon (Monitor, circa 1969) for more details." For some great discussion and remembrances of the Feenjon Group, check out this thread at Tribe.net.

Also, hat tip to Tzvi for pointing me to the FeenjonGroup and to YouTube user Village Underground for uploading the video.

Spamalot & The Jews

2011-06-01T05:54:00.004-05:00

It turns out that Spamalot, the musical "lovingly ripped off from the classic film comedy Monty Python and The Holy Grail," loves the Jews. Or, at least, thinks 6 minutes praising our supposed dominance of Broadway is time well spent.

Spamalot- You Won't Succeed On Broadway

It could be worse. The Mormon's got a whole play lampooning them, we just got a scene. Though honestly I'd rather see a 'go for the funny bone' South Park style tear down than this "we love Babs and Fiddler" suck up. Weak tea, guys. Weak tea.

The Chavlog, a niggunim video blog

2011-05-27T05:29:00.005-05:00

Shabbat shalom everyone.

I'm really looking forward to Shabbat this week. The crazy storms across the midwest caused me to spend a lot of unnecessary time hanging out at airports (3 failed attempts to get to Huntsville, Al), but that's a minor inconvenience compared to the destruction in Missouri. I think we all need a break.

I'm really excited about this week's 'get in the Shabbos grove' video. As you all know, I love niggunim. For anyone not introduce to them yet, niggunim (the plural of niggun) are wordless or mostly wordless Chassidic songs, typically of a spiritual bent. And they make great drinking songs. But you didn't hear that from me.

Yesterday I ran across a new project from Mendel "the Sheichet." I last checked in with Mendel back in 2008 in a post about his Pittsburgh based Chassidic heavy metal band, Teihu. Right now he's doing a fascinating video blog about niggunim for COLlive.com, a Chassidic community news website.

Chavlog #8: The 63rd Niggun from COLlive.com on Vimeo.

What's fantastic this is that Mendel puts a lot of effort into explaining the history and context of each niggun before singing it. From a Chassidic perspective, this is critical to understanding and properly approaching the niggun. They're not just melodies, each one is a spiritual statement.

The whole series is posted on Vimeo. Enjoy! and Shabbat shalom.

Help Asher Barkin's Chassidic Jazz

2011-05-26T07:12:00.002-05:00

Asher Barkin is a Cleveland based vocalist and bandleader who plays local simcha gigs with his group the Lyd Orchestra. Barkin's got a great voice and the Lyd Orchestra's got a lot more style than a lot of their peers. Here's a video of theirs to give you an idea of what they're about.

Zamru Set from Asher Barkin on Vimeo.

Barkin started a IndieGoGo campaign to get advance support for his first album. Part of his goal for the disc is to entertain his fans, part is to help land simcha gigs, but, interestingly, part is to help him push the music forward in a way that's hard to do at a commercial gig. Barkin is looking to do music that better integrates the Orthodox music he loves and performs with jazz, which he also loves. Putting together the album will help him work out some of his musical ideas and get them out in front of the world.

So I plunked my $36 down. I'd like to see where Barkin goes with this. Linking Jewish music and jazz isn't a new idea, but I'd like to see how far he can push the simcha band sound and I'd like to see him get better established as a regional band leader.

What about you? Check out his facebook page for more info and the IndiGogo page to lend your support.

Ben Zimet's Yiddishland in Senegal

2011-05-19T14:55:00.005-05:00

Ben Zimet is a Yiddish singer with a serious pedigree... a dozen albums recorded between 1978 and 2010 and a "Yiddishland" cabaret show that's played around Europe for just as long. As his website tells it....

"Ben ZIMET is a yiddish singer and storyteller. His parents were Polish Jews. He is a Canadian citizen and has lived most of his life in Paris. He now navigates between Paris, and Dakar, in West Africa. After his growing years in America, Ben ZIMET settled in Paris in the early 60s. Here, he made his stage début with the great pianist and accordeon player Eddy SCHAFF, at the famed Café-Théâtre de la “Vieille Grille.” This was in 1973. Later, he created and presented his “Songs and Tales out of Yiddishland” all over Europe and throughout the world, telling his stories in French or in English and singing in Yiddish the unique world of the East European Jews."

While I'm rather partial to his straight up Yiddishland folk and art music and his storytelling (check out this video of him in action), I was floored by this video of him mixing up Yiddish song and Senegalese music and dance.

YIDDISH MUSIC - BEN ZIMET - THE GOLDENE MEDINA

The first time I watch the video I was struck by the "no, really?" daffiness of it, but after watching it a few times I realized that's just me being parochial. It's no more of a stretch than Socalled's Yiddish theater hip-hop mashups or Jeremiah Lockwood's cantorial R&B, both of which I adore. (Or Paul Simon's Grammy winning collaboration with South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo, for that matter.) It's no more or less than another example of diaspora in action. It only stands out because of the solitary nature of experiment.

(H/T to Y-love, who tipped me off to Ben Zimet and YouTube user bigsoce for posting the video).

Y-Love's "This is Unity"

2011-05-17T20:40:00.005-05:00

My last post was Y-Love's great political anthem "For My People!" And I haven't posted a thing since. I've been through a couple of grueling weeks of writing research grant proposals. Three of them. At the same time. yeesh. It's fitting then, that now as I sit down to get back to blogging I've got an email from Shemspeed with Y-Love's latest...This Is Unity, from his new EP "See Me."

Y-LOVE "THIS IS UNITY" (Official Music Video)

"The “This is Unity” campaign highlights one of humanity’s most elusive concepts: Unity. As a result of extremisms and borders of class, race, religion and lifestyle, people have divided themselves into an ever-growing number of categories with which to separate from and label one another. In those categories themselves, we as humans often stereotype and stigmatize those who do not resemble the rest of the category.

“This is Unity” is an holistic, anti-bigotry campaign designed to highlight and celebrate diversity. From the music-video featuring Y-Love which highlights Jewish diversity, we hope to encourage a strengthening of Jewish unity and Jewish peoplehood worldwide. Through workshops and projects that bring together artists from different backgrounds to perform in front of varied and mixed audiences, Shemspeed makes its contribution to building bridges between peoples in the hope of encouraging shared experience, constructive dialogue and some impetus for the resolution of some of the world’s most pressing disputes.

Standing up for what is right in the face of what is wrong with the world — through love and unity. This is unity, and this is how we at Shemspeed, Be’Chol Lashon & Nu Campaign do it."

I dig the music and the message. The bounciness reminds me of Y-love's early Modular Mood tracks a lot more than his grittier Babylon tracks. I also dig the contrast between For the People, angry punk hip-hop fist-pumper of a protest song and This is Unity, a positive, inclusive jump-up. Great stuff, Yitz. Keep it coming.

By the way, for a way funnier take on Jewish racial and ethnic unity, check out Manishtah's classic vid "JOC Slapping."

For My People!

2011-04-20T06:20:00.006-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I brought out Ylove and Diwon to play the Detroit JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Festival and they put on an amazing show. I've been fans of theirs, and the rest of the Shemspeed crew, for ages and they keep getting better and better. While they were out here Diwon played me a bunch of tracks from Ylove's upcoming EP and Ylove played me his new, as then unreleased, video. Both were fantastic. And now they're starting to pop.

Ylove's "For My People!" is a powerful hip-hop protest anthem. This is pop music at its best folks... both catchy and lyrically deep. Ylove's got a vision and a voice and this one's got to be heard. If this one doesn't own the airwaves and downloads, there's something wrong with this country. Oh yeah, there is. Right. Almost forgot.

FOR MY PEOPLE from kasumi on Vimeo.

Here's the official release blurb....

Y-LOVE comes together with Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Kasumi, the revolutionary video artist, on "For My People", the politically charged protest anthem! Watch for their full-frontal social consciousness on their EP scheduled for release in 2012.

Recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, Kasumi is a media artist uniquely blending film and live-performance into dynamic videoart. Known internationally for her innovative work, she employs an arsenal of powerful digital technology to weave vibrant visuals and powerful audio into experiences with poignant cultural-political meaning. Kasumi’s richly expressive and compelling compositions have appeared at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Württembergischen Kunstverein Stuttgart and the Chroma Festival de Arte Audiovisual.

With a passion for collaboration, she has created distinctive media art for a myriad projects and performed alongside the likes of Grandmaster Flash, DJ Spooky, Modeselektor, and the New York Philharmonic. Her newest work, BREAKDOWN, premiered at Carnegie Hall in concert with the American Composers Orchestra. Her video “BREAKDOWN, The Remix” was named the 2010 Vimeo Awards Remix Winner.

Y-LOVE is currently gearing up for the release of "See Me", his pop and club-friendly EP, on May 17th, and is currently on tour promoting his new single, "The Takeover" featuring TJ Di Hitmaker.

FYI...Shemspeed put The Takeover up for free download recently. Go grab it.

One other note...this is a Jewish music blog, right? So I should point out that I love what Ylove is doing in the track. It's not nearly as explicitly about Jewish topics as some of his tracks, but you've got to love a refrain like "for my people...from the shul to the street." I've got visions of pissed of people marching down the street chanting that one. Teruah likes.

Ezra Malakov's Bukhari Chad Gadya

2011-04-13T05:45:00.005-05:00

Beth Gavriel Bukharian Congregation in Queens, NYC was founded in 1996 as home to the city's growing Bukharian and Russian Jewish community. Beth Gavriel's cantor, Ezra Malakov, has been central to an effort to preserve and transmit Bukharian Jewish music. In addition to his own albums, he's collected and produced "Musical Treasures of the Bukharian Jewish Community", a seven CD box-set with book of music and lyric that "represents the religious and folk music of the Bukharian Jewish Community, once based in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere in Central Asia.""

Here's Malakov's performance of the Passover seder classic Chad Gadya.

Had Gadya - the Bukhari version by Ezra Malakov חד גדיא בבוכרית

Note that Malakov's recordings and the Musical Treasures collection have all been released independently and do not have any internet distribution that I'm aware of. Contact Cantor Malakov through Beth Gavriel for more information. The only recording that Malakov was involved with that has any internet distribution is "Eternal Music of Bukharian Jewish Hymns" which is available through the American Sephardi Federation online book & music store.

For more information about the Bukharian Jewish community, check out Beth Gavriel's "History of Bukharian Jews," the Australian radio program "Encounter: Shalom from the Silk Road: The Story of the Bukharians," and the article "Bukharian Jewish Music in Queens" by Evan Rappaport of New York's New School. If you happen to be NYC tonight (April 13, 2011) Rappaport will be giving a lecture on the topic. Rumor has it that the talk with be recorded and if it's made available, I'll post it.

Hat tip to the website Invitation to Piyut for uploading the video to YouTube. In addition to Malakov's Chad Gadya, Invitation to Piyut has a wide variety of Passover piyut from around the world.

A lo-fi freak-folk Shabbat: Rob Markoff's "Sabbapath: To the Seventh Sunset"

2011-04-08T19:25:00.007-05:00

Shabbat shalom everyone,

I'm getting a bit to close to shabbat for a long post, so just a quick pointer to a great new Shabbat album that just hit the streets. JDub just released, for free download, Rob Markoff's lo-fi rock album "Sabbapath: To the Seventh Sunset."

"Sabbapath, through Markoff’s vision, remixes and re-contextualizes the traditional Friday night service. It features spirited singing, droning voices, flutes, harmonium, strum stick, guitars and autoharp to create a singular, psychedelic, celebratory freak-folk album."

This one's a keeper, gang. Check out JDub for the full story and the download.

Divine Sparks Judicial Review: Critical reviews of Jewish music

2011-04-07T20:30:00.003-05:00

A singular article was published online today by the Boston based group The Arts Fuse. The article described as a "judicial review" of the Divine Sparks concert at the Boston Jewish Music Festival where six reviewers, and a response from trumpeter Frank London, contributed their perspectives of the event "creating a conversational, critical space about the arts and culture." It's fascinating and frustrating in equal measure and one of the best pieces of commentary on Jewish music I've read in a while. The Divine Sparks concert, also a singular performance. was described as "a provocative attempt to explore how Jewish cantorial music and other kinds of religious song can spark musical improvisation and spiritual experiences" and included Frank London, pianist Anthony Coleman, cantors Yaakov Lemmer, Aaron Bensoussan, Gastón Bogomolni and Elias Rosemberg, and Hebrew College rabbinical student Jessica Kate Meyer.

Go. Read it. Now.

http://artsfuse.org/?p=27943

Ok. A couple of my favorite points.

- Hankus Netsky's introduction to cantorial music, Chassidic Niggunim and Sephardic Moroccan music is excellent and I was completely cracking up when I read his comment about the cantorial performance of these songs being "tainted by Conservative and Reform cantors trained to perform them with Contemporary Ivrit (standardized Israeli) Hebrew accents—imagine, if you will, the Delta blues as sung by Ted Koppel or Dan Rather." Absolutely.

- I found critic John Bradshaw to be gratingly unable to get past his own musical experiences. In a review of a Jewish music event I'm uninterested in his flawed comparisons to the Christian music he is used to singing. His complaint about over-abundant ornamentation and lack of melody characterizes his ignorance of the music. That's the way its supposed to sound, dude. Though, to be fair, the exuberant ornamentation of chazzanut has been a subject of debate in the Jewish world as well and has may detractors.

- I was also stunned by critic Steve Elman's ignorance. He writes "The only examples of true crossover music in the jazz tradition that I can recall quickly, Ziggy Elman’s freilach trumpet solos for Benny Goodman in the 1930s, were a sort of burlesque, a novelty rather than a genuine cultural bridge." There was and has been a significant interaction between jazz and Jewish musicians which include plenty of examples of cross-over music. I refer him to David Katznelson's recent collection "‘Black Sabbath’: ‘The secret musical history of black-Jewish relations" for a schooling. Though, here too, his basic point is correct. While the number of crossovers between Jewish music and American music is larger than he credits, it is not large.

Finally, without quoting it because I would need to quote the entire thing, I found Frank London's artistic response to be and eloquent and persuasive. I have been to a number of "cantorial concerts." While they have their value as entertainments, they have offered me far little in terms of spiritual content. Experiencing these cantors in true liturgical contexts is a different story, as is hearing a spiritually minded musician of any type. I remember fondly seeing the Afro-Semitic Experience (a jazz group) play the Michigan Sacred Music Festival two years ago and found their music to be deeply moving.

Ok. I hate writing blog posts that don't have play buttons. Unfortunately, as of the writing of this piece, no video of the Divine Sparks show has been put on line. So here's a clip of Cantor Aaron Benssoussan & the group OktoEcho performing at the Montreal Jewish Music Festival in September of 2010.

