Some Old Time Chazzunes

I'm in a hotel in DC. It's late and I should be sleeping. But I'm not...I'm wandering the interwebs and guess what I found, a new Jewish music blog called Chazzunes dedicated to the classic Jewish chazzan / cantor. And while Chazzunes is brand new, it's off to a fast start. In two months it's racked up over 200 posts, all YouTube videos of classic and contemporary cantors. I'm going to have a blast working my way through the lot of 'em.

Here's quick sampler...

Oid yossef chai 2


' ''l'elisir d'amore' דוד קריבושי-ליאור אלמליח ושמעון סיבוני


Hat tip to YouTube user dkrivo for posting the second video.

The "You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Our Vinyl" Book & Bernie Knee's "Orthodox, Conservative, or Reformed"

I'm was delighted to find that the Hippo and Campus at Reboot Stereophonic hadn't given up on the "You shall know us by the trail of our vinyl" blog like I thought they had. They'd just moved to a happy shiny new home to promote their book "And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost". Now this is the kind of coffee table book that I can get behind. (Hint, my darling wife, hint!) The authors, also known as Roger Benett and Josh Kun, share my love for all the odd corners of Jewish music and are champion dumpster divers. Their blog and book showcase a lot of odd (and sometimes wonderful) moments in Jewish music and, though them, moments in Jewish cultural life. And their book will be out in two weeks, just in time for Hanukkah. I haven't seen it yet, but if it's as good as their blog I'm sure it will be fabulous.




As an example of their ouvere, here's singer Bernie Knee performing the Tobias Henry song "Orthodox, Conservative, or Reformed" from Knee's album "Jewish American Songs for THE JET SET." I love this song for not only name checking three of the major Jewish movements in America but for contextualizing the movements as impediments for wooing women. Knee was a singer and actor active in the late 1970's and 80's. This album was recorded by Tikva Records, a production house that put out a variety of Jewish and Israeli albums and then disappeared without a trace. So much so that there is an active group of collectors trying to track down any available information on Tikva. I hit GEMM and EBAY to see if any copies of JET SET were floating around, but no luck. Even eMusic and iTunes came up dry. If you act quick, though, EBAY can set you up with 45RPM singles of Knee performing Irving Fields "Let's Go Skiing" and "Melody of the Gypsies."

Bernie Knee- Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform

60 for 60: Happy Birthday Israel

So Israel's turning 60 soon and there will be a bunch of parties to show for it. Two of them are going by the name 60460. The first is an online party which will include 60 bloggers (including yours truly) writing happy birthday notes. These notes will be posted on our own sites and at 60Bloggers.com and will start this Wednesday. I'll be writing mine late this week for posting on April 18th, Erev Passover. I'll be writing about everything I've learned to love about Israeli music over the last couple of years. I'd love some help, though. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think makes Israeli music special.

The second party is Craig Taubman's 60460 Let My People Sing. From Sunday May 4th through Sunday May 11th, Let My People Sing will bring 60 hours of non-stop festivities to the city of Los Angeles in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary. If you'll be in the area, check out the party schedule. Even if you're not, you should check out the snazzy 60460 promo video. Now if I can only convince my brothers that going to Friday Night Live with Craig Taubman, Hadag Nachash, and Jacob Dayan, Israel's Consul General in Los Angeles, would be the perfect event for a bachelor party.

Responding to the charge of Jewish cultural narcissim

Roaming the blogosphere this morning, I ran into an interesting post on the blog "Dyneslines" about the author's perception (as a non-Jewish New Yorker) of the Jewish communities cultural narcissism. The post is too long to quote verbatim but here are a couple of short posts, so you can get the flavor of the argument (if you're interested, please read the whole post)...

"As an intellectual, naturally I feel indebted to such creative figures as Popper, Koestler, Panofsky, Einstein, Schoenberg and so many others. All the teachers who influenced me in grad school were Jewish. I used to think that if I could figure out their secret, I could really go places. Alas, the secret was not being Jewish but having the advantage of superb education in Weimar Germany, an option that ceased to be available after 1933."

"Here in New York City we are bombarded with celebrations of Jewish films and books. Countless articles and book reviews appear in the New York Times and other quality media. It is all interesting--up to a point....Today, the new sentimentalization of ghetto life. Fiddler-in-the-Roofism, obscures these realities."

"Yet in key ways the collective narcissism of American Jews is unique among ethnic groups."

Anyway, I should make it clear, I don't take this post to be anti-semitic and hope that no one else does either. While I disagree with it, I think it is a legitimate response by a thoughtful person. I just think the author is wrong.

