Fine. Groan if you want. But I've found yet another great version of Hava Nagila in the history dumpster that is YouTube. This time it's my fav's Danny Kaye & Harry Belafonte singing (and doing some very strange neck dancing) on a 1960's TV show. Danny goes very flat at the end and gets teased by Harry. This is Must See TV.
I got a request for some contemporary and celebratory versions of the old warhorse. So don't be surprised if I play a few more this week. If you've got a favorite contemporary recording, let me know!
Hat tip to youtube user bellecourse for posting the video.
That's right, I was on local access television recently. And someone actually watch the show. In fact, I only know I was on because a friend happened to stumble across the show, recognize me, and watch it, and then sent me an email about it. Yep. The joys of local access TV.
You may remember that I gave a talk at the wonderful Ann Arbor District Library a few months back. The video of the talk is finally up on the AADL website. Check it out! I only sounded like an idiot two or three times. For me that's not too bad. It turns out the library tossed the video over to the local access TV station. And yes..clearly I have a face for podcasts.
Here's a link to the library video page. You can watch the video or download it as an audio file. So far it's been viewed 63 times. Pretty cool.
Here's the description of the Ann Arbor library talk...
Jewish music is exploding. Bands and labels and venues are multiplying. Rock. Hip Hop. Reggae. Punk. Klezmer. Sephardic. Choral. Jazz. Chassidic-Pop. Bible-gum. Beat Box. House. Socialist Yiddish Gothic. Indie. A revolution is happening but we're scattered across a big nation with no common media to connect us....except the net. Will it be enough? Jack Zaientz, an Ann Arbor area research scientist who blogs about contemporary Jewish Music, will introduce you to some of the most amazing new Jewish music that you've never heard.
This Extended Play version of Jack's recent 5 minute Ignite Ann Arbor talk will be loaded with more music, a road-map of the contemporary Jewish Music scene, a case study in social-networking Jewish Music, and the greatest Jewish song you've never heard."
My next speaking gig is going to be October 25th at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor. I'll be part of an adult education evening. You don't have to be a member to attend. All are welcome. Here's the topic:
The Music of the Diaspora Description: In this meeting we'll talk about and listen to examples of secular and religious music from around the Jewish world including Ashkenazi, Sepharidic, Morrano/Converso, Ethiopian, Israeli, Mountain Jews, and Mizrachi Jews. Discussion questions: How much of our view of being of Jewish comes from our immediate surroundings and culture? Now that the internet has made unexpected corners the world immediately available, how might that change our sense of Jewish culture? How will that change our sense of being Jewish?
I'm hoping this will be the beginning of a series of Jewish music talks at TBE. I'd also like to ones on the music of prayer, music in the home, and current popular music (Radical Jewish Culture and Shiny Shoe Music). We'll see how the first one goes.
Matisyahu, everyone's favorite Hasidic reggae / hip hop superstar just got a major publicity boost. His song "One Day" has been featured in a NBC commercial for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. There's speculation that it will be used as the official theme song of the games. "One Day" is from Matisyahu's new album, Light. Go buy it. Now.
It should be noted that Matisyahu's song was NOT written for the game. Canadian Jewish singer-songwriter Geoff Berner, on the other hand, took on the project of a 2010 Winter Games theme song in his own inimitable style. Here's Berner and the Squeezebox Circle Accordion Orchestra playing "The Dead Children Were Worth It."
Geoff Berner & the Squeezebox Circle Accordion Orchestra
Hat tip to YouTube user azisman for posting Berner's video.
While I'm pretty passionate about the renaissance in Jewish music that's happening right now, let's face it...I've got a cozy seat in the press box but Craig Taubman is up on the stage making it happen. After years of recording his own music, including the ground-breaking Friday Night Live, and producing the popular Celebrate compilations, Taubman has given us all a Hanukkah present that will be remembered a long time. This year Taubman produced a performance called Lights: Celebrate Hanukkah Live In Concert that will be aired on your local PBS station sometime in the next few weeks. For us up here in chilly Michigan, it will be a prime time spectale airing at 8:00pm on Thursday, Dec 11 on Michigan Public Television. My kids are already primed and are asking daily if tonight's the night. Not yet girls, but soon.
Lights includes a range of performers that will be familiar to fans of the Contemporary Jewish music scene in general and the Craig 'n Co label in particular: Craig Taubman, The Klezmatics, Mare Winningham, Josh Nelson, Michelle Citrin, Caren Glasser, Cantor Alberto Mizrachi, Joshua Nelson, Dave Koz, and Laurence Juber. The performances mix uptempo takes on well-worn favorites, with a few new pieces mixed in. Citrin does a fine freshening up of Peter Yarrow's Light One Candle. Taubman and Juber give an earnest Maoh Tzur. Most notable of the new songs are the Klezmatics arrangements of two Woody Guthrie Hanukkah songs and Winingham's marvelous, if a bit off topic, Convert Jig.