Aaron Benssoussan & OktoEcho

Klezmer Music Outreach

2011-04-06T16:00:00.004-05:00

"In January of 2001, the Timberlane Regional High School Wind Ensemble started working on an intricate piece entitled Five Yiddish Dances to be performed in their March concert." From this start, the documentary follows the TRHSWE as they get a crash course in klezmer and Yiddish culture organized by their band director Tony DiBartolomeo and provided by Concord, New Hampshire klezmerim Seth Austen and Beverly Woods.

It's great to see this kind thing happening. The students clearly appreciated the time that Austen and Woods spent with them and understood how it benefited both their performance and their understanding of the Jewish community. My only concern, and this happens a lot, is that they seem to have developed a sense a historical Yiddish culture that is disconnected from current Jewish culture. I would have loved to hear one of them comment about wanting to catch the Klezmatics or the Bester Quartet on their next tour. Ahh well. One step at a time.

So congrats to DiBartolomeo, Austen and Woods for making it happen and congrats to the students for what I'm sure was a fine concert. Wish I was there to see it.

Klezmer Music Demonstration at TRHS/PAC from Timberlane School District (TEN) on Vimeo.

And to other Jewish music folks who read this... we really need to seek out opportunities to do this kind of audience and musician development. I'll be visiting some Detroit area Jewish schools next year to talk about Jewish music in general and "progressive Jewish music" (e.g. pop/rock/hip-hop) in particular. My goal is to get the students engaged and excited about next years Detroit JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music fest, and the Progressive Jewish Music Showcase in particular. All I had to do was make some connections and ask. I haven't made the step to visiting non-Jewish schools but that's something to think about too...

Performing Piyyutim

2011-04-05T11:10:00.004-05:00

Last Thursday, WNYC's NEXT New York Conversation series put on a fascinating lecture and concert titled "Performing Piyyutim: Sephardic Music, Poetry and Spirituality." I missed the webcast. I was at the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest that night. Fortunately for me and the rest of us, WNYC put the webcast up for viewing. I knew that ethnographer Samuel Thomas and his group Asefa was performing (see my previous post) but forgot that Asefa included the amazing Yoshi Fructer, who graced the Gottlieb Music Fest stage the previous week with his amazing avant-garde jazz/rock group Pitom. In addition to Thomas and Fructer, the evening included the Moroccan born Rabbi Gad Bouskila of Congregation Netivot Israel, Brooklyn and Rabbi Joseph Dweck of Congregation Shaare Shalom, Brooklyn. This is a must listen, folks.

Here is WNYC's description of the event.

"Today in Brooklyn, where disparate Jewish groups from the Middle East are engaging one another in an unprecedented way, the piyyut – the Hebrew term for a sacred poem – serves as an expression of a specific type of Jewish identity. Spanning five centuries since the expulsion from Spain in 1492, these piyyutim express unique conceptions of the relationship between humanity and the Divine and serve as the backbone of the quasi-classical musical traditions of different Sephardic immigrant groups who now call New York home.

Following an introductory discussion, Thomas, accompanied by his ensemble Asefa and other traditional musicians, will present a lively musical performance of Sephardic piyyutim. Intertwining musical performance with discussion, Syrian Rabbi Joseph Dweck and Moroccan Rabbi Gad Bouskila will illuminate how the intersection of Kabbalistic and Sufist thought in Sephardic cultural history inspired piyyutim."

Finally, three last shout outs... First, Asefa just released their second album, Resonance. The samples from the website are gorgeous. Check it out.

Second, Pesach is coming. I recently ran across a wonderful CD of Sephardic Pesach music recorded by the folks at B'nai Jeshurn, NYC.

Third, during the performance / lecture Samuel Thomas talked about contrafactum music, where existing music is re-purposed with new lyrics. The always excellent "On the Mainline" blog recently wrote a post on this topic titled "The original Shlock Rock: R. Yisrael Najara's 16th century religious Hebrew poetry set to Middle Eastern rock music."

The Kosher Symbol Blues

2011-04-03T16:51:00.004-05:00

Ok, so with my being crazy busy with the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest we haven't gotten started on our Pesach cleaning yet. I know what will be my soundtrack this year, though, Mendel Singer's "Kosher Symbol Blues." Singer's not going to give Mare Winningham a run for the Jewish country title, but "Kosher Symbol Blues" is a hoot and his song "Bible" is lovely. Singer's guitar playing is also quite good and carries his voice well. I expect to hear some of these songs start making the rounds on Washington Jewish Radio and other Jewish radio stations.

Turetsky's Choir - the Russian Jewish answer to Riverdance

2011-03-30T16:03:00.007-05:00

If you want a full on Jewish music pageant, it's hard to beat the Russians. The following video, from the Turetsky Choir, is a great example but only one of many I run across. It's an incongruous (to me) mix of some seriously good male vocalists, Jewish folk and liturgical music, and a high production value stage and pop instrumentation. Much like Riverdance does for Irish music and dance, it at the same celebrates and trivializes Jewish music.

I'd pay big bucks to see it live. And then need to take a shower.

The Turetsky Choir is led by Mikhail Turetsky, who first came to prominence in 1989 in Russia as the choirmaster of the Moscow Choral Synagogue, the main synagogue in Russia. Initially, Turetsky's choir was exclusively an art music project that produced concerts and recordings of primarily Jewish music. Over time, though, it added the flamboyant sets and pop sensibilities it's known for and began to mix Jewish music with pop and musical theater pieces.

And no, I don't know if any of the choir members, including Turetsky, are Jewish or what being Jewish might mean to them. To read the YouTube comments on this video, you'd think they were either treif impostors or best thing since Golda Meir (who, for the record, infuriated the Soviet authorities by visiting the Moscow Choral Synagogue back in 1948). And I'm not sure how much it matters. Seeing a bunch of seriously good male vocalists singing Jewish music to a huge crowd of Russians, in the face of the centuries of discrimination that Russian Jews have faced, does my heart proud.

Sing it loud, guys. Who cares if you know what you're singing. (Though I'm betting you do.)

Хор Турецкого - Кошерное попурри

For more info on the Turetsky Choir, see their website, for their recordings, see Amazon. Amazon doesn't actually stock them, but has them listed. If anyone knows a good source of import Russian recordings let me know. I'd love to pick up a couple.

Update: Score. I picked up one of Turetsky's early recordings at the Moscow Synagogue on eMusic. It's a very good recording of a synagogue male choir. No pop. no fanfare. Great singing. Now I have to track down one of the later recordings.

Yosef Karduner Live in NY

2011-03-28T14:54:00.003-05:00

I've been feeling guilty that I haven't featured any new Chassidic recordings lately, but nothing had caught my attention. Yosef Karduner to the rescue. Karduner is an Israeli Breslov Chassid and a long time favorite of mine. His Shir Ha'amalot has become standard repertoire across the Jewish world for good reason. He's got a wonderful voice, simple and just raw enough. I'll admit that as much as I love Karduner I haven't bought any of his previous albums. Each had, to my ears, an over-produced quality that distracted from the essence of his simple presentations. The new album, "Kumzitz - Live in NY" is the album that I've been waiting for. It's easy to close my eyes and imagine myself singing along at a Breslov kumzitz. (Which I've never been to...invitations anyone?).

For more info on Karduner, check out his interview with Ben Bresky of Israel National Radio recently. The album is available through Mostly Music and CD Baby (download only).

B-Mor7 and the Jewish Problem

2011-03-27T13:51:00.004-05:00

Here's a great hip-hop track I found recently on bandcamp. The track is "The Jewish Problem" by the up and coming, Rhode Island based, hip-hop artist B-Mor7. While B-Mor7s tracks take on a range of subjects, The Jewish Problem is front and center personal response to the Shoah. While there's no shortage of Holocause related rock, pop, and hip-hop tracks, there's a sense of raw personal impact in the lyrics and delivery that jumps it up to front rank. Check it out...

B-Mor7 - The Jewish Problem

B-Mor7's pretty new and doesn't have a lot of interview or bio material out there, so I caught up with her via email to get sense of where she's coming from and where she's going.

Teruah: So...are you from Rhode Island originally? (FYI I'm from CT and used to go Providence for shows all the time. Mostly to punk shows at club called The Living Room, which probably isn't there anymore.)

B-Mor7: I’m from RI, I grew up in Edgewood (Cranston) and now I reside in Pawtucket. But I’ve spent most of my life in Providence (Divine Guidance) volunteering, working, performing and just hanging out.

Teruah: You mentioned (in an earlier email) that you play jazz and blues too, but the Magma Music v2 bandcamp tracks are all hip hop. Is hip-hop your main focus right now? On the bandcamp tracks are you mainly doing the rap or are you producing the tracks too?

B-Mor7: Yes, Hip Hop and Spoken Word Poetry. Everyone thinks I make beats but it’s actually the one thing I don’t do. I like to get tracks from a lot of different producers, some local and some international. I produce the album in terms of the lyrics, concepts, samples, guest appearances; but don’t actually create the beats themselves.

Teruah: Are you gigging at all? What kind of shows are doing? I saw your poetry on your website, are you doing any poetry slams? I used to do lot of them in CT.

B-Mor7: I was doing a some poetry slams but I’m not really into that right now because there isn’t a venue. I perform a lot of spoken word at different events though, mostly on college campuses or as intros to my Hip Hip performances. As for gigging I had a cd release party recently where I performed 2 sets and shared a venue with Chachi and his band Afrika Rainbow. They were amazing! Most of my shows are in the Providence/Pawtucket area but I’m branching out now into Boston as well. I’ll be opening for an amazing 9 piece female percussion band called Zili this week; they perform all over Boston on a regular basis. I’ve also collaborated with a lot of artists down south, in the Midwest and California. I hope to do more shows out there at some point.

Teruah: On the Magma Music 2, Jewish Problem was the only one that seems specifically Jewish themed. Is that right?

B-Mor7: Yes, actually on Magma Musik 1 I have a song called Evil Never Dies where I say a couple of lines in Hebrew but other than that I don’t have other Jewish themed music. The reason is complicated.

Teruah: How did you come to write The Jewish Problem? Are you Jewish yourself?

B-Mor7: I am half Jewish. Well, on my mom’s side so according to Jewish law I’m fully Jewish but my dad is not and I wasn’t raised Jewish. I visited my Bubby and Zady in Baltimore as a kid but I was not raised religious or celebrating most of the holidays. The main thing I remember is celebrating Hanukkah with my mom and singing the song in Hebrew; she was surprised I always remembered it year to year. The other thing I remember was very painful for me, which is why it took me so long to write the Jewish Problem song. When I was about 13 my mom told me that her relatives during the Holocaust were taken (the entire village) into a synagogue and burned alive. The only reason why I am here today is because her grandmother as a teenager had a lot of determination to come to America. Somehow she made it here and escaped the fate of her family. This touched me very deeply and caused me to hold a lot of pain inside. I couldn’t deal with it right away. It took me years to even face it and several more years to address it through writing which is usually how I deal with my feelings and express myself.

Teruah: How do you connect with being Jewish?

B-Mor7: As I got older I wanted to know more about my Jewish heritage and I began to look into it on my own. I found out about a workshop at a Jewish organization that combined painting with the sefirah (tree of life). This intrigued me and I started to look into Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. I also linked up with some students from Brown University at the Hillel house where we embarked on an esoteric practice of Counting the Omer, 49 Days of Self-Refinement. In the midst of this I was reading more about the Holocaust and about my specific situation to get information about my history. This all culminated in the writing of the Jewish Problem, a song I was working out in my head for years and then finally got it down on paper and onto audio. It’s a powerful track that includes information on my background but also what Jews have faced.

Teruah: Any other aspects of your background that are important to your identity?

B-Mor7: Yes, Hip Hop culture runs through my being; within this I’ve incorporated African and African-American history and culture into everything I do. In fact, it’s what I currently teach at Rhode Island College. I am also extremely involved in Asian philosophy and culture. This includes becoming a yoga teacher and studying Sanskit, Hinduism, Buddhism and Vedanta. I also grew up with Lao and Cambodian people and recently traveled to Laos so I’ve studied the language and culture there as well. I’m also interested in “Latin” America and the Caribbean and I’m trying to learn Spanish. I even rap in Spanish sometimes and I’m trying to do more of this. One group (made up of many nations) that is typically marginalized are the “Native Americans”. I have many friends from different indigenous communities and I’m involved in Pow-Wow’s (Native gatherings) where there is a lot of drumming. Connecting with all of these rich cultures, histories and struggles have made me into the strong person I am today and have influenced my music tremendously. Although there are differences there is something spiritual that unites oppressed peoples. I find this connection through music. One of my goals is to create a fusion Hip Hop cd that combines my lyrics with different genres of traditional and indigenous music. I’ve already experimented with this with Middle Eastern, Cambodian and Indian music. I can’t wait to start recording! I’m probably going to do some punk/hip hop blends as well with live bands.

Teruah: Sounds great. Reminds me a lot of Ylove. I'll have to introduce you. How did your crew and audience respond Jewish Problem? Do you find they relate to it? (I'm guessing that they’re mostly not Jewish, is that right?)

B-Mor7: I’ve had this song for a few years but it was just released recently so not too many people have heard it. The ones who have are amazed by it and think it is awesome. They also say people aren’t ready to hear it yet…I don’t know if I’m ready to perform it. I read it once for a group I used to work with and it was very emotional for me to do that.

Teruah: Your song is very much its own, but it covers similar ground to Remedy's Never Again. Are you familiar with it?

B-Mor7: No, but I’d love to check it out.

Teruah: There's something about hip-hop (as well as punk, which is more my music) that’s great for music about defiance

B-Mor7: Yes!

Teruah: Both your and Remedy's raps really show a raw nerve. The Shoah was three generations ago. Lots of American Jews think of it as ancient history. How come it's so raw for you? (Let's be clear...I applaud you for it. Just asking.)

B-Mor7: That’s a good question. Several reasons. For one thing, 3 generations ago is not ancient history. Especially when it translates as me not being able to know my ancestors as well. Most people I know have large families. I don’t. This made me feel disconnected from my family, and my past. You also mentioned defiance. I’ve always been curious about the persistent defiance, rebellion and revolt of oppressed peoples throughout the world because these are the stories that exist but are usually ignored or pushed under the rug when history is taught and they are so important to our quest for humanity. When I started to record the Jewish Problem I stumbled across a trailer for the movie Defiance (a film about Jews who fled into the woods and fought off the Nazis) and the synchronized was perfect. I couldn’t wait for the movie to come out (a year later) but it gave me even more inspiration, information and ideas for my song. I even sampled a couple of lines from the trailer to place in my song for dramatic effect. As for hip-hop and punk music, in its purest form it is very defiant by nature. I definitely exude this essence in my music, lyrics and stage performance. It even shows in my studio name “Outlaw Culture”.

