Mail Bag: Chassidic Metal, Punk Unplugged, Aires de Sefarad, and some CD Reviews

I'm officially overwhelmed with all the great Jewish music out there. I'm going to start doing a periodic MailBag post to help me keep up. (Idea borrowed from BlogInDm). It's important for me to say, putting you in the MailBag post doesn't mean I'm less interested in your work than a group that gets a full post. It just means this is the fastest way to get your work posted.

-----
Teihu - Chassidic Metal Band

I saw your blog about The 8th Day, and thought you might want to
check out Teihu.

See teihu.com and myspace.com/teihu

Teihu has won first place in the Battle of the Bands (first round) in
the Pittsburgh area, and will be competing in the Finals next Sunday.

(I passed this email on to Keith at Metal Jew and he wrote a good post about Teihu. Check it out.)

The Shondes - A Benefit for Birthright Unplugged*
Saturday, September 29th, Doors at 7:00! Show promptly at 8:00!
$10 suggested or pay-what-you-can. Delectable rock 'n roll, beer, pizza and dancing - and all to support the work of an important organization!

FEATURING Mystery Family (myspace.com/mysteryfamilymusic), The Shondes(www.shondes.com), Looker (www.lookernyc.com), +DJ and dancing!

Free beer with any pizza order from 7:00 - 8:00 - come early!
-----
*Birthright Unplugged is an education and movement-building project that challenges the concept of a Jewish birthright to a land that Palestinian people were displaced from, and supports Palestinian people's rights to this land. For more information, visit www.birthrightunplugged.org

For more show information visit www.theluckycat.com or www.shondes.com. New interviews with The Shondes now out in Curve, Punk Planet and Venuszine.com

(Just to be clear: I dig the Shondes music, and posted about them back in June. I welcome bands with strong political views and will post about them without comment on whether I personally agree with those views. This isn't apathetic objectivism. I just like seeing applecarts, even my own, get overturned. I learn more that way.)

CD-Aires de Sefarad

Surfed into your website and remembered you are interested in recordings of Jewish music but,i couldn't remember if i made you aware of Albany Records 2007 Grammy Entry "Ares de Sefarad". It is a cycle of 46 works written by Jorge Liderman for my daughter and son in law-Duo46 and based on 500 year old Sephardic music.
If not,you can hear the music by visiting website -Duo46 www.duo46.com

Recent CD Reviews

Hi Jack, I've posted two CD reviews on my Blog that may be of interest. Thanks. http://blog.myspace.com/klezmerpodcast

Visiting a Judaica store

There isn't a decent Judaica store near where I live, and while I'm sure there must be one in the Detroit suburbs I haven't found it yet. (I've only been to one and wasn't impressed enough to go back). The end result is I tend to go to one in upstate New York when I visit my in-laws. It's not fabulous, but it's friendly and decently stocked.

So, there I was in the New York store today and I struck up a conversation with a nice lady who was listening to the Mandy Patinkin's Mamalosehn album. My wife was quick to (proudly) point out to the lady and the store clerks that I wrote a Jewish music blog. I was a bit embarrassed and changed the subject pretty quickly. The lady and my wife and I spent the next few minutes happily trying to remember whether the Mandy Patinkin of the album was also the Mandy Patinkin who starred in Elmo in Grouchland.

We couldn't figure it out at the time but now, with the resources of the internet at hand, I can confirm that it is true. In addition to singing Yiddish classics like "Rabbi Elimeylekh" and "Rasins and Almonds,"Patinkin will always be known in our house as the greedy fink who sings "Make It Mine" (a disturbingly authentic take on 2 year olds) and argues with Elmo about whether Elmo's blanket should be called a "wubby." Unfortunately, the Elmo in Grouchland soundtrack doesn't include Patinkin's masterpiece, so we'll have to settle for "Rabbi Elimeylekh."