Lights does have a few clunkers. As much as I admire Alberto Mizrachi, his take on Flory Jagoda's Ocho Kandelikas is ponderous and over-wrought. And I can't imagine what Taubman was thinking when he approved Dave Koz's elevator music cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Musically and thematically it breaks the flow of the program.
Ok, this bit is priceless if you're old enough to have watched Saturday Night Live in the 70's and early 80's. It's mostly about John Belushi teasing his fellow SNL actors, but wait for the punchline....
You watched the video already, right? Ok. The song at the end is the classic Yiddish show tune, "Romania, Romania" which has been recorded by just about everyone. The song was written by Aaron Lebedeff and was first recorded in 1925. I'm not sure who's version is used in the video (any guesses anyone?), but you can hear Aaron Lebedeff sing it at Amazon.
The Passover season is here. It seemed a bit chilly and snowy to be doing spring cleaning, but it's been a cold endless winter here on the North Coast. What can you do?
I thought I'd kick it off with probably the oddest Passover song & video I've seen in a while. The video is a segment of the TV show "Chic-A-Go-Go - Chicago's Dance Show for Kids of All Ages," a local access favorite produced and aired in Chicago. I can't tune it in but, if you're in Chicago, you can. It's available on cable channel 19 every Tuesday at 8:30 PM CST and Wednesday at 3:30 PM CST.
They describe the segment like this...
An excerpt from the puppet Sedar special CHIC-A-GO-GO PRESENTS PASSOVER IN PUPPETTOWN (1999). Features Bobby Conn's amazing performance "Passover" (alternate version from album) and features The Goblins, Ratso, plaques, Moses, K-Satt, a sock puppet Rabbi named Rabbi Sachman, and puppetry by Miss Pussycat, and Ralph Syverson
This brings us to Bobby Conn. Conn is an off kilter wild man. I've seen his music described as "glam rock," "progressive rock," and "avant-garde" and seen him compared to David Bowie. This performance of his song Passover is completely over the top. Conn in a kimono in front of a silver curtain with two female models air-guitaring poorly while he wails about the angel of death. Coming on the heels of a puppet show seder only makes it more surreal.
Bobby Conn in "Passover in Puppettown" (Chic-A-Go-Go)
Back before Halloween last year, the NBC comedy 30 Rock had an episode which featured the character played by actor Tracy Morgan, reminiscing about the gold record he received for his novelty hit "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah." Here's the clip.
Werewolf Bar Mitzvah
NBC, hoping to whip up a bit of fan excitement, released the full song and requested fans to create their own music videos. As far as I'm aware, it was a bust. I don't see any videos actually posted to the NBC website and only one (rather fun) attempt posted to YouTube.
The Jewish TV Network has started posting some of it's original programming to YouTube. I'm sure I'll be posting more over time, but don't wait. They've got lots of interesting content on their site right now. Go check it out.
This video is JTV's Elyssa interviewing Adi from the Israeli funk-rock band Zvoov im Groove and includes the video for the band's song "A Girl from Peru." You can find out more about the band and hear more of their tracks at their MySpace page.
This video is a blast, not only for the great performance by Israel's 'Simply Tsfat', but for the honky-tonk Rabbi Doug theme music that leads off. Rabbi Doug does a weekly radio show in the Chicago area. You can get more info and show times from his website. He recently started putting clips from his show onto YouTube and I'll probably post a number of them over the coming weeks. Great stuff.
Simply Tsfat are Breselev Chassidim from the US and Canada, who now live and perform in Israel. They have a half dozen or so albums available through Sameach Music and well loved in the frum Jewish music community. I forgot to mention, I picked this video to play today because of the lovely performance of Shabbos Kadshenu. Shabbat shalom!
"Simply Tsfat" performs on TAPED WITH RABBI DOUG
Hat Tip to Rabbi Doug for posting this video and lots more.
Here's Yehuda Glantz on the Eli Yazpan show. I don't speak Hebrew well enough follow the interview, but seeing Glantz break into La Bamba and seeing his cameo on the TV show "Friends" is priceless. So is the duet of "Cuando El Rey Nimrod" he sings with Yazpan. I won't spoil the punch line to the "How come you're watching a Rabbi play electric guitar" question, though. You'll have to watch and see.
Yehuda Glantz in Eli Yazpan show
According ot his bio, Glantz is "is a true Renaissance man. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he later immigrated to Israel in 1979 where he currently lives with his family. As early as 5 years old, his talent in music began to blossom. During these years he acquired deep and wide knowledge of music through a number of instruments. He has mastered 14 different traditional and ethnic South American instruments like charango, siku, pincuyo, guitar, accordion, keyboard, percussion, etc. He also writes, composes, and produces all his own music in his private studio in Jerusalem. Yehuda Glantz captures the hearts and souls of people around the world with the unique ground - breaking music and through electrifying and colorful performances on stage."