For more info check out B-Mor7's website and bandcamp site.

For salvation, Kaddish. For redemption, Kaddish. For revolution, Kaddish? Ofra Haza, Twitter, and the Yemeni Revolution

2011-03-27T07:30:00.006-05:00

It's rare that Jewish music has international prominence and when it does it's usually because of some dustup over Israel. For a current example, check yesterday's Israeli National News article "Jewish Music Group Rejects Israeli Money After Threat." While an interesting and frustrating article, Jewish music itself plays a small role. The article could just as easily been about a Jewish literary group or student group. Not so this morning.

Today I woke up to a twitter discussion between National Public radio strategist and digital technology community organizer Andy Carvin and Maria Al-Masani, a Canadian public relations agent, model, and former Miss Universe Canada. Al-Masani was telling Carvin, and others, about how Ofra Haza's song Kaddish was becoming the anthem of the current Yemeni revolution. Haza was a popular Israeli singer of a Yemeni-Jewish family who sang pop-Israeli, Yemeni-Jewish, and Yemeni-Arabic music.

Here's the exchange:

Al-Masani Saturday 3/26, 23:09: @acarvin @TomOdell Andy you are jewish? That's wonderful! Have you heard the music of Yemeni-Jewish singer Ofra Haza? http://bit.ly/Ja6MB

Acarvin Saturday 3/26, 23:11: @al_masani was a big fan of hers before she passed away, RIP.

Al-Masani Saturday 3/26, 23:13: @acarvin same here. :-) Her music in general but especially her song kaddish is played by so many in Yemen as sound track to uprising

Acarvin Saturday 3/26, 23:14: Yemeni Jewish singer Ofra Haza and the revolt. Wow. RT @al_masani: her song Kaddish is played by so many in Yemen as soundtrack to uprising

Al-Masani Saturday 3/26, 23:14: Awesome! @jilliancyork Loving how @acarvin is standing up for Muslims against Twitter hate tonight.

zweever212 Saturday 3/26, 23:22: http://youtu.be/GG0ic19pL2o Israeli singer Ofra Haza's song Kaddish played by many in Yemen as an inspiration for uprising. / @al_masani

Al-Masani Saturday 3/26, 23:26: @zweerver212 to us she is Yemeni. She also sings many songs in traditional Yemeni dialect.

Al-Masani Saturday 3/26, 23:27: @gfry @emilylhauser Ofra Haza is a source of national pride for Yemenis. We have a Yemeni-Jewish population, many are Israeli citizens

zweever212 Saturday 3/26, 23:28: @al_masani well yes, she's a yemeni jew, i've heard her songs in the dialect since im an arabic student. we're all one people.

Al-Masani Saturday 3/26, 23:27: @zweerver212 exactly, Jews, Christians Muslims united against brutal regimes #MENA #Egypt #Yemen #Libya

Ofra Haza - Kaddish

Ofra Haza singing Kaddish at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1990*

Haza's Kaddish isn't the liturgical prayer of the same name. But, similarly to Alan Ginsberg's poem Kaddish, picks up on themes from the prayer to create her own secular prayer for peace and redemption. It's a deeply moving song and it's wonderful to think of it being adopted by a people striving for redemption and peace.

The discussion is also fascinating as it shows how labels like Yemeni, Israeli, and Jew are negotiated. Haza fits all those categories, but the commentators, for their purposes, preferred more restricted descriptions. Yemeni. Yemeni-Jew. Israeli. When confronted both were able to step back to the larger label set. The result... the restricted categories turned out to be ways of describing the commentator, not Haza.

Just as a note, I don't have any independent confirmation that what Al-Masani said is true and that Haza's Kaddish is really being played in Yemen right now. If anyone has any additional information, please let me know.

* The video I posted is not the video linked in the twitter discussion, which is more pop and more English language. It's not clear from Al-Masani's tweets what recording is being played right now and the Montreaux recording has always been a favorite of mine.

hat tip to OfraFan for uploading the video.

Stereo Sinai hits Detroit with a new Purim track

2011-03-21T08:19:00.004-05:00

Chag Sameach Purim everyone.

This week is going to be a whirl of activity. The Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest kicks off on Wednesday. Big events for me include my "Silver Age of American Jewish Music" talk at the Oak Park Michigan JCC on Thursday night (come one come all!) and the Progressive Jewish Music Showcase on Sunday at the West Bloomfield Michigan JCC. The Progressive Jewish Music Fest is a HUGE deal. As far as I'm aware, there's never been a concert like it in Michigan. It's going to feature Y-Love and Diwon's hip hop, Pitom's alt-rock/jazz and my Chicago buddies Stereo Sinai's biblegum pop.

Stereo Sinai just came out with a cool Purim track, supported by my other buddy Alicio Jo Rabins of Golem and Girls in Trouble. Check it out, and, if you're local come see them play. It'll be a great show.

The Esther Song

Here's Stereo Sinai's description....

"It's taken from a moment in the Book of Esther when Esther realizes she can't just sit there and let the world fall apart. In the song's refrain she says, "‎For how can I endure the evil that shall come unto my people? How can I endure destruction? How can I stand back and watch my kindred suffer?"

Of course she can't, none of us can. She stands up to the king, in front of the King. Where we see the world crumbling - be it as big as an earthquake in Japan or as (seemingly) small as a friend who needs a shoulder to cry on - you do what you gotta do. Here's hoping this song will be a call to action, and a call to empathy. May we not stand idly by."

If you're in Michigan or northern Ohio, come see Stereo Sinai on Sunday (March 27).

Help Kickstart the Noah Budin Songbook

2011-03-16T07:11:00.005-05:00

Ok, this is the fourth Jewish music related Kickstarter project's I've featured and I want to make a few things clear. I think that the Jewish music community, as well as the rest of the world, will start seeing a lot more artistic projects funded this way. And I think that's a good thing. It puts pressure on artists to think about how, and how effectively, they're engaging with their audience and it puts pressure on us, the audience, to think about about what artists we value and how we support them. In short, it helps artists and audience become collaborators in a really direct way.

On a more practical note, I don't get any kickbacks from the project recipients. I do pledge to most of them myself. I haven't posted every kickstarter campaign I've seen and as the number goes up I'll be increasingly choosy about which ones I do post. So stay engaged with your favorite artists, get on their mailing lists, facebook, and twitter feeds. Our artists only can light up our lives if we help them do it.

Ok, enough of that. Today's pitch is from Noah Budin, a singer, songwriter, and storyteller who's very much loved in the pop liturgical / songleader community. His songs have become camp and Hebrew school staples. Here on the chilly North Coast, my daughter's youth choir sings Budin's Hallelujahland with great gusto every chance they get. If you don't already know Budin and his work, you should check out his website, grab an album or two and look for one of his many concerts.

Budin is looking help to self-publish a songbook. Here's his pitch and a medley of this tunes.

"Every song from Hallelujah Land: Songs of Faith and Freedom and Metaphor will be published in this songbook in two different formats: sheet music and chordster. The sheet music will have, well, all of the things sheet music has. You know, time signature, key signature, a melody line, and chord symbols written over the top of the staff. In other words, lead sheets. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “chordster” is a “camp” style representation of the songs: lyrics with chord names above each line in the appropriate places. Perfect for guitar players and song leaders....
OK. So, why do I need your help? I'm a DIY musician. Self published, self recorded, self booked, and self financed. While all aspects of the book are being produced professionally, I have no publisher, no distribution and no cash advance. I don't expect to make a lot of money from sales. Like my CDs, it's a labor of love - passion, really - and, while they seem to bring pleasure to people, for me, they are marketing tools. I really just like to play music for people.
Over the years I've gotten many requests for sheet music to my songs. I'm humbled and grateful that my music is "out there" and being used and enjoyed by so many people. So, I'm looking for support from my fans, especially the educators, song leaders, and other musicians who would love to have the book, to bring this project to fruition. In other words, at most levels of pledging, I'm asking you to purchase the songbook in advance to cover the costs of production"

This kind of buy-in-advance pitch makes a lot of sense and is going to become more and more common as we go forward.

Help Jake Shulman-Ment & Friends Romanian Klezmer Tour

2011-03-15T11:20:00.004-05:00

The history of klezmer music is deeply intertwined with the history of Roma (Gypsy) and Balkan music. The Roma contributed significantly, by sharing roads, meals, and music with Jewish klezmorim and recently, by helping maintain the repertoire through the loss of klezmorim during the Shoah. That shared history is still being made, as exemplified by cross-collaborations like Alan Berg's the Other Europeans project, Yale Strom's film "A man From Munkacs: Gypsy Klezmer".

Another fine, current, example, is Klezmer violinist Jake Shulman-Ment. Shulman-Ment is currently living in Romania on a Fulbright scholarship studying Romanian violin music. Why?

"Why am I doing this, you ask? Well, because Romanian music is probably the non-Jewish music that had the strongest influence on klezmer music as we now know it when it was still alive in Eastern Europe....Romania is an amazing place to perform klezmer music. Due to years of severe cultural and informational repression under the communist regime of Ceausescu directly following the horrors of the second world war, the majority of Romanians are unaware of the richness of the Jewish history that exists here. I've found music to be one of the best ways to communicate this. Every time I play a klezmer tune for people here, they look surprised and ask me, "Where did you learn that Romanian music?" My response is, "Well, it's also my music, and I learned it in New York!"

Shuleman-Ment has started a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to "take this conversation to another level where people literally listen to it happening musically in a concert setting" and is asking for all of our help. He's got a kickstarter campaign going to raise funds. As he notes "Finding venues in Romania that are interested in this kind of concert is easy. Finding one that can pay us is very, very difficult. Also, I want these concerts to be as close to free as possible for the public. I am going to use part of my Fulbright grant to cover some of the costs, but I need to save some to eat, so I'm turning to you!"

He's asking a modest sum to put the band together, with instruments, in Romania and to put on "10 concerts all across the country over the course of two weeks." I've put my $ down. How about you? Can you help continue the shared history of klezmer and Romanian music?

Here's his pitch. He's also got a fine album available through CD Baby. Check it out.

Teruah in 1552

2011-03-13T11:17:00.003-05:00

The excellent Jewish history blog "On the Main Line" focuses on showcasing and contextualizing interesting historical Jewish texts. A Jewish children's primer from 1827? He's got it. Earliest known print source of the Golem of Prauge? That too. The post, though, that near and dear to my heart is his discussion of a "page from Libro de Oracyones, the Ladino siddur published in Ferrara 1552 by Yom Tob Athias (the Spaniard formerly known as Jeronimo de Vargas)."

Not only does this text have an early description of the shofar calls, but it's an information graphic! Note the way the different calls are drawn. Tekiah are long swoopy lines bracketing the other calls. Shevarim is three short strokes. (note how much they look the shin used to abbreviate them) and Teruah is short hyper-kinetic wiggle. In my day job I'm a research scientist with a deep love for information graphics and visual notation. This hits me where I live, folks. I need to make a Teruah blog graphic out of this. Love it. love it. loveit.

Check out the full post for a great linguistic exploration of the different ways in which Teruah is translated in Spanish.

Hat tip to my buddy Daniel for pointing me to the post. Thanks!

The Return of the Detroit JCC Stephen Gottleib Music Fest

2011-03-13T10:31:00.004-05:00

I can't tell you how excited I am about the upcoming Detroit JCC Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest. This has been my first full year working on the fest and it's been a big adventure. I've learned a lot about what it takes to put on a music fest and, while I don't claim to be any good at any of it, feel like I contributed to this year's fest. And it starts in two weeks! I'm going to have individual posts about some of the acts I find particularly interesting, but right now I'm going to with the full schedule.

Friday and Saturday, Mar 18/19 (Shabbat): Celebrate Musical Shabbat. A number of area synagogues will be filled with music in anticipation of the fest. Stop come sing with us at Congregation B'nai Moshe, Temple Beth El, Temple Beth Emeth, Temple Emanu-El, Temple Kol Ami, Temple Israel, Temple Shir Shalom, Adat Shalom Synagogue, or Congregation Shir Tikvah. I'll be at Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor

Wedneday, Mar 23: Marvin Hamlisch.

"Multi-award winning composer Marvin Hamlisch .. [is a] preeminent conductor and one of the greatest artists of our time, Hamlisch is one of only two people (along with composer Richard Rodgers) ever to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize. The composer of Broadway’s “A Chorus Line,” “The Goodbye Girl” and “Sweet Smell of Success,” and for films including “The Way We Were,” “The Sting,” and “The Informant.” Hamlisch also served as musical director for Barbra Streisand’s 1994 U.S. tour."

Thursday, March 24: Jack Zaientz (that's me!)

I'll be giving my talk "The Silver Age of American Jewish Music Is Happening Now – And Why We’re Missing It!" Yep. Your humble Musical Schadchen will be on stage talking about the exciting state of Jewish music and playing a lot of great music. Come say hi!

Saturday, March 26: David Broza.

"Israeli superstar David Broza has been considered one of the most dynamic and vibrant performers in the singer/songwriter world. His charismatic and energetic performances have brought to worldwide audiences, a fusion of the three different countries in which he was raised: Israel, Spain, and England, filling concert halls with his famous guitar playing, ranging from flamenco flavored rhythmic and percussion techniques, to whirlwind finger picking, to a signature rock and roll sound. Broza unites the three worlds by utilizing his ability to take on the troubadour tradition, up to now, featuring lyrics of the worlds' greatest poets." Broza's website." I've seen Broza before and he is fantastic live.

Sunday March 27: Family Concert with Mark Bloom, in conjunction with the Barbara & Douglas Bloom Matzah Factory.

"Singer, composer, pianist, educator and arranger, Mark Bloom is among America’s leading music innovators, merging jazz and Judaism. He has performed and produced his “Jazz Shabbat” service at more than 70 congregations. Bloom's website.

Sunday March 27: Progressive Jewish Music Showcase featuring Y-Love & Diwon, Pitom, and Stereo Sinai.

