Jewish Music on Last.FM

Teruah's got a new toy, a Last.FM radio. Last.FM is a free online music service that creates playlists for you based on previous music you've listened to and music that people with similar taste have listened to. Like most similar services, it's really hard to get it to consistently play Jewish music. That's mostly because Jewish music cuts across music genre's in a way that's hard for a software algorithm to get it's electrons around.

But Last.FM has added a clever feature that allows the determined to game the system. The feature is the ability to generate a randomly selected playlist based on user applied tags. What this means to us, is that the shiny new Teruah Last.FM radio will play a never-ending stream of songs that some Last.FM user has tagged as Jewish.

Will it match your definition of Jewish music? Will it be a musical style you like? You spin the wheel you'll take your chances. What I will say is that I love it enough to feature it on the blog. In an hour of listening I heard rock, heavy metal, reggae, hip-hop, jazz, classical, klezmer, yiddish and folk. I didn't love every song, or even understand why every song had been tagged 'Jewish,' but I loved a lot of the songs and even when out and bought an album on the spot after hear one of the tracks.

So take it for a spin and let me know what you think.

If you're a band or a label, go to the Last.FM 'Promote Your Music' page for instructions on how to upload your music. Then tag it Jewish and join the fun.

SoundRoots Playlist: Jewish Music Old and New

Another quick one...SoundRoots World Music & Global Culture recently put up a listen-on-line playlist of Jewish music. It's an interesting mix, leaning heavily towards contemporary klezmer with a little Yiddish folk music thrown in and Jewmongous' (aka Sean Altman's) goofy cover of the Ramones classic "I want to be sedated."

You can see the full play list on the SoundRoots page.

Carlebach Yahrzeit commemorated by Jewish Broadcast and the Carlebach Shul

Sunday, October 28th will be the 10th Yahrzeit of Reb. Shlomo Carlebach and JewishBrodcast.Com and the Carlebach Shul will, independently, be commemorating the life of the "Singing Rabbi."

Carlebach was an much loved Orthodox Rabbi who was heavily influenced by Chassidic traditions and used music as a core part of a dedicated outreach program. He was a gifted musician and song writer and his compositions are still very popular, having been recorded and covered many times and have been incorporated in the liturgy of many shuls (including the Carlebach Shul, see below). Carlebach's recordings are still readily available through your favorite music store or online shop JewishJukebox.com, MostlyMusic.com and Hatikvah Music, for example, all have lots of titles in stock. Wikipedia lists his full discography. If you aren't familiar with his music, check out this YouTube video. It's pretty representative

Ruach Weekend 1992 Part 2 Shlomo Carlebach & Dovid Zeller




JewishBroadcast.com will be spend the day streaming audio of Carlebach songs and stories. (Note: JB requires a free login. Also, I've had trouble using JB with my Firefox browser, but it works fine with Windows Explorer)

The Carlebach Shul will be hosting a Yahrzeit commemoration weekend (Oct 26 to 28, 2007). The weekend will include a Tribute Concert on Saturday night featuring Heshy Broyde, Shloime Dachs, Yehuda Green,Eitan Katz, Eli Kranzler, The Nochi Krohn Band, SoulFarm, and Yisroel Williger. Carlebach's daughter Neshema Carlebach will perform on Sunday. If you're in the New York City area, they'd love to see you.

One last note, the Carlebach's estate has posted a set of his Divrei (words of) Torah at The Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach Foundation website. Great reading and good to remember that Carlebach was a rebbe first and musician second.

Hat Tip to the Jewish Music Review for the Jewish Broadcast banner add

Podcasts and audio collected by the Jewish Webcasting Guide

I'm pretty proud of my 'Podcasts and Internet Audio' link list. But I've just met my match. The Jewish Webcasting Guide has a dozens I've never heard of and can't wait to check out. I'm pretty shameless and plan on pilfering a bunch of links. Here are a couple that I'm particularly excited to check out...

Achlamusic
This is a delightfully creative music station that is produced daily by Yosi & Tzvia in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. They welcome mix tapes, station ids, demos, audio tapes, etc. and will incorporate them into their shows.

Online Reggae Radio Station - Live365 Internet Radio - Israel
Playing the very best Israeli reggae music, Israeli dancehall music, Jewish reggae music, and reggae music with linkage to Israel, made by Israelis and international reggae artists, producers and bands, enjoy!

Jewishpeople.Com
Traditional Jewish music. This station is broadcast over live365, an Internet multi- channel webcasting service.

Jews and Blues: Inside Out
A radio program from WBUR in Boston, an NPR station. The program originally aired in the summer of 2001. Researched and narrated by Michael Goldfarb, it shows how Jewish and African-American music merged in America. The entire documentary can be heard on WBUR's website.