The other entertaining conversation I had at the store was about the artist David Yakobian, aka "David and The High Spirit." I had run into Yakobian's prodigious output on eMusic last week but, other than being stunned, hadn't gotten my head around it. Why stunned? According to Marisa Brown of the All Music Guide (as quoted by eMusic),

"Led by David Yakobian, David & the High Spirit have released over 40 albums -- ranging from instrumental pop to Latin to big band to religious -- since their debut, To Life-Le Chaim! Authentic Jewish Party Music, came out in 1992. As evidenced by their name, the main focus of the band is on traditional and contemporary Jewish music, including 1997's The Real Complete Passover, which has Rabbi Cantor Baruch Colon narrating 35 songs and blessings of the Haggadah over David & the High Spirit's music."

What Brown doesn't mention is that Yakobian's output, in addition to "The Real Complete Jewish Wedding Party," "The Real Complete Bar/Bat Mitzvah Party," and "The Real Complete Shabbat" also includes "A Tribute to Cat Lovers," "The Joy of the CoffeeBreak," and "Eurotica Nonstop instrumental sensuous european mega love songs. All you need for an intimate party."

Now, I want to apologize right away to Yakobian and to anyone who thinks I'm about to violate Lashon Ha-Ra. I really don't mean to be critical. There are albums that I've loved that were probably loved by about 10 other people on the planet and I'm sure that each of Yakobian's recordings have found devoted fans. But seeing "A Tribute to Cat Lovers" and "The Complete Shabbat" put out by the same musician just made me say, "huh?"

Anyway, back to the Judaica shop. It turns out that the shop I visited had a number of Yakobian's recordings and said that they were relatively popular (they only carried the Jewish ones). The "Wedding Party" and "Bar/Bat Mitzvah Party" sold well to folks that were planning such parties and wanted to supply their DJ with some uptempo Jewish music to add to the mix. They also said that Yakobian was a nice and courteous guy who called them regularly to make sure that they didn't run short on his albums and that he even had a nice fax form for them to fill out. They appreciated that and said that they often listen to the dics in the store.

I've now listened to a couple dozen song clips from a variety of Yakobian's albums and have to say, they are what they promise to be: a party on a disc. While I'd always recommend hiring a real Jewish band over handing a DJ a CD, if someone wanted to hire the DJ then these poppy, synthy, and complete upbeat recordings might be the right choice. I've been to a lot of simcha's that would have been improved by them.

And, at least three upstate New York Judica store clerks agree.

Ambarchi/Avenaim : The Alter Rebbe's Nigun

Writing my post about nigunim reminds me of one of my favorite albums: Oren Ambarchi and Robbie Avenaim's "The Alter Rebbe's Nigun." This recording is not at all part of the contemporary Chassidic music scence, but draws heavily on Chassidic nigunim. The album was released in 1999 by my favorite label, John Zorn's Tzadik Radical Jewish Culture. The Tzadik blurb describes it like this:

Formerly orthodox Hasidic students of Talmud and Tanya, these two members of the Australian punk unit PHLEGM have brought together influences from Boredoms and the Japanese noise scene, traditional Jewish Nigunim and Yiddish theatre, Marc Ribot, Ornette Coleman and countless others to create a new world of twisted dreams and startling sonorities.

Ari Davidow of Klezmershack described it like this:

Opening with gentle guitars, and quickly descending to the clash of disharmonic guitar, then on to heavy metal soaring, the album begins with the first level, "Asiyah" (Action). Then there is the spaciness of "Yetzirah" (Formation), with pipelike tubes of sound, followed by shofar-like crescendos as something builds.... Gradually, we are left with creaks of sound slowly leaving behind silence as we move to the third sphere, "Beriah" (Creation) and the buzz of kazoo-like ullulation. Now space begins to close in as sound gathers, filling the emptiness, and eventually, amid the random percussion, there is the rapid-fire of guitar notes, gradually replaced by a glockenspiel playing a hasidic nigun. And finally, on to Atzilut (emanation). Behind a reading, in a very Ashkenazic Hebrew, about the Alter Rebbe's nigun, looping and spliced, the sounds begin to slowly reverberate, as from afar. Electronica, sound, slowly begin to create an ethereal, fascinating texture. After all, in true Jewish fashion, text must be part of the highest level of G-dly emanation; formed text is no less a part of what it means to be Jewish than the sounds we gather around that text. Suddenly, the words are processed further, so that they become as babble behind a now-noisy tapestry of white noise, crashing, random guitar chords, and then the words resolve themselves as recognizable nigun, created out of the white noise, gradually building in passion until it sounds like a huge crowd of dancing, singing hassidim. Then silence, and the rebbe resumes reading over gentle guitar picking out sounds that, again, resolve themselves as nigun, sounding more an more like human voice, wordless. Asiyah. Action.