"Y-Love (Yitz Jordan) is African-American, Orthodox Jewish and an extraordinary hip-hop artist whose music intertwines English, Arabic, Hebrew, Yiddish, Aramaic and Latin and combines ethereal scripture with gritty social consciousness. Y-Love’s first full-length album was “This is Babylon,” which came with a Parliament/Outkast-esque production vibe. Y-Love's website and MySpace page.
Based in the stereophonic heart of Brooklyn, world music maestro Diwon (aka Erez Safar) is one of the most innovative and versatile producers and DJs today whose style blends Yemenite music with electro hip-hop. Diwon's MySpace page

Dubbed “Biblegum pop,” Stereo Sinai’s (Miriam Brosseau & Alan Jay Sufrin) music has a signature sound of ancient, holy languages with blasphemous backbeats and synthesized pop melodies. The duo was declared a “Favorite Band of 2009” on About.com. StereoSinai website.

In Hebrew, Pitom means “suddenly.” An avant-jazz quartet from New York founded by Jewish guitarist Yoshie Fruchter, Pitom includes violinist Jeremy Brown, bassist Shanir Blumenkranz and drummer Kevin Zubek and was profiled in the recent Forward article "The Secret History of Jewish Metal". Pitom's website."

Monday, March 28 & Wednesday March 30: Elaine Serling.

Singer/songwriter Elaine Serling has been composing, performing, producing and teaching Jewish music for more than four decades. Her concerts have inspired and captivated adult and children audiences alike in cities across the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia and in her hometown of Detroit. Click here to visit Elaine's website

Tuesday, March 29: Film: "The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground"

"Get a backstage pass to The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground! America’s leading klezmer band was filmed over three years, resulting in a revealing movie that shows the highs and lows of band life. Grammy Award-winners, the Klezmatics have appeared on the PBS Great Performances series and NPR. “On Holy Ground!” tells the story of their celebrations, frustrations and pursuit of reaching an ever-widening audience. Watch the trailer here."

Thursday, March 31: Local Music Showcase featuring Heller, Steyer & Green, Maggid Steven Klaper – the Jewish Troubadour and David Nefesh

"Heller, Steyer & Green features the talents of Cantor Penny Heller Steyer of Temple Shir Shalom and her children Tiffany Steyer Green, cantorial soloist at Temple Kol Ami, and Matthew G. Steyer, visiting cantorial soloist at Temple Kol Ami and Temple Shir Shalom.
Maggid Steve Klaper is a Jewish troubadour – a spiritual storyteller, minstrel and teacher (maggid is the traditional title for a Jewish inspirational speaker) who infuses traditional Jewish teaching with ancient and contemporary melodies. Click here to visit the website.

A seven-time nominee (and one-time winner) in the Detroit Music Awards, David Nefesh has written more than 100 songs that blend folk-rock with pop, combining melodic sensibilities with intelligent lyrics and polished guitar playing. Visit David's website here or watch him on YouTube."

Saturday, April 2: "Jews Who Rock: Their Stories and Music" featuring Gary Graff

Musicians Billy Brandt (Grievous Angel, the Mission Band), Martin “Tino” Gross (the Howling Diablos) and Mark Pasman (WCSX’s “Motor City Blues Project”) join forces with award-winning Detroit music journalist Gary Graff of the Oakland Press, Billboard, WCSX and New York Times Syndicate for a night of music and commentary dedicated to Jewish artists in popular music, as well as their own original material.

Sunday, April 3: Chamber Orchestra Concert Conducted by Edward Benyas

Edward Benyasis an acclaimed conductor and oboe soloist with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Southern Illinois Music Festival. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony under Daniel Barenboim and Lyric Opera of Chicago under Zubin Mehta, toured with Andrea Bocelli, and has conducted such distinguished soloists as Emanuel Ax, Christine Brewer, Marvin Hamlisch and the Eroica Trio. Gaining some of his earliest orchestral experiences with the JCC Symphony Orchestra under the late Julius Chajes, Maestro Benyas returns to his native Michigan to direct the first classical chamber orchestra program in the Berman Center for the Performing Arts, featuring a Bach Brandenburg Concerto, music of Chajes and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Visit the website here.

Sunday, April 3: Annual Michigan Board of Cantors Concert: A Tribute to A Night on the Town in Old Detroit

Join the Michigan Board of Cantors for a musical romp through old Detroit! Catch some jazz at Bakers, see a show at the Fisher, stop by the Roostertail for some Motown hits and much more. So grab your sweetie and get ready for a glorious trip down memory lane!

Kobi Oz "Mizmorei Nevuchim / Psalms For The Perplexed"

2011-03-11T08:53:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, while wandering around the Jewish corner of BandCamp.com, I ran into a recent album from Kobi Oz, lead singer of the popular Israeli group Teapacks. As Yehuda Mirsky notes in his essay in Jewish Ideas Daily "Some mainstream Israeli musicians have recently been turning for material to religious texts; others have become immersed in the musical traditions of Sephardi Jewry. The two trends have come together in a new album, Mizmorei Nevukhim ("Psalms for the Perplexed"), by Kobi Oz." My Hebrew isn't good enough to follow the lyrics, which Mirsky describes as "abound[ing] with riffs on the terrors, longings, and sheer nuttiness of Israeli life, plus a whimsically phrased but dead-earnest questioning of dogmas both religious and secular." Fortunately, all the songs are translated courtesy of "Makom - Israeli Engagement Network."

I love the album's sound which is mixes a capsule history of Israeli pops with mizrachi overtones and archive samples. And the lyrics for the song below, Prayer of the Secular" are priceless. Check it out.

Prayer of the Secular - Kobi Oz

You can get more information on and the album, including translations and a video interview, from the album website.

Wednesday Music Links

2011-03-07T13:09:00.007-05:00

Here are some recent links that I've sent out over twitter that haven't turned into their own blog posts:

Ladino - 500 Years Young - a YouTube trailer for a 2005 Israeli film on Sephardi vocalist Yasmin Levy (Hebrew, English subtitles). (hat tip to @IGRKGT)

Sway Machinery gets some love from Pitchfork for their new album "House of the Friendly Ghosts, Vol. 1". JDub kvells.

Reb Yosil offers up a free Rosh Chodesh download. Benji kvells

Ruby Harris plays 'Otchichornya' traditional Russian/Yiddish song on violin (h/t to @JacqueeT)

SoulAviv's uses Kickstarter to fund Soul Gospel Shabbat CD (h/t @bellaluna)

I found out that satellite TV provider DirecTV now offers Jewish Life TV, including a Jewish Music Videos show. (which was playing Orthodox music videos on Shabbat. #Fail)

Shabbat Shalom Detroit

2011-03-04T13:05:00.006-05:00

Shabbat shalom, everyone.

Yesterday's Detroit Jewish News ran a really nice full page story on me and Teruah. So when got to the Detroit JCC's music fest meeting last night I got copies of DJN thrown at me and a lot of good natured ribbing. C'mon. The picture does NOT make me look like a grumpy rapper. Very funny. If you're a new reader who saw the article... great to meet you and thanks for stopping by. I'll be giving a talk in Detroit on March 24 as part of the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest, so stop by and say hello.

This been a long week of meetings and family stuff, not much time for blogging or anything else, so I'm really looking forward to Shabbat tonight. So, for my 'get in the Shabbat groove' video I thought I'd share this lovely recording of the Yigdal prayer. When I was a kid, at a Conservative synagogue in Connecticut, we usually closed Friday night services with Adon Olam. Yigdal was saved for special occasions. Because of that I've always deeply loved Yigdal. The melody used in this recording isn't the one I grew up with, it's a Sephardic melody sung by the Israeli musician Avraham Perrera. I honestly don't know much about Perrera other than the few of his songs I've heard on the internet. If anyone knows more about him or has a pointer to any biographical information, please drop me a line.

Avraham Perrera - YİGDAL

Hat tip to YouTube user 2751984 for uploading the video. You can find Avraham Perrera recordings at Israel-Music.com.

The Shondes Need You!

2011-02-23T13:16:00.006-05:00

Speaking of Jewish women with voices, my favorite Jewish queer radical politics punk band, The Shondes needs help. They've got to get to SXSW in a couple of weeks and their van was stolen. For a young band that's a really bad thing. No van. No go.

So they've started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new (to them) van to get them on the road to SXSW and beyond. I've put my $$ down. How about you? Even $5 would help. Think of it as gas money for some really great folks.

Donate via Kickstarter.

Here's one of my favorite Shondes tracks, off their first album The Red Sea ~~and the "trailer" for their latest album, "My Dear One." The trailer is a great chance to get to know them.~~ UPDATE: The Shondes have put together a video explaining their situation.

Get The Shondes Back on the Road!

The Shondes - I Watched The Temple Fall

Rinat Gutman: Orthodox Woman with a Voice

2011-02-23T12:27:00.005-05:00

There's a minor kerfluffle brewing on the Jew music scene lately. Jewish musician Naomi Less has called out the Jewlicious festival for not featuring enough women artists in her blog Jewish Chicks Rock. She basically called the progressive festival an Orthodox front. She got a response today from David Abitbol, aka Jewlicous, politely telling her she's got it all wrong. I'm not sure what to think. From my experience working on the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest there are some many different voices, opportunities, and constraints involved in getting a festival staged it's amazing they happen at all. It may be that the subtle constraints that come from the individual tastes of the Jewlicious Fest presenters are leading to this outcome? Or maybe Less is just making noise about nothing?

One nice thing about Abitbol's response was the list of female performers that have been featured at the Jewlicious festivals recently. I'm familiar with most of them, but there are some new (to me) names I'll have to track down and some names that I've heard of but haven't featured lately or ever.

One that list is Israeli rapper, Rinat Gutman. According to this great interview in the Yeshiva University Observer, Gutman comes from a Charedi Zionist background with some ties to Breslov and Chabad. Gutman performs some women-only shows within the Orthodox community, but lots of shows for mixed secular crowds (such as the Jewlicious festival), too.

"In my rap I speak about things that come from inside, about thoughts and insights that come to me in response to things that happen to me in life. At this point in my life, the central message that I am trying to convey is about the western culture, which dominates everything. I talk a lot about the ramifications of this on our lives, and in my opinion, the implications for the approaching time periods are destructive.

For example, in my song Shekel v'Chetzi [shekel-and-a-half] I talk about our lives using the metaphor of a shekel v'chetzi store [dollar store]. In my eyes, this is the ultimate representation of western culture - the concept of instant gratification. You can find things almost for free, but you pass up on quality along the way. So I mention in my song all types of things that you can "buy" in this type of store, such as love, a professional degree, friends, etc.

I want to make a difference in the world of Jewish music because, in my opinion, it can still develop more. I want to take commonplace topics and make them humorous and lighthearted. For example, I have a Chassidic short story in a rap that talks about shidduchim in a funny and unusual way - it's about a groom who's too short and bride who's too tall, etc..

Good stuff, too, from what I've heard. I haven't seen her yet, but hope to. Get more info from Gutman's MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

Rinat Gutman - Chassidishe Tale Live at Rashimu

Rinat Gutman: Ooga Ooga Ooga Live ft. Ben Yomen רינת גוטמן- עוגה,עוגה

More on Math Rosen, Yiddish Laser Bass and the Panorama Jazz Band

2011-02-19T17:19:00.003-05:00

In my last post, I wrote about Canadian DJ Math Rosen's "Yiddish Laser Bass." Rosen got back to me later in the week with the track's back story. Rosen's background is bit like mine and, I'm sure, a bit like lots of yours. Jewish culture was more background than foreground as kid, but it was formative and now is influencing his own culture making. Love it. Rosen's an interesting guy and I look forward to his album coming out. I'll keep you all posted.

"The instrument is a Monome 256, from a mom-and-pop company called Monome. It's a totally open-source digital controller, meaning that it can be programmed to do virtually anything. Lots of people use it like I do, essentially a loop-slicing sequencer tool. But there are dozens of applications out there, everything from self-generating music to a wicked game of tetris. The units are all hand made by the creator and his partner, and all the software is designed by the users and shared on the forums. It's a pretty amazing community.

As for the Yiddish tune... It came from a few places. For one thing, there was Sunday Simcha -- the klezmer radio show my dad used to listen to every Sunday morning. That definitely got into my subconscious at an early age... I grew up pretty secular, but my parents always encouraged a curiosity about music and its connection to heritage across cultures.

The other place that tune came from is a bit of a story... The main hook is sampled from a group called the Panorama Jazz Band, who make a really eclectic mix of Dixieland, Klezmer, Baltic folk tunes... you name it. I saw them perform while I was staying in New Orleans about a year after Katrina. I was down there volunteering, gutting damaged houses mostly. And I found my heart in that town. It's hard to explain what that place does to a person... It's that thing about music connecting across cultures -- there's nowhere in the world where you can see that more than you see it in New Orleans.

So you can thank my parents and a Louisiana jazz-fusion band for that tune.
I'm working on a record right now, and I think the yiddish folklore influence might sneak in a few more times. I'm trying to find the sounds from my childhood that built who I am, before I was thinking about who I am. Those sounds are way down deep and you can't explain them or extract them. For me, it's a whole lot of rap, some jazz, and maybe a bit of klezmer."

For me it was traditional folk and jazz, punk, and Fiddler on the roof and Conservative nusach. But Rosen's right, "Those sounds are way down deep and you can't explain them or extract them."

I do love trad jazz (particularly ragtime music) and I couldn't resist looking into the Rosen's fav's "The Panorama Jazz Band." They've been working New Orleans since 1995, blending their flavor of traditional jazz with a blend of "folkloric* music from around the world – especially Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America." I dig it. I'll have to grab one of their recordings. Here's the PJB playing one of their Eastern European bits....the Yiddish classic "Baym Rebn in Palestina."

Baym Rebn in Palestina. Panorama Jazz Band

Baym Rebn in Palestina.Panorama Jazz Band from mel zimmer on Vimeo.

*I have often, tongue in check, defined "world music" as any group with an accordion. I will now define "folkloric" as any band with an accordion and without a power cord.

Hat tip to Vimeo user Mel Zimmer for uploading the PJB video.

Yiddish Lazerbass

2011-02-16T11:30:00.005-05:00

Math Rosen is a Montreal musician who plays, among other things, lazer bass. Lazer bass isn't an instrument, it's a varient of hip-hop that's heavy on bass and futuristic in tone. The genre name was coined by New Yorker blogger Sasha Frere-Jones. She was specifically describing a mix by Montreal DJ collective Megasoid and more broadly a group of musicians "bounded on the left side by the dyad of Los Angeles and San Francisco, sliced in half by Montreal, and ends on the right side in Glasgow, Scotland."