Moroccan Tunes
Jewish melodies and tunes from Fez, Tangier, and Casablanca.

Play It Again, Maurice
A few years ago in Marseilles, a DJ put out a techno dance track that sampled the piano playing and singing of an older musician born and raised in Algeria. The track became an underground hit. In 2003, FRONTLINE/World sent a reporter on a journey to this cosmopolitan city to meet the man at the source of this compelling old-meets-new sound.

PayPlay - Download Jewish Music. Lots of it.

So, I think I'm in trouble. I already download a lot of Jewish music from eMusic. But that's a subscription service and I usually run out of my allotted tracks about mid-month. Which is fine, I tell myself. I've got to set myself some limits, right?

Right?

Payplay.fm doesn't think so. They're an indie music download site with (today) 351 albums labeled 'Judaica.' Many are one's I'm familiar with or have downloaded through eMusic. But there looks to be a lot of additional albums. Payplay got it's start selling indie music in the fairly useless Windows Media (WMA) format, but has just switched to selling iPod friendly MP3 files for .88 cents. They also promise a (relatively) high payment to the artists (compared to iTunes).

Now I know what to do after my monthly eMusic binge. I'll just have to keep my self to one album a month. Or two. sigh.

Here are some PayPlay 'Judaica' albums that caught my eye:

Sista Warrior and the Shakespear's "Stop the Suicied Bomber's" "Award winner Sista Warrior, presents the pristine fusion of the sounds of Deep Roots Reggae and Jewish Ghetto-Life lyrics. This mystical music started a totally original genre in the '80s. The beat is alluringly danceable, the words profoundly spiritual."

Judy Caplan Ginsburg's "Amazing Songs for Amazing Jewish Kids" "Amazing Songs For Amazing Jewish Kids by multi-award winning singer/songwriter, Judy Caplan Ginsburgh, features 16 terrific songs, mostly in English, that teach basic Hebrew, holidays and values. Featured are a number of sought-after songs that have never been released previously on a professional recording -- Dean Friedman's "In My Sukkah", Josh Miller's "Tree Song", Steve Dropkin's "Lulav Shake" and Judy's new "Shema Lullaby" to name a few."

Shlock Rock's "Jewish Pride" "Lenny Solomon is the head of a Jewish Rock and Roll Band called Shlock Rock. He has released 25 CD's. Ten original, 10 parody and 5 Children's. The mission of Shlock Rock is to spread Jewish Pride, Identity and Awareness to the World Jewish Community. In 1993 Shlock Rock became the only Jewish Rock Group to get a question in the Trivial Pursuit game. Jewish Pride is the first original album of the ten that Lenny Solomon and Shlock Rock has recorded."

Vocolot's 'Behold' "Vocolot brings a joyous fusion of folk, jazz and cantorial vocal traditions into the contemporary a cappella world. They sing in English, Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, and Arabic, blending lush harmonies, soaring melodies and global percussion in original works and new renderings of ancient songs and texts. Vocolot's music, rooted in universal heart, social conscience and Jewish soul, communicates a powerful vision of world peace and reconciliation."

Hat tip to BoingBoing for the pointer to Payplay.fm

Tzadik leaves eMusic

The alert went out on May 7, but I missed it.

“Tzadik alert! “Be sure to grab anything you've been meaning to get, looks like they are pulling out [of eMusic], sadly. Unless it's a coincidence, there is an article about them not being happy and their albums are not showing up in lists.”

When I logged in next, it was too late. Tzadik had pulled the plug. It seems that John Zorn’s record label (which includes the influential Radical Jewish Culture recordings) has decided that eMusic wasn’t a good business deal for them anymore. The blogs and eMusic message board were aflutter. Book of Normans, for example, has a good write-up. Should they have? Shouldn't they have? Were they smart or clueless? There are lots of opinions out there.

Personally, I'm disappointed. eMusic provides me a good value and I've bought far more Radical Jewish Culture recordings than I would have if I had buy them directly from Tzadik. This isn't speculation. I've about tripled my RJC collection since I signed up for eMusic. The thing is that I find that buying RJC recordings a risky proposition. That's to be expected with anything radical, right? Some are truely amazing, but I've a couple that didn't work for me at all. But that's ok. Because eMusic offered less product (no physical CD) but asked for less $$, I've always felt less risk adverse. So what if one album isn't so hot? I get a bunch more downloads next month to try again.

But, this is business. I respect Tzadik's right to make whatever business decisions they feel are in the best interest of their, and their artists, long term viability. This is also Internet business. I think we'll be seeing various business models and price points being experimented with over the next few years. I hope that Tzadik continues to be a leader in this experimentation as well.