Great review. I can't do better and won't try. The album is once again in heavy rotation.

Myspace Reviews: Shtreiml and Khevre

One of my favorite time-wasters is going Jewish music social-networking on sites like myspace.com. What will happen is that I get a pointer to a band with a myspace page and then follow their "friends" links to other bands I might be interested in. Today the originating band was Shtreiml and the source was the Jewish music mailing list hosted by Shamash.org. Shtreiml was announcing a few upcoming shows all, sadly, MMFH (Many Miles From Here).

So, I was off and wandering. Like most bands, Shtreiml's myspace page let me listen to some of their songs and get an idea what they're about. And I was delighted. Shtreiml has a great sound, combining "klezmer, gypsy music and jazz" with a focus on the unusual combination of the oud and harmonica. I've never heard anything quite like it, but I was quite enchanted. Sadly for me, their albums are on cdbaby.com but not emusic.com. Cdbaby is one of my favorite online stores and deserves everyone's business, but I have a subscription to download albums from emusic and would have nabbed one of Shtreiml's on the spot if it had been there.

From Shtreiml I found Khevre. Khevre has an understated klezmer / jazz sound, with a fabulous upright base and a wonderful female lead singer. Khevre is based in my once home-town of Boston, MA, but I don't think they were active yet when I lived there. Now, Khevre does have their album on emusic and I grabbed it immediately and will listen to it on my commute home tonight.

That's all I had time for during today's wander. But I'll use both Shtreiml and Khevre as jumping off points for more myspace wandering sometime soon.

Best of 2006

It's the end of the year and all the best of lists are coming out.
My take on the awards...the klezmer revival is no longer the center of the action for contemporary Jewish music. While there are a number of great klezmer bands out there, there's a lot more brewing. Ashkenazi (including klezmer, cantorial, Yiddish theater, niggunim), Sephardic and Misrachi are all being blended with hip-hop, reggae, latin, tango, electronica, classical, avante-garde jazz, blues, rock. Not all of the blending works, but lots of it does. And there's a lot of energy in it. Here are two interesting ones

Ten For ‘06 The best Jewish recordings of the year.
George Robinson - Special To The Jewish Week

"All in all, 2006 was a very good year for Jewish music. Fourteen CDs won the five-star plaudit, which is certainly a hopeful sign and a pointed rejoinder to those naysayers who have been proclaiming the death of (choose one): a) klezmer; b) New Jewish Music, c) old Jewish music. On the downside, however, four of these albums were the product of deceased composers/artists. That means that the kiddush cup is better than 70 percent full. Mazel tov!"

Best Music 2006
Mordy (aka MC Atzilut) posted the his best of list on Jewschool.

"Criteria for inclusion: I felt it somehow added to Jewish music, or made an impact on Jewish music or Jewish listeners - even if it wasn’t overtly Jewish. An album in 2005 that I listened to mostly in 2006 qualified - as did a single that didn’t get wide-release (Myspace babies). Otherwise, it’s what I want - and since it’s one of the few of its kind, you’ll take it and like it. I kid! Oh, and because it’s Jewish music, it’s a list of everything - singles mixed with albums mixed with artists. Deal with it!"

OYHOO Festival Jewish Music Awards

"The JEWISH MUSIC AWARDS 2006 were announced on Monday evening, September 11^th at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. The fun evening was hosted by the comedian/actress Jackie Hoffman and included four musical performances including: Y-Love, Soulfarm, Rachel Sage and Benny Bwoy. The show was highlighted by a presentation to the world reknown composer Steve Reich who was presented with a lifetime achievement award by fellow composer David Lang. Steve Reich is being honored this season by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Brooklyn Academy of Music in conjunction with his 70^th birthday. The nominees and subsequent winners were picked by a group of 25 leading journalists who write about Jewish music."