I don't have much info on Math Rosen other than that he's a Montreal DJ. I've got no idea why he thought to do a Yiddish Lazerbass, but I dig it. ~~I also got no idea what that light/button table is that he's fiddling with. I'm assuming it's a control device for some kind of sequencer, but it's a new one on me.~~ I shot him an email last night and will let y'all know if he get's back to me. Update: My buddy Hasidic Musician from Blog in Dm set me straight (as he often does). It's a monome 128, "a reconfigurable grid of sixty-four backlit buttons" tied to a sequencer app. Gorgeous.

Yiddish Lazerbass from Math Rosen on Vimeo.

Hat tip to the @yiddishkayt twitter feed & website for pointing me to Rosen. "Yiddishkayt strives to ensure the survival of the endangered thousand-year legacy of Yiddish language, culture and history."

Hey Cee-Lo...Forget You. Here's the Jew Man Group

2011-02-16T10:41:00.002-05:00

Ok. Parodies aren't high art but they're a lot of fun. The Jew Man Group's riff on Cee Lo Green's Grammy nominated "Forget You" isn't Weird Al or Shlock Rock good, but it's definitely worth a giggle. Maybe two.

Bar'chu!" (I'm A Jew) -- Remix of Cee-Lo Green's "Forget You

So you wanna learn klezmer: A Klezmer Guide and the Klezmer ABC's

2011-02-14T11:42:00.007-05:00

So you want to bulgar like Abe Schwartz, huh? Need the sheet music? Allen Lutins is your guy. He plays in two klezmer groups (The Mitzfits, a small klezmer band, and the larger Cornell University Klezmer Ensemble) as well as Musica Universalis, an early music consort. He's put together an impressive KlezmerGuide that cross-references klezmer recordings, including many available online and sheet music.

"KlezmerGuide started as a personal database to keep tabs on the recordings and sheet music collections I've accumulated as a klezmer clarinetist.... KlezmerGuide focuses on old "78 RPM" shellac recordings from Klezmer's "golden age" (the first half of the 20th century). Many of these recordings can be heard for free online thanks to the Judaica Sound Archives, Florida Atlantic University. Non-comprehensive (but significant) listings of more modern recordings are also included. "

By the way...the score for Abe Schwartz' "Der Shtiller Bulgar (The Quiet Bulgar)" can be found, according to the Guide, on page 40 of Henry Sapoznik and Pete Sokolow's "the Compleat Klezmer," as well as a half dozen other locations. An 1918 recording by the Abe Schwartz Jewish Orchestra can be heard online at the Florida Atlantic University Judaica Sound Archives. Ok. No more excuses. Start practicing.

Ok..still need more inspiration and/or raw material? Lutins' Guide had a link to another awesome resource, John Chambers Klezmer ABCs. ABC, in this case, refers to the "ABC text-based music notation system and the de facto standard for folk and traditional music". Chambers, who plays ~~(or played?)~~ in the Boston area Klezmer Contraband has a transcription Der Shtiller Bulger and a slew of other tunes. ~~It doesn't look like the site is actively maintained, and~~ I can't comment on the quality of the transcriptions, but it's a great place to start. Update: I just got confirmation from John Chambers that he's still active and adding material to the site. Chambers also confirmed that the Klezmer Contraband is still active in Boston. Go check 'em out.

Here's his ABC version of Der Shtiller, rendered into normal score and into MIDI.

Ok, what else do you need. Get practicing.

Diaspora Yeshiva Band "Live on Mt Zion"

2011-02-13T19:17:00.003-05:00

As I've noted before, Avraham Rosenblum of the Diaspora Yeshiva Band is pretty much the Mick Jagger of Jewish music. DYB, with Rosenblum at the helm, formed in the mid 1970's as the ba'al teshuva movement in the US was bringing newly Orthodox Jews to Israel. DYB helped this generation find their voice and helped create and popularize Jewish themed rock among religious Jews in Israel and the US. If you see a Jewish musician pick up a guitar and sing in Hebrew, their touchstones may be Sholomo Carlebach or Debbie Friedman. If the guitar gets plugged in ... the touchstone is DYB.

DYB recently released "Live at Mt. Zion," a fantastic video that's part concert video and part documentary. It captures the band at their prime in 1982 playing a concert on the roof of King David’s Tomb on Mt. Zion, Jerusalem. This is our history, gang. And it sounds great.

Diaspora Live on Mt. Zion DVD Trailer

For more info and to get a copy of the Live at Mt. Zion, check out the DYB website.

By the way, former DYB member Rudy Harris wrote a nice article on the impact of DYB which includes his "geneology" of Jewish rock. Check it out.

Abraham Inc goes "Tweet Tweet"

2011-02-12T18:32:00.003-05:00

I'm totally digging the new Abraham Inc. album. It's a full on, head on, collision of klezmer, funk, and hip-hop music. Here's the blurb (I love blurbs.)

"An unprecedented collaboration between three cultural visionaries: DAVID KRAKAUER, champion of klezmer music and world-class clarinetist; legendary funk trombonist and arranger FRED WESLEY, celebrated for his work with James Brown and George Clinton; and hip-hop renegade and beat architect SOCALLED – Abraham Inc"

What underlies that blurb is a real depth of knowledge in each of the music styles, but what makes the album work the way in which Abraham Inc cleverly uses a very contemporary, stuttery, cut & paste, hip-hop oriented approach to the funk and klezmer merger. The hip-hop style breaks help deconstruct the two musical styles and reconstruct them as assembled fragments of the new compositions. In this collage of bouncing and popping fragments, it sounds totally natural to hear Socalled's Yiddish bounce against C-Rayz Walz's English raps or hear Krakuer's clarinet klezmer runs bounce against Wesley's horn sections.

Abraham Inc Tweet Tweet (Official Music Video)

While Tweet Tweet is the first single, and a worthy track, my favorite is the H-Tune, a reconstruction of "Yidlach Anthem" Hava Nagila. It's a great example of their style, Hava Nagila's melody is broken in to phrases all of which are layered on top of each other and over funk horns. What you end up with is NOT Hava Nagila, it takes some work to pull out the Hava Nagila phrases. What it is, is the H-Tune.

The H Tune (Hava Nagila)

For more info and to buy the album, check out the Abraham Inc. website and Facebook pages.

Hat tip to AliciaKraks for posting the H-Tune video (shot back in Feb 2010). AliciaKraks happens to be Alicia Krakauer, H-Tune vocalist and daughter of David Krakauer.

I Am The Sum Total of All My Ancestors: Adam McKinney’s multimedia dance "HaMapah"

2011-02-07T12:00:00.001-05:00

Adam McKinney is "a classically trained dancer and former member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet." McKinney's new multimedia dance "HaMapah/The Map.... traces the intersections of Adam McKinney's multiple [Jewish, African American and Native American] heritages."

"I am the sum total of my maternal ancestors from Russia, Poland, Austria, Galicia and Spain. Rabbi Moshe Isserles of Krakow, the Rama, wrote HaMapah (literally meaning “the tablecloth”) to the Code of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch. I am the sum total of my paternal ancestors from Benin, Arkansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Beatrice Dailey, AKA 'B. Trace' was a revolutionary playwright of her time.

I am the map, the quilt, and the tablecloth of those who have come before me. While rethreading the links, I consider our struggle to stay connected to each other as I uncover resistance of my non-Black, Jewish and Black, non-Jewish families and what it means to be true to all of myself.

HaMapah / המפה weaves contemporary dance with archival material, personal interviews, Yiddish and American songs, and video set to traditional, contemporary, and classical music."

HaMapah/המפה - A DNAWORKS Production

Hat Tip to YouTube users mermlade for uploading the video.

Missing music: Meyerbeer's Hallelujah

2011-02-06T07:48:00.008-05:00

I recently gave a talk on Jewish art music. While prepping for the talk I realized that I couldn't find recording's of two fascinating piece. Here's the story of the first.

In the 1830's and 1840's, Giacomo Meyerbeer owned grand opera in Europe. His opera's Robert le Diable (1831), Les Huguenots (1836), Le prophète (1849), and L'Africaine, (which was produced posthumously in 1865) were immensely popular and critically acclaimed.

Giacomo Meyerbeer - Robert le Diable - "Idole de ma vie" (Joan Sutherland)

Unlike Felix Mendelssohn, and many other Jewish artists of the time, who either converted to Christianity, or attempted to downplay their Judaism, Meyerbeer was a committed Jew. While Meyerber never directly included references to Judaism in his operas, he was known at the time for his inclusion of religious, as well as religious tolerance, themes.

Born in Tasdorf, near Berlin, Meyerbeer's given name was Jacob Liebmann Beer. He was the son of Jacob Judah Herz Beer and Amalia Liebmann Meyer Wulff, both from wealthy Jewish elite families and active in the Jewish community in Berlin...a community that was busily contributing to what would become the Reform movement and contributing to a renaissance in both traditional and modern Jewish liturgical music.

The renaissance was being driven by Louis Lewandowski (Berlin), Salomon Sulzer (Vienna), and Samuel Naumbourg (Paris). These great cantors and composers were creating a new Jewish liturgical music that took in equal parts traditional nusach and Western classical music. The result was both the basis of modern chazzanut (cantorial singing) and controversial innovations such as the inclusion of the organ into Jewish liturgy.

In this atmosphere Meyerbeer, the reigning king of the grand opera, received a commission that he didn't like but couldn't say no to. His father, who had started an early Reform temple in his home, commissioned Meyerbeer to compose a piece for choir and organ. Meyerbeer was firmly against the use of organ in Jewish music, thinking it a shallow apeing of Christian music and an interference with man's direct communion with God through prayer. Yet he composed the Hallelujah anyway.

The manuscript for Meyerbeer's Hallelujah exists, and is held by the US Library of Congress. But I haven't been able to find any recording, or even evidence of public performance in the last few decades. I have no idea why not.

Manuscript score for Meyerbeer's Hallelujah, from the Library of Congress (via the Jewish Virtual Library)

Another great Meyerbeer story....why are Meyerbeer's operas not performed often any more? Two main reasons. First, they're huge performances requiring large numbers of expensive lead and secondary performers. Second, after his death Meyerber's music was denounced by his most notable musical protege, the next king of opera and raging anti-semite, Richard Wagner.

For more info on Meyerbeer see his wikipedia page and the wikipedia page "The Reform Jewish Cantorate during the 19th Century," David Conway's excellent resource Jewry in Music, and the Jewish Virtual Library page "Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress: Giacomo Meyerbeer." Also, hat tip to YouTube user LindoroRossini for uploading the Meyerbeer opera video. There are lots more video recordings of Meyerbeer compositions on Youtube, check 'em out.

Yiddish Songs, Forgotten and Remembered

2011-02-02T08:04:00.005-05:00

Being ignorant in public is a bit of hobby for me, so I'll fess up. I don't know much about urban Yiddish music. I've got all the usual stereotypes about Yiddish music...sentimental lullabies, rural folk songs, and the occasional immigrant 'so this is America' angst. Clearly there's a lot more to it, and I need to get in gear and get my head around it. (I'm about to get scolded by my buddy, vocalist Lori Cahan Simon to learn Yiddish. I just know it.)

I got a bit of help today from the folks on the Klezmershack mailing list. One of them pointed to a great recording on YouTube of a song called Budapescht, sung by the German Yiddish art song vocalist, Karsten Tryoke on the album Forgotten Yiddish Songs. (The album is unavailable on Amazon, but there are a few copies on Ebay at the moment.) Forgotten Yiddish Songs is a collaboration between Tryoke and Sara Sliwka, a Holocaust survivor who taught him an entire repertoire of Yiddish songs from her youth. There's a nice writeup on her story at HaGalil.com

Budapescht (Budapest)

Budapescht is a classic unrequited, cross-cultural, love song, sung from the perspective of a Jewish boy pining over a Polish girl. (See the YouTube page for the full lyrics)

Wail ich bin a Bucher jîng în frisch,
´ch gai sech ous mamesz far a Kîsch,
tref iech mir a Lodze Ponienka,
sie red poilisch în ich mîss stenkn:
Ja sze kocham a ty ´spysz!

Because I'm a young lad
I aspire to a kiss
I meet a girl from Lodz
She spoke polish and I had to listen:
Ja cię kocham a ty śpisz !" /I love you and you fall asleep !

By the way, for another exercise in ignorance. I've actually been to Budapest, and have a few funny stories about being a college student abroad. What I don't have, and have kicked myself for 20 years, are stories of me wandering through the old Jewish section of Budapest. I hadn't thought through the possibilities of the trip at all. Grr. Hopefully I'll get back there some day, but until then I'll have to make do with the Jewish Virtual Library's Budapest Virtual Jewish History Tour and Yale Strom's documentary "A Man from Munkas: Gypsy Klezmer."

Hat tip to YouTube user albertdiner for posting the video and to "Heizler" for providing albertdiner, and us, with the lyrics.

CAJE is back, with an online tribute to Debbie Friedman

2011-02-01T13:13:00.003-05:00

CAJE was a beloved institution in liberal Jewish education that, if I understand correctly, quietly dissolved recently. A lot of Jewish musicians on the song-leader circuit built their audiences at CAJE events. CAJE is back, though, in the form of NewCAJE. Right now, it looks like NewCAJE is kicking off with an ongoing online webinar series. The next one up will be Reform Rabbi Anne Brener and musician Julie Silver presenting "Tachat Canfei (Under the wings) of Shechina: Reflections on Life, Death and Debbie Friedman z"l" on Feb 9, 2011 at 8pm Eastern. They're looking for donations to attend, but are leaving the donation amount up to you. The money raised is going to support new Jewish music and musicians at future NewCAJE events. Here's there blurb...

"Debbie Friedman z"l transformed Jewish life. She channeled a subterranean current of life and joy into the post-holocaust world of silence, frozen emotion, and rote liturgy, bringing us a "new song to sing unto God," and helping us to thaw and to turn our "mourning into dancing." And now, we mourn Debbie.
Let us come together to remember Debbie and to explore the impact of her music and its feminism and theology upon the way we live as Jews today. We will listen to some of her music together sung by her friend Julie Silver, exploring her understanding of the relationship between life and death that may be revealed in her music. In the process, we will learn more about Jewish understandings of death and the afterlife and hopefully find some consolation.

Following the formal presentation and questions, there will be an open hour in which people will be able to share their stories of Debbie and thus explore Judaism's insistence on the power of the community to bring healing.Rabbi Brener will raise many questions in her presentation including:

What was the world like at the time that Debbie began to sing?
What impact was she able to have on that world?
What does Judaism teach about the relationship between body and soul?
What does Judaism teach about the afterlife and what are some of those teachings?
How did Debbie's use of female imagery and role models help to transform the role of women in the Jewish world?What is the theology that might be mined from Debbie's music"

Bloch's Sacred Service

2011-01-28T15:06:00.005-05:00

Shabbat Shalom everyone,

This isn't my usual 'get in the Shabbat groove' video, but I've been listening to a lot of art music lately in prep for a talk I'm giving at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor on Monday. This week I want to offer up a clip from Earnest Bloch's "Sacred Service"...