Check out Glantz' MySpace page for more info and lots of his music. Great stuff.
Update: I forgot to thank YouTube user Yair Peled for posting the video. According to his bio, Yair "has been an editor/animation director at Israel National News TV since 2002. Yair is also an illustrator and editor of video clips for religious musicians in Israel. Yair is presently have a new production company to be called "YAM Production" that doing video productions of jewish culture (TV/NET/CELL). Yair also work on is first music album produced by 'The Jerusalem Music Network'." Sounds like an interesting fellow. Peled's YouTube page has other videos of Glantz, a Moshav video, and an animation video.
"I will never forget it you know. I was in bed one night with my boyfriend Ernie and he said to me, "Soph, how come you never tell me when you're having an orgasm?" I said to him, 'Ernie, you're never around!'"
There's this idea that's been floating around for a long while now that women are demure little creatures that blush, flush, and bat their eyes. And while I've met one or two that seemed to fit that description, I've known a lot more women who could laugh, sweat, cuss, and look me in the eye while doing it. I'd give names, but the list is too long and you know who you are anyway.
That's why I'm smitten with Sophie Tucker, Last of the Red Hot Mamas. Born Sophie Kalish in Russia in 1884, she emigrated with her Jewish family to Hartford, Connecticut (my home turf). She took off to New York in 1906 to break into show business, singing in vaudeville clubs, cafes and beer gardens. Her songs, including 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "I'm Living Alone and I Like It," "I Ain't Takin' Orders from No One," and "No Man is Ever Gonna Worry Me" were full of raunchy, tell-it-like-it-is humor. She was fat, Jewish, sexy, and proud. And if you didn't agree, get out. She also could deliver poignant, emotional, performances in the form of her signature tunes "Some of These Days" and "Yiddishe Momme." Her career ran over 50 year with recorded output ranging from wax-cylinders through taped color television performances. She's inspired generations of female singers and comediennes including, Bette Midler, the Divine Mrs. M.
Sophie Tucker, No One But The Right Man Can Do Me Wrong
Bette Midler was born in 1945 to a Jewish family in Hawaii got her big break joining the Broadway chorus of Fiddler on the Roof in 1966 and then getting the leading role of Tzeitel. Along the way Midler performed movies, TV shows, Broadway musicals, comedy shows, and for a while had a fifty dollar a night job singing to male homosexuals at the Continental Baths in New York. Like Tucker, Midler brings (she's still going strong) a frank humor and sexuality to her performances. Midler explicitly refers to Tucker in her stage shows through her character 'Sophie Tucker.' 'Soph' jokes draw and exaggerate Tucker's vocal style and risque humor to great effect. (They're hilarious)
Bette Midler "Pretty Legs" From the Arsenio Hall Show 1991
Ok, now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, here's Bette peforming "Soph" jokes on the Arsenio Hall show in 1991. Warning. These are raunchy and hilarious.
One last note. Writing this post has gotten me a bit nostalgic thinking of my Grandpa Harry, who passed away over twenty years ago. He had a large record collection that I, a budding music fan, admired the breadth of but didn't relate the content of. While he would have been about 30 years younger than Tucker, I'll bet he knew her music well. It would have been nice to talk to him about it.
I got hooked on Davka a couple of years ago. Their brand of klezmer and Sephardic chamber music has a healthy (but not overpowering) jazz and avante-garde sensibility that really works for me. I find their Tzadik albums (particularly Judith) sneaking back into heavy rotation every couple of months.
I had one of my usual "to late or to far away" moments this week when I found out that Davka teamed up with Kitka to do a series of concerts that would be televised on PBS. Kitka is a female vocal ensemble specializing in "music rooted in Eastern European women's vocal traditions." I don't know much about them other than that, but will have to check them out. The PBS show was scheduled to be aired in December. You can check out this broadcast date listing to find out if your local station played it. If you missed it (like I did) you can call the station and bug them about repeating it. Or you can buy the DVD.
I'm a Conservative Jew living in a Christian farm town in Michigan, USA. For me, Jewish music used to be Adon Olam, Hava Nagila, and Fiddler on the Roof. I started getting a clue a few years ago. Jewish music is Klezmer dances, Sephardic ballads and Chassidic niggun. It's thousand year old hymns, three hundred year old Shabbat table songs and 60 year old partisan resistance songs. It's contemporary hip-hop, punk rock, electronica, jazz, and chamber music. In addition to loving its musical and spiritual qualities, Jewish music helps me connect my family with a much broader and diverse Jewish culture than is available locally. The Teruah blog helps me document my exploration and share it with others. Why the name Teruah? Teruah is a call on the shofar on Rosh Hashanna.
Hear me interviewed on the Israel National Radio show "The Beat with Ben Bresky" Please email me about your band, event, album, blog, podcast, research or favorite Jewish music obsession. I'd love to hear it or about it.
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