Bloch's Sacred Service, 1931

Bloch is arguably the greatest composer of Jewish art music in the 20th century. While growing up in the 1880's in anactively Jewish home, he was more focused on music than region. Later in life this changed....here's Bloch's manifesto, written in 1911 in a letter to letter to his friend poet and historian Edmond Fleg.

"I notice here and there themes that are without my willing it, for the greater part Jewish, and which begin to make themselves precise and indicate the instinctive and also conscious direction in which I am going. I do not search to produce a form, I am producing nothing so far, but I feel that the hour will come… There will be Jewish rhapsodies for orchestra, Jewish poems, dances mainly, poems for voices for which I have not the words, but I would wish them Hebraic. All my musical Bible shall come, and I would let sing in me these secular chants where will vibrate all the Jewish soul… I think that I shall write one day songs to be sung at the synagogue in part by the minister, in part by the faithful. It is really strange that all this comes out slowly, this impulse that has chosen me, who all my life have been a stranger to all that is Jewish"

Love it.

The quote is borrowed from Joshua Jacobson's excellent essay "The Very Expression of my Soul": Ernest Bloch and the Sacred Service.

Yad Vashem Photo Archive

2011-01-26T22:52:00.005-05:00

Yad Vashem recently launched an amazing online photo archive. Yad Vashem is "the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust [and] safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for future generations." I've been wandering through it for the last hour and am amazed by it's breadth. One thing for sure...it's a great antidote to the idea that Jew's before the Shoah all looked like extra's from Fiddler on the Roof.

Poland, Wroclaw 1945-1947, A music lesson in a Jewish school.
Photographer: Brauislau Aidler.

Styles of Saturn...Israeli Music hits Miami

2011-01-20T10:31:00.002-05:00

Styles of Saturn is a Miami area band that, according to guitar player Danny Edell, is "trying to make Israeli type of songs popular over here. With original songs like "Party's at Tel Aviv" and others we are trying to build up a jewish fanbase as much as we can." Check 'em out..I dig "Party's at Tel Aviv".

They're looking for gigs...if if you're booking, drop 'em a line.

Jewish music, teaching, and wikipedia

2011-01-16T08:57:00.002-05:00

I was reading a boingboing bit on the wikipedia and I've had a stray thought. I've fantasized about teaching an undergrad college course about Jewish music. What if, in that class, each student's principle essay assignments were actually to be delivered as wikipedia articles on the topics? (e.g. the student writes a new wikipedia article). An article on the history of niggunim, or the reform and orthodox camp movements? Or Cantor Leib Glanz? Or the klezmer-hiphop musician Socalled? Or, if the topic exists, a significant extension or revision?

What if this was the norm? And all the energy of (at least some) student work was producing useful content? And because these are new topics, they can't just go to wikipedia and copy the existing text. This would be a forcing function for more detailed research. Now clearly this won't work for everything. Encyclopedia articles are a specific form of writing, heavy on details and citations...light on new analysis or critique. But significant consideration needs to go into the selection and arrangement of facts.

Just a thought.

Kaddish for Debbie

2011-01-10T12:33:00.004-05:00

Baruch Dayan Emet

The word went out last night, Debbie Friedman is dead. Dead at age 59 of pneumonia. And we are all grieving. Friedman was singer, musician and a songwriter who made an indelible imprint on liberal, particularly Reform, Jewish liturgy.

In the year 2011, with her revolution well won and her signature sound anchored so deeply in a time past (1970's and 80's folk pop), it's easy to forget how radical a presence she was. She's possibly overshadowed only by Shlomo Carlebach as the most important Jewish liturgical composer of the 20th century. She was pivotal in the translation of the Reform camp liturgy into a synagogue form and in the defining of the 'songleader' cantorial style. She carved out a space not just for a woman's participation in Jewish prayer, but created a body of work that placed woman's experience, in both Torah and contemporary life, as central to the prayer experience.

This past Shabbat, my synagogue and countless others sang Friedman's "Mi Shebeirach," hoping for her healing. This Shabbat we'll sing kaddish for her. She'll be missed.

I'd thought to share a favorite Friedman video but I'll skip that. You can find a zillion on YouTube. Instead, here's a much more fitting testimony, from YouTube user sweetandsourgal3.

In honor of Debbie Friedman

Jewish Music Documentaries

2011-01-04T18:58:00.035-05:00

There have been a lot of documentaries with significant Jewish music hooks. I don't have a complete list, not even close, but here's a fun start. Let me know what I've missed.

A Jumpin night at the garden of Eden. 1987. Film by Michal Goldman. "A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden was the first film to document the klezmer revival, tracing the efforts of two founding groups, Kapelye and Boston's Klezmer Conservatory Band, to recover the lost history of klezmer music." Check out FolkStreams.net for more info and the a video of the first 26 minutes of the film.

Klezmer on Fish Street. 2003. Directed by Yale Strom. "An examination of the Jewish culture that thrives in 21st-century Poland despite the absence of a large Jewish population" Here's a NY Times review and an interview with Alex Jacobowitz who appears in the film.

The Last Klezmer. 1994. - Directed by Yale Strom. "This documentary closely interviews the lively and charming Leopold Kozlowski, a klezmer musician and composer who survived the Nazi's concentration camps and managed to get on with his life and his vocation" Here's a clip of the film. The movie on Amazon.

A Tickle in the Heart. 1996. Directed by Stefan Schwietert. "A TICKLE IN THE HEART is a touching and lively travelogue starring erstwhile klezmer giants the Epstein Brothers (Willie, Julie, and Max), who come out from retirement in Florida to hit the road on their big comeback tour." Here's a clip. And Amazon.

Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler's House. 2006. "Violinist Itzhak Perlman explores his personal affection for traditional Jewish music, ranging from Yiddish lullabies to klezmer wedding songs to classical violin solos based on Jewish themes." YouTube clip. Amazon.

Klezmer In Germany. 2007. An episode of the BBC's European Root's show. "Series about indigenous music genres of Europe looks at klezmer, the Yiddish good-time music from the schtetl of old Eastern Europe which was virtually extinguished in the Holocaust, but has now made a comeback in Germany of all places. Even more surprisingly, most of the musicians who play klezmer are not Jewish, so what does this fascination with Yiddish culture reveal about Germany today?" YouTube clip.

Rumenye, Rumenye 2000. Directed by Radu Gabrea (Romania). "Kletzmer music originates in Central and Eastern Europe and has become a symbol of Jewish culture. Kletzmer used to be a functional music, always played at weddings and other Jewish ceremonies. Today, this music links European and Jewish culture and stands for the post-Holocaust revival of the latter. Kleztmer music is like a bridge connecting the sufferings of the past with the hope for concilliation and understanding in the future. American ethnologist Yale Storm is world famous for his research of Kletzmer music. He gives an account on the revival of Kletzmer from a double perspective: as a historian and as a musician. No other country had a stronger impact on Kletzmer music than Romania. “Doina – Jewish Blues” celebrates the connection between Jewish and Romanian music. The film features Elisabeth Schwartz, the famous Ydish singer whose ascendants were born in Romania."(sic) This information came from the Astra films website. You can see some of the documentary (maybe all?) on YouTube starting with the clip "Romania, Romania: Searching For Schwartz Clip 01." You can get more info on Elizabeth Schwartz at her website, The Voice of Klezmer.

Shlomo Carlebach - You Never Know Producer: Danny Paran "There are two questions you can ask another human being: “What are you?” and “Who are you?” If you ask “What are you” – you destroy the world. If you ask “Who are you?” you build the world…” (Shlomo Carlebach).
Rabbi, folksinger and composer, Shlomo Carlebach is considered to be the foremost Jewish religious songwriter of our time. He touched millions of Jews and non-Jews around the world.The film takes you to a Journey that senses and searches for that touch..." YouTube clip

Gevalt - On The Road with Shlomo Carlebach. Directed by Arie Naftali. Complete documentary viewable at Vimeo

"Making Trouble" "Making Trouble tells the story of six of the greatest female comic performers of the last century — Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, and Wendy Wasserstein. Hosted by four of today’s funniest women — Judy Gold, Jackie Hoffman, Cory Kahaney, and Jessica Kirson — it's the true saga of what it means to be Jewish, female and funny." Picon was a legend of the Yiddish theater and film. Tucker was a bawdy and unabashed singer known as "the Last of the Red Hot Mamma's" Catch the "Making Trouble" trailer at YouTube. For more information on the film, see the film's website.

Jericho's Echo: Punk Rock in the Holy Land Directed by Liz Nord. "Mohawks, stage diving, fists flying. Homemade band t-shirts, circle pits, singalongs. These scenes are not unfamiliar; They have flooded pop culture imagery for over 25 years. The punk rock ethos gains new relevance in Israel, however, when band members' choices are often between picking up a guitar or picking up a gun." You Tube has the Jericho's Echo trailer, as well as the whole film.

Psychedelic Zion. 2000. Directed by Isri Halpern. "This film is an Israeli coming-of-age story. The 1990s saw the birth of a new youth culture in Israel – Trance - based on enormous parties set in nature, on computerized music, on New Age ideas, and on drugs. In a short time, the trance party phenomenon in the Israeli periphery grew to proportions with no parallel in any other country. As Israel prepared to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary, the police decided to eliminate the Trance phenomenon. During a period of one year, the camera followed Berto from Kiryat Motzkin, Yoni from Moshav Hazon, and Revital from Tiberias, three owners of companies that produce Trance Parties fighting for their “independence,” i.e., the right to keep their Trance culture alive. It’s a story with a sad ending about a confused generation that just wants to escape…" For more information see the New Israeli Foundation website.

Punk Jews By Jesse Zook Mann and Evan Kleinman. "Punk Jews is a documentary series featuring stories of people expressing Jewish culture and religion in unconventional, and awesome ways. From musicians to artists and activists, Punk Jews covers badass politics, music, art, fashion, philosophy, and religion that you can't see anywhere else." While there's a lot of work left to do on the documentary, a first sample can be viewed on the Punk Jews website.

The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground Directed by Eric Anjou. "The Klezmatics’ holy ground is where a Quaker bassist and Reform Jewish trumpeter, Yiddish language, Hasidic dance, gospel music and Woody Guthrie meet. The feature-length documentary is the crown of a four-year journey alongside the band members, their music and their creative process." You can get more info and watch the trailer at the KlezDoc website.

The Socalled Movie The Socalled Movie is a feature documentary film directed by Garry Beitel about Montreal-based musical wizard Josh Dolgin – aka Socalled. Featuring Katie Moore, Fred Wesley, C-Rayz Walz, David Krakauer, Matt Haimovitz, Arkady Gendler, Benjamin Steiger Levine, D-Shade, Gonzales and Irving Fields, the movie is a kaleidoscopic portrait, offering 18 entertaining short films about Socalled’s creative process." Get more info and see the trailer at the Socalled Movie website.

Diaspora Yeshiva Band: Live on Mount Zion. DYB LoMZ mixes live historic concert footage from one of the most influential bands in 20th century popular Jewish music with an interview with the band made at the time. The result is an amazing glimpse at impact of the ba'al teshuva movement on 20th century Jewish culture and a darn good concert. You can get more info and view the trailer at the Diaspora Yeshiva Band website.

A Journey of Spirit Directed by Ann Coppel. "A Journey of Spirit is a documentary that tells the story of the remarkable singer, songwriter and guitarist Debbie Friedman. One of the preeminent women in contemporary Jewish culture, Debbie has integrated contemporary melody with Jewish liturgy to transform Jewish sacred music, making the text accessible to a large and diverse audience. A Journey of Spirit explores the tremendous power this artist and leader has to promote spirituality, healing, and community. This 75-minute documentary explores the transformation of liberal Jewish worship, the growth of the new profession of Jewish singer/songwriter, and humanity’s need for healing. Viewers are treated to a lively and heartfelt exchange as A Journey of Spirit places the debate about contemporary versus traditional prayer music squarely on the table." You can get more information and view the trailer at the Journey of Spirit website."

Sabbath in Paradise 1998. Directed by Claudia Heuemann. "An interesting documentary about the Radical Jewish Culture music scene of the Lower East Side and Downtown New York. It focuses on a specific group of musicians, each of whom approach Jewish culture through varying musical and religious beliefs. Master clarinet/mandolin player Andy Statman is the most orthodox, both musically and personally, of the bunch. His scenes, both in performance and with his family at home, are a touching reminder of the American Jewish experience. To contrast this, guitarist Marc Ribot is shown performing some of his most avant garde pieces and baiting the German documentary crew about the legacy of the Holocaust. Standout musical performances and personal reflections from pianist Anthony Coleman provide a grounding for the film, while all-too brief appearances (both musical and personal) from the Maven of the scene, John Zorn, serve to tantalize about the different approaches these musicians take to Jewish music and culture." You can watch a clip of "Sabbath in Paradise" on YouTube.

Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman: Song of Autumn Director: Joshua Waletzky."In Song of Autumn, Beyle, who has played a central role in reviving and inspiring interest in Yiddish song and poetry among a new generation of artists, discusses her life and creative path: her upbringing in the Yiddish cultural milieu of Czernowitz (then Romania) as the daughter of a remarkable traditional folksinger and a passionate Yiddishist, the war years in Romania, her development as a modern Yiddish poet and songwriter in New York, and her views on Yiddish literature and creativity. What emerges is a rich picture of the world of a woman who recited poetry to the great Yiddish fabulist Eliezer Shteynbarg as a child, was part of a vibrant Yiddish enclave in the Bronx, and is the only Yiddish poet ever to be awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the top honor for folk arts in the United States." Get more information from the League for Yiddish website.

Song of Jewish Cowboy. Directed by Bonnie Burt. "Scott Gerber, an unlikely mix of Yiddish and cowboy cultures, learned Yiddish and progressive songs from his mother and grandmother. A descendant of the left wing Petaluma chicken ranchers, Scott carries on the Yiddish and ranching traditions and proudly works in agriculture today. He rides the range and sings cowboy and Yiddish songs at Simcha Sunday and at an Irish bar." You can get more information and see a clip at Burt's website.

Rock and Roll Rabbis. Directed by Ilan Saragosti. "The feature rockumentary Rock n' Roll Rabbis takes viewers on a musical journey into the little-known world of Orthodox rock, profiling religious Jews who reconcile the asceticism of Orthodox Judaism with a rock n' roll lifestyle. This intimate portrait focuses on four of the most prominent rock n' roll acts, as the camera follows these religious individuals backstage, into the studio, and finally on Yidstock, an international tour." As far as I can tell, this documentary project was never completed but you can watch a clip focusing on Yossi Piamenta at YouTube.

Mashala 2008. Directed by Cyrus Sundar Singh. "This stunning documentary follows Canadian singer Ellen Gould Ventura on a journey of spiritual and musical discovery through Sephardic song, joining forces with a group of gifted musicians from Chile, Morocco, Italy and Venezuela." Here's a short 10 minute version of the doc and a link to Ventura's band's website.

Fiestaremos: The Judy Frankel Story. "¡Fiestaremos! presents the inspiring story of musician, singer and performer Judy Frankel whose work with many sephardic commuities helped to preserve and extend the rich musical tradition of these people. Interviews with Judy are combined with footage of her close ties with Sephardic individuals, recordings of her songs and insights on this important legacy. The film gives the viewer an intimate look at the important work of one of the leading performers of Sephardic folk music of our times. " For more information and the trailer, check out the Fiestaremos website.

Queen Khantarisha. 2009. Directed by Israela Shaer-Meoded "Queen Khantarisha presents two Israeli-Yemenite women writers in their sixties: A songwriter and lyricist of love, who also stands behind some of the hottest hits that resonate in Yemeni clubs and weddings, and a Jerusalem-born poet and writer, whose writing, touching on demons, madness, rape, and rebellion, has garnered her community’s denunciation. The film explores the personal costs of straddling the ambitions of creative expression and the restraints of conservative communities requiring subservience." For more information and the trailer, check out the Trabelsi Productions website.

Ladino 500 Years Young 2005. Directed by Rina Papish. "The film follows the rise of Ladino singer, Yasmin Levy, from the moment she discovers she can sing and all the way to international success. As she gets to know herself as singer, Yasmin rediscovers her father, Yitzhak Levy, a revered Ladino singer who, in the face of the decline of the language in Israel, chose to dedicate his life to recording and documenting the old Ladino songs before they became extinct." For more information and a trailer, check out the Dragoman Films website.

Georgia, My Love 2007. Directed by Noga Gamlieli. "This is a story of two Georgians sisters Maya and Manana, poor young women working in a bridal salon from dawn until darkness. Like many of their fellow Georgians, they have been rejected and humiliated by the Israeli society. But today they are proud of their roots and have one desire - to revive the Georgian culture. Maya, a singer, has committed herself to produce a program of Georgian songs. Every evening, after a long day of work, she records an album and rehearses the show with her sister Manana and a group of dancers. Maya will be the first Georgian woman to put on her own show and will have to deal with the patronizing attitude of male singers. Will she succeed?" For more information and a trailer, check out the Dragoman Films website.

Children of the Bible. Directed by Nitza Gonen. "Through music, stories and dialog, rapper Jeremy “Cool” Habash (Ethiopia in Hebrew) inspires at-risk youth of the Ethiopian community in Israel to reconnect to Ethiopian songs, the meaning of their Ethiopian names, the history of the Jews in Ethiopia and their journey to Israel which has become a legend. The rapper also tries to convince the Kesses, the Ethiopian rabbis, to fight for their lost spiritual status." For more information and the trailer, check out the Dragoman Films website.

Black Music. 2005. Directed by Destau Damto. "This film follows a group of Ethiopian rappers, living on the margins of society and dreaming of success. During the making of the film, one of the rappers is killed in a road accident. His friends mourn him, while trying to deal with their reality and trying to make it in the big city – Tel Aviv. However, the Israeli reality makes it difficult for them, and in order to survive, they must work on construction sites and do odd jobs. Music remains their biggest love, but is an unfulfilled dream. The film reflects the face of the Ethiopian ethnic group, living on the margins of and trying to fit in the Israeli society." For more information see the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema and Film website.

Cafe Noah 1996. Directed by Duki Dror. "After it's establishment in 1948, Jewish musicians from Baghdad and Cairo immigrated to Israel. They were masters in Arabic music, but their music was not valued in the new homeland. The ongoing Arab-Israeli war left no room for their their identity as Arab-Jews. Cafe Noah was the one place where their music continued and culture thrived, despite the odds." For more information check out Dror's Zygote Films website. For the full Cafe Noah documentary is posted to YouTube. Cafe Noah and Taqasim (see below) are both available from Amazon.

Taqasim 1999. Directed by Duki Dror. "A voyage to the hidden treasures of classical Arabic music, and to the participation of Jewish musicians in this cultural heritage. Taqasim draws a unique portrait of the Middle East in the 30’s, a region that shared mutual culture, language and economy. With stylishly shot music segments, along with unforgettable “back-ally” jam sessions played by Felix Mizrachi, Zehava Ben, Abraham Salman, and more. The film was shot in Cairo." For more information check out Dror's Zygote Films website, for the trailer check out YouTube. Cafe Noah and Taqasim (see below) are both available from Amazon.

Jewish Soul. American Beat "With insight and humor, Jewish Soul, American Beat explores the new landscape of Jewish tradition in America, from a feminist seder to a Yiddish Cabaret." The film is distributed through First Run Features.

100 Voices: A Journey Home "Voices: A Journey Home” is a compelling and moving musical documentary that uniquely tells the history of Jewish culture in Poland. It highlights the current resurgence of Jewish culture through the personal reflections and musical selections of a group of cantors and acclaimed composer Charles Fox (“Killing Me Softly”, “I Got A Name” and many more) who made an important historical mission to the birthplace of Cantorial music. The documentary will give generations the opportunity to learn about and re-embrace the Jewish culture that produced one of the most artistic and educated societies that once flourished in Europe. Above all, the film celebrates the resilience and the power of Jewish life, while telling the story of two peoples who shared intertwined cultures." For more information and a trailer, see the 100 Voices website.

A Cantor's Tale Directed by Erik Greenberg Anjou. "The tradition of Eastern European Jewish cantorial music is alive and well in modern America in no small part thanks to the efforts of Brooklyn-born Cantor Jacob Mendelson. "Jackie," as he is affectionately called by everyone. A Cantors Take explores the American roots of "hazzanut"( Jewish liturgical music) while taking us on a musical voyage that spans the Atlantic, originating in his birthplace of Boro Park, Brooklyn and reaching all the way to Jerusalem." For more information and a clip, see the "A Cantor's Tale" website.

A Wandering Muse. (in production). Directed by Tamás Wormser. "From ram’s horn to beat box, from Tajikistan to Argentina, The Wandering Muse celebrates the multi-faceted music of the Jewish Diaspora and explores the meaning of being Jewish." For more information and a clip from the film, check out the Wandering Muse website and say howdy on Facebook.

The New Klezmorim: Voices Inside the Revival of Yiddish Music. "This delightful documentary offers us a penetrating look behind the scenes of the Klezmer revival of today. Thoughtful interviews are interspersed with stunning performances by leading Klezmer performers and bands, including Michael Alpert and Alan Bern (Brave New World), Hankus Netsky (Klezmer Conservatory Band), The Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, Adrienne Cooper and Zalman Mlotek. Director David Kaufman thoroughly examines the roots of this new genre of Klezmer, its modern day performers as well as the audiences who flock to hear the music." Available through JewishVideo.com

The Milken Archive Video Collection. The Milken Archive has a 60 or so short documentary and interview videos on Jewish classical / art music. All online and free. This is a real treasure, folks, and is going to keep me busy for a while. I'm not going to list them all but will share a couple that I'm particularly intrigued by...

Samuel Adler's Nuptial Scene. 1998. Produced by the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. "Short documentary on Samuel Adler's Nuptial Scene. Features the composer discussing the work, as well as footage from the recording session, which included several of Adler's long-time Eastman colleagues and former students." The full video is available on the Milken Archive website.

Yehudi Wyner: Passover Offering. 1998. Produced by the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. "Composer Yehudi Wyner discusses the composition of his Passover Offering. Interview by Neil W. Levin. Milken Archive oral history excerpt." The full video is available on the Milken Archive website.

Great Songs of the Yiddish American Theater. 1998. Produced by the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. "An overview of the Milken Archive's project on immigrant-era American Yiddish theater. Includes footage from 2001 recording sessions in Barcelona and Vienna, featuring Simon Spiro, David Krakauer, Nell Snaidas, Robert Bloch, and the late Bruce Adler. Narrated by Mike Burstyn.." The full video is available on the Milken Archive website.

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive Virtual Cinema is another fascinating collection. Housed at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, it has a 400 films that cover all aspects of Israeli life and history. Including music. Like the Milken collection, I won't try to list each film, but here are a few that caught my eye...

Ashkenaz-Music of The Jews From Eastern Europe. 1992. "Part of the Israel Music Heritage Project. The world of Yiddish folksongs, Klezmer music and Eastern European synagogue music." Viewable at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive site and YouTube.

Morocco Music . 1994. "Part of the Israel Music Heritage Project. A look at the mixture of Arab melodies with Hebrew text that forms the basis of Moroccan Jewish music." Viewable at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive site and YouTube.

Sepharad Music . 1994. "Part of the Israel Music Heritage Project. The many different types of Ladino music dating back to the Middle Ages." Viewable at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive site and YouTube.

Yemen Music of the Yemenite Jews. 1994. "Part of the Israel Music Heritage Project. The rhythms and traditions of Yemenite music." Viewable at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive site and YouTube.

Melodies of Independence: The Gevatron . 1960. "Story of the Gevatron music group." Viewable at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive site and YouTube.

This is How We Build Musical Instruments Made of Plants. 1960. "The children of kibbutz Maoz Haim construct musical instruments out of plants." Viewable at the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive site and YouTube.

Chants of Sand and Stars. 1996. Directed by Nicolas Klotz. "The music that accompanies Jewish liturgy, chazzanut, is a rich and varied outgrowth of centuries of influence from the cultures of Diaspora. From the desert sands of Judea to the steppes of Central Asia to the neighborhoods of Manhattan, through Medieval Spain and Renaissance Venice, director Nicolas Klotz has fashioned a brilliant musical tapestry. CHANTS OF SAND AND STARS includes mesmerizing footage from Azerbaijan, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. Seeking the unifying thread in chazzanut, Klotz discovers many different cultures with little in common, each rooted in the deepest traditions of its land. Klotz ends his search in Israel, where the many Diasporas converge. CHANTS OF SAND AND STARS is the first in-depth exploration of Jewish music worldwide". To see a clip, check out the Knowledge.ca website.

Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 Years. 1996. Directed by Yale Strom and Narrated by Leonard Nimoy. "Zev Godinger is the caretaker of the Jewish community of Beregovo, Ukraine. When Zev meets Yale and his partner David Notowitz, he decides to return to his hometown of Vinogradov for the first time in 50 years. While on the train trip Zev carries a Torah (brought by Yale & David from the US) for his boyhood synagogue which hasn't had one for years. During the course of the trip we meet many of Zev's friends, particularly the Gypsies who are the ones who maintain what little Jewish music remains in the Carpathian mountains." For more information and a clip from the film, see Yale Strom's website. The DVD available through the distributor Cinema Guild.

A Man From Munkas: Gypsy Klezmer. 2005. Directed by Yale Strom. "A Man From Munkacs: Gypsy Klezmer explores the symbiotic relationship between the Rom and Jews who lived together before and after World War Two in the Carpathian region. Before the Holocaust there, whenever there was a Jewish celebration (e.g., a wedding, Purim festivities, dance etc.), most of the time the klezmer musicians were not Jews but Rom. In fact, the Rom had played with and for Jews for so many years that some of them spoke a fluent Yiddish. The film examines how this persecuted group (the Rom) saved Jewish folk music until it could be returned to the Jews." For more information and a clip from the film, see Yale Strom's website.

Black Over White. 2007. Director: Tomer Heymann. "Tomer Heymann followed Israeli pop/world-beat band The Idan Raichel Project on their 2006 concert tour to Ethiopia and emerged with a documentary that rollicks and rocks. The film, part lighthearted road trip, part examination of multiculturalism in Israel, is a close-up ride with the young Israeli-Ethiopian-Yemenite band members, who muse on the loss of their heritage and on their excitement as tourists embracing roots in Africa. Black Over White deftly explores their cultural ambivalence and their experience of racism back home in Israel." For more information and a clip from the film, see the Heymann Bros. Films website.

A Life of Song: A Portrait of Ruth Rubin. "The winner of the Columbus Film Festival's Chris Bronze Award. Highlights of the film include archival photos of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and footage of Dr Rubin - in her eighties- gathering songs from older Jewish folks in Montreal and educating young people about Yiddish folk songs and their importance to Jewish life." Available through JewishVideo.com

B'Glal Hamilhamah Hahi (because of that war) Released in 1989 by director Orna Ben-Dor Niv. "There have been many documentaries of the Holocaust, giving various viewpoints. Seldom do we see the Holocaust through the eyes of the children of survivors. Two Israeli rock musicians, Yehuda Poliker and Ya'akov Gilad, sons of survivors, capture their parents' story through their music. The film does wander from this main theme at times, but it remains a powerful and emotional testimony to the best of humanity." I haven't found any reliable source of the film. If anyone knows of one, please drop me a note.

From The Heart of Odessa A film by André Schreuders / Ukraine/The Netherlands 2007. "Alec Kopyt, a musician from Amsterdam returns to Moldavanka - once the poor Jewish neighbourhood of Odessa - his place of birth and the cradle of old-time Russian Mafia songs (Blatnyak). He is looking for musicians to play together these songs in the restaurant of an old friend. While strolling along the picturesque yards of the ruinous slums, we meet colourful Odesits who resemble the ancient heroes of the street songs we hear. A touching portrait of a neighbourhood, its music and performers." A documentary about the music of the Russian Jewish Mafia? Sign me up! The Easternxpress blog has a longer description. From The Heart of Odessa has won a slew of prizes in Europe and is distributed by J.M.T Films.

The Israeli Madonna. A radio documentary. "The writer and music critic Pete Paphides tells the story of Ofra Haza, dubbed 'The Israeli Madonna' who rose from her poor roots in the Yemenite community to global recognition." Produced by White Pebble Media for BBC Radio 4.

Asefa: (noun, from Hebrew) A collective, assembly or gathering, with purpose.

2010-12-31T08:59:00.004-05:00

I love meeting interesting folks, and there are no shortage of interesting folks in the Jewish music world. This week I got an email from Samuel Thomas, Ph.D candidate in Ethnomusicology at the City University of New York and the leader of the musical collective Asefa. Asefa plays a wonderfully exploratory fusion of Arabic Jewish music and jazz that includes Yoshie Fructer, guitarist and New York Jewish scene staple, bass player Noah Jarrett, and percussionists Eric Platz and Rich Stein. This is the kind of music, deeply rooted in tradition and wildly adventurous, that I could crawl inside and live in.

Here's their official blurb...

Drawing upon a plethora of musical traditions from North Africa, the music Asefa presents is a blend of North African grooves and song traditions with passionate and innovative composition and improvisation. This is Mitteleuropean proto-blues. This is music that honors both ritual and experimentation, reminding us of the vitality and variety within the Jewish tradition -- a tradition that reflects the world. Listen and trace your own roots, whatever they are.

They've got an album out. I haven't heard the whole thing yet, but the tracks on the website sound great. I'd link to them, but I'm a live show guy. I'd rather show off this clip from one of their concerts at New York's Blue Note Jazz Club

In addition to playing Asefa, Thomas conducts a variety of workshops

"Whether you want to discover more about Middle Eastern musical traditions, Sephardic poetry, or simply have an interactive experience touring different world musics, the educational programming and performance workshops add incredible value to any Asefa experience! "

To give you a sense of what he's about, here's a short talk by Thomas about his experience with Arab Jewish music given to the Brooklyn Historical Society - Roundtable: Arab Music Traditions and Their History in Brooklyn.

Tablet's 100 Best Contemporary, Ashkenazi, American, Pop Jewish Songs Ever.

2010-12-28T08:22:00.003-05:00

Last week Tablet writers Jody Rosen and Ari Kelman did us all a great service...they started a good argument. Their piece, "Song of Songs: The 100 Best Jewish Songs Ever," and their follow up "You Questioned Our 100 Greatest Jewish Songs" were entertaining and have let to a lot of grumbling and handwringing. Personally, the list drives me crazy (Amy Winehouse but not Shlomo Carlebach? Seriously?) ...but I thank them for publishing it and anyone who reads this blog should go read the list and listen to as many of the linked tracks and videos as they can. It'll be dizzying but a grand adventure.

Lists like this are doomed from the start because the authors establish a category, Jewish music, but fail to define it's limits. They also define an evaluation "best" without defining the criteria to be used. Are we talking about comparing every song written by a Jew or about a Jewish theme in the whole history of the Jewish people and comparing them based on how much impact they had on the Jewish people's history?

Not hardly. And we should be grateful...such a list would be impossible to create and tedious to read. Instead the list is a myopic contemporary Liberal American Ashkenazi view of Jewish music. And we should be grateful for that for two reasons...

1. It gave them a tractable and entertaining position to write from, a position that matches the cultural background and expectations of a lot of American Jews

2. It exposes the limits and contradictions of that position for a friendly debate.

I, like a lot of the commentators on Tablet's website, am frustrated by how it ignores Sephardic and Mizrachi music, how it seems unaware of contemporary Israeli music, Orthodox and Chassidic music, Jewish art music, and how it glorifies secular pop songs written by Jews. These are real deficiencies that make the list worthless as a definitive catalog of the greatest Jewish music. But as part of our perennial Jewish 'who are we' discussion, this list lays down a well thought through and wonderfully idiosyncratic position. It's now up to folks (including me) who don't accept that position to produce something "better."

I'm not going to attempt that in one shot, but will point a few critical moments in Jewish music that the authors overlook. These moments are just as open for critisism and debate as the Tablet list, so have at it...

1. Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le diable. Meyerbeer was a superstar German Jewish opera composer. At his prime in the 1840's and 1850's, he was king of European opera. In an age where Jewish composers often converted to Christianity, he remained a Jew and wrote Jewish liturgical music. While he never wrote an opera that was explicitly Jewish, one of his innovations was the treatment of religious themes, including religious tolerance, on the opera stage. He's also known for his most famous student, Richard Wagner, who after Meyerbeer's death became both an opera superstar and a vicious anti-semite. After Meyerbeer's death Wagner authored Das Judenthum in der Musik (Judaism in Music), which took swipes at both Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn, asking the question... if Jews are such great musicians why don't they have a national music of their own. (Wagner's answer...they're incapable of producing it. They just want to steal and corrupt everyone else's music).

Giacomo Meyerbeer - Robert le Diable - "Idole de ma vie" (Joan Sutherland)

2. Joel Engel. In the early 20th century, Russia experienced a rise in ethnic nationalism supported tentatively by the Soviets...Jewish nationalism included. Joel Engel, along with others conducted ethnographic field trips into the Pale of Settlement and used the Jewish folk music they found there to write art music. Engel, himself, was hugely influential as a writer, organizer of the St. Petersburg Jewish Folk Music Society's first concert, and composer. His most famous piece was the incidental music to the Ansky's play, The Dybbuk.

3. Shlomo Carlebach. Carlebach mixed Orthodox yeshiva training with a Chassidic sensibility and drive toward personal and musical outreach. Considered by many to be the greatest Jewish songwriter of the 20th century, Carlebach created a huge body of folk-liturgical music that continues to have a significant impact on both traditional and liberal Jewish practice.

Shlomo Carlebach Boi B'Shalom 1973

4. Diaspora Yeshiva Band. There was a moment when it all came together...the nascent ba'al teshuva momement and Orthodox camp music, Israeli kibbutzim and yeshivot, American & British rock and roll, and Carlebach's niggunim and outreach. The result was the Diaspora Yeshiva Band and the birth of Jewish rock and roll. While the DYB weren't the only band of that moment, they cast the largest shadow and still have a continuing influence over Jewish rock to this day.

Trailer for the new DVD "Diaspora Yeshiva Band: Live on Mt. Sinai (1982)"

Whew. I wish I had more time right now. Just listing these 4, makes me feel guilty for the 100 or so I'm leaving out.

Third Annual South Florida Cantorial Concert

2010-12-24T10:08:00.005-05:00

Shabbat Shalom everyone,

I'm pretty tired of knee-slapper "Jew on Christmas" posts, so let's just skip that. I'm looking forward to Shabbat and that's more than enough. For this week's get into the Shabbat groove post, I'd like to share a video and an announcement... the Third Annual South Florida Cantorial Concert is coming up on Jan 15. If you're in the area, hit their website for details, including a full list of performers. If you're into the Reform cantorial style (Nusach Ashkenaz with acoustic guitars!) it looks like a great event. I love hearing cantors of any movement cutting loose, and 20 cantors in large 700 person hall sounds magical.

Normally I don't showcase a lot of individual events. I thought posting this one would be fun partly because they thoughtfully sent me a link to last year's concert to share (see below) and partly because they're planning on webcasting the show. That's something that I'm strongly supportive of. There are a lot of Jews who don't live close enough events like this or, in this tough economy, can't afford the ticket price. (That said, this particular event is VERY reasonably priced at $18. That's half what I paid for a similar concert in Detroit recently, and I was only buying a cheap seat!) Webcasting is a wonderful way to share the good stuff with the whole community.

I don't see the webcasting info on their site yet, but will email them and ask about it. If you're excited about that option...email them and let them know. It's important that they have a reasonable estimate of who's going to watch so that they can make sure their gear is up to the load.

Video Highlights of the 2010 Concert

Hanukkah Day 20: Samuel Adler's Flames of Freedom

2010-12-23T07:28:00.005-05:00

Ok..so it's December 23. Hanukkah is long done and for varying reasons I never got out my last two Hanukkah posts. I'm not sure if I'll get the last one out, but I really wanted to share this one.

As I've mentioned, I've been listening and researching a lot more Jewish art music lately. One contemporary composer who's name I run into again and again is Samuel Adler. As his Milken Archive biography notes, "With a catalog comprising more than 400 secular and liturgical works, German-born Samuel Adler is a highly prolific American composer, as well as an accomplished conductor and a respected educator." He's the son of the equally famous composer and cantor Chaim Hugo Adler and has had a long and deep involvement in Jewish liturgical music in the US, including a stint heading the Reform movement's Transcontinental Musical Publishers and teaching at School of Sacred Music of Hebrew Union College. (for more info also see his wikipedia biography.)

Among his Jewish output is an outstanding set of Hanukkah music, The Flames of Freedom (available from the Milken Archive). Flames is "a cantata for three-part treble-voice chorus and piano, based on ten well-known Hanukka songs and hymns together with original music to two other liturgical Hanukka texts. It consists of eight short movements, each representing one of the eight Hanukka lights."

Unlike many art music adaptations of Jewish melodies I've heard, there is no hint of sentimental sweetening and swelling nostalgic orchestrations. Instead, these are wonderful new compositions that use original themes as jumping off points for new explorations. I don't pretend enough knowledge to really review art music pieces, so I'll leave it at that this... They're wonderful.

You can listen to clips online at the Milken Archive to hear the recorded performances. It turns out that Flames has also been arranged and published as sheet music for high-school choral's. Here's "William Floyd High School Women's Choir under the direction of Kristin Cimonetti performing" Flames of Freedom III. Hannerot hallalu (The Lights We Have Kindled) during their Winter concert, January 5, 2010. Lovely.

Flames of Freedom III. Hannerot hallalu (The Lights We Have Kindled)

I actually emailed Adler earlier this week. According to his bio, "His articles on Jewish music have appeared in the Central Conference of American Rabbis journal; Jewish Music; European Judaism; Musica Judaica; Diapason; The American Choral Review; and many others." I was hoping that he might have reprinted them in a book form or have them available somehow. No such luck. I'll have to try to hit the source journals.

Hanukkah Day 6: The Asthmatix...Latkes From Australia

2010-12-08T22:26:00.006-05:00

Hanukkah Day 6 comes straight from Australia, courtesy David Brook. I've written about Brook's music adventures before...he and J. Harkham were the pair that put out the Darkcho album, easily one of my favorite Jewish recordings of 2010. This time he sent me the video for the first single from the new band The Asthmatix. It's not clear if Brook is playing on the recording, ~~but I'm guessing he is.~~ And he's not. He's friends with the band and produced the video.

The Asthmatix...Latkes

I really dig this video. It follows nicely after the klezmer meets hip-hop / house bands including Canada's Socalled, Germany's Jewdyssee, and England's Ghettoplotz. I'd love to see these folks spend some time at KlezKamp and improve their klezmer chops. Not quite in Socalled's league yet, but good stuff.

UPDATE 1: I just found another Asthamatix video, VaHAEnu. The video itself isn't as snappy as Brook's video for Latkes and it lacks the clever socalled-esque use of vintage narration cuts, but the violin and turntable are showcased much more effectively. My estimation of the violinist and the DJ jumped up a notch or two. Great stuff.

UPDATE 2: Brooks sent me the band's blurb (I love blurbs).

The Asthmatix have been blending the art of klezmer, hip-hop, middle eastern melodies and traditional turntablism since 2007. Taking to the stage with violin, keyboards, and turntables they have played Sydney venues including the 505, Name This Bar, Opera Bar and festivals including Shir Madness at the Bondi Pavillion. Band members include Mickey Morphingaz(Beats), Daniel Weltlinger (Violin), Dan Pliner (Keyboard), and Asparagus Mlynsky (Turntables) who will release their highly anticipated single, Latkes, in December, just in time for the Jewish festival.

UPDATE 3: You can get your own copy of the track from iTunes, or for the price of your email address at their website.

We Miss You John. (Imagine in Yiddish)

2010-12-08T11:23:00.003-05:00

I'm still catching up on my Hanukkah posts but had to take a quick time out. Today's the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. Like pretty much everyone else, Lennon's music has been part of the backdrop of my world. If you actually need evidence his impact and how much he's missed, here's his signature song, Imagine sung in Yiddish at a meeting of a group of (what appear to be) Sephardic Ladino speaking Jews.

IMAGINE en Idish (Imagine, in Yiddish)

The YouTube video contents only credit the performer as Frida and the translator as Moshe. Thanks to both them. This made my morning.

hat tip to YouTube user ironmaik22 for the posting the video.

Hanukkah Day 5: A Hanukkah Sound Archive

2010-12-07T18:12:00.008-05:00

So, we're 5 days into Hanukkah and you're thinking...yeah, I got this. Got my blessings back, warmed up my Ma'ot Tzur. Checked in on Teruah for that new Maccabeats video that everyone's talking about.

I hear you. Me too. So it's time to mix it up. How about switching to a Carlebach blessing melody?

Or a Ma'oz Tzur melody from Hungary?

Or maybe adding Dak il tas from Turkey.

The Sound Archive at the Jewish National University and Library has got you covered. It's Hanukkah page has a fascinating variety of audio recordings and maybe your new favorite melody.

The Library's aims are "To collect, preserve, cultivate and endow the treasures of knowledge, heritage and culture in general, with an emphasis on the Land of Israel, the State of Israel and the Jewish people in particular." There's a lot of great stuff in the archive, though you'll have to fight with a pretty terrible search interface.

Update: After posting this, I got a FaceBook note from Francesco Spangolo with more details about the JNUL. Spangolo is "a multidisciplinary scholar focusing on Jewish studies, music and digital media. Intersecting textual, visual and musical cultures, Spagnolo has contributed extensively to academia, cultural heritage and archival institutions, and live and electronic media in Europe, Israel and the United States. " Francesco and I have been crossing paths for a quite a while and I very hope to meet up with him someday.

"The National Sound Archives do not, unfortunately, maintain a dedicated website but they are currently digitizing the bulk of their collection in order to make it accessible online. The short story, off the top of my head: the NSA (aka Fonoteqah Leumit, or Phonotèque Nationale) were founded at the Jewish National and University Library in 1964 by musicologist Israel Adler (Berlin 1925 - Jerusalem 2009). They include thousands of archival recordings of the many musical traditions of the Jewish Diaspora, made on location and in studio, as well as non-Jewish traditions recorded in Israel (Samaritans, Druze, Beduin, Greek Orthodox, Syriac, etc.). Most of the recordings were made by fellows of the Jewish Music Research Center (JMRC) of the Hebrew University, which was also founded by I. Adler at the same time. The NSA are an amazing institution, and hopefully it will be known more once it fully goes online. The selections you posted were made by Ruti Freed, a longtime archivist at the NSA, who retired last year. The current director is Dr. Gila Flam.

They are my home away from home and I was just there last month, finishing to gather all the materials for a new CD project (an anthology of archival recordings) to be published next year. (The first one, Italian Jewish Musical Traditions from the Leo Levi Collection (1954-1961), came out almost 10 years ago...). "

Thanks Francesco!

hat tip to the Miss Music Nerd blog, where I found the link to the JNUL sound archive.