Here is my response. Sorry it's long too...

Hi. Interesting post, though I strongly disagree with your premise and conclusion I resonate with some of the connections between them. For the record, I'm both a Jew (not secular, though not Orthodox either) and one who lived as "an enlightened heterosexual in San Francisco."

To be specific.
1. I do generally "support gay rights, and enjoy cabaret, theater, and films featuring camp and gay wit."

2. I don't "long for a moratorium on the perpetual festival of gaydom"

3. I acknowledge that in "New York City [you] are bombarded with celebrations of Jewish films and books. Countless articles and book reviews appear in the New York Times and other quality media"

4. I don't accept that it's due to "a kind of salmagundii of ethnic exhibitionism" or "the collective narcissism of American Jews" (or African-american's, Hispanic/Latino's, Greek-Americans, Irish-Americans...)

Let me suggest a couple of another interpretations.

One thing that is similar in your two strawmen (gay culture in SF and Jewish culture in NY) is that both groups have significant and recent histories of victimhood they are trying to overcome and/or recover from. Significant portions of the world hold unreasoning, unrelenting, and often murderous hatred for both groups. For the Jews, not only was genocide attempted in the last century, but, in the sense of destroying centuries old Jewish communities and cultural histories, it was largely successful. For the gays, there are few places or groups in the world that do not condemn and persecute them for merely existing.

It is no wonder then, that each group takes moments of opportunity (SF and NY at the end of the last century) to attempt to preserve and establish their history and culture. If not for these moments, there is a very real chance of them not being able to perpetuate these cultures.

So, where you see this as outwardly directed self-congratulatory narcissism (and truthfully, there may be some of that too), I see it as inwardly directed reinforcement.

Let me offer you an analogy..

I once went to a funeral of a Christian with a friend who was an atheist. The friend was annoyed and offended by her perception of the Christian's priest's proslytizing. The thing is, the priest wasn't talking to her. He was preaching to a Christian family and other members of their Christian congregation. He was answering their needs, using his Christian-centered, language for grief and recovery.

At the time I took my friend to task for her solopsitic view that the priests words were directed at her. Now, I'll take this post to task in the same way...while you're invited and welcome to the gay culture and Jewish culture events, no one's really talking to you.

Please join the conversation and post a comment either here or at Dyneslines.

A sakh zmires un veynik lokshn (or, lots of sacred songs but very few noodles)

Funny how things connect. I haven't posted about Yiddish music in a while. Then, a couple of hours after posting the "Yiddish Language and Song" documentary I received a lovely note from "The Chocolate Lady" about her Yiddish food and song blog "אין מױל ארײן, In Mol Araan" My wife and I are obsessed foodies with a wall full of cookbooks and and happy kitchen table where a lot of songs get sung (zemirot, as well as as selections from "High School Musical 2") so I completely empathize with her connection of the two.
One of things The Chocolate Lady does, under the category of "sacred songs for the welcome table" (in Yiddish "A sakh zmires un veynik lokshn" or, lots of sacred songs but very few noodles - meaning "lots of effort for a small reward") is to transcribe the lyrics to Yiddish zimrot (religious table songs). While I can't read the Yiddish, here's an example called “Oylem habe iz a gute zakh, ober lernen toyre iz di beste zakh.” “The world to come is a good thing; but learning Torah is the best thing.”

די װערטער זענען באמת אַ ביסל שװערלעך צו פֿאַרדײַען;
דאָס ניגונדל, אָבער, איז זײער לעבעדיק.
עולם הבא איז אַ גוטע זאַך;
לערנען תּורה איז די בעסטע זאַך.
װאַרפֿט אַװעק איעדן יאָך,
לערנען תּורה נאָך און נאָך,
עולם הבא איז אַ גוטע זאַך.

Her blog is almost exclusively in Yiddish, so I can't read it. But if you can, or are interested in in seeing Yiddish in action, you should check it out. The sections I read were in Yiddish, but I was assured that the blog is about 2/3rds in English. So everyone should check it out.

(By the way, how come I don't have a cool name like "The Chocolate Lady?" The only nickname I've had recently is "Kneesocks," given to me by one of my brothers after a certain fashion disaster I perpetrated last summer. )

Tsimbl: A new blog for an old instrument

"Ouff.. I actually made kind of a maniacal impulse purchase today, I'm almost ashamed to tell you what it is. I bought a Tsymbaly (laptop hammered dulcimer) :( But to be fair, it has been my lifelong dream for about 5 years to own one, but then again I never really thought about it. But suddenly today I saw one for about 1/3 the price it would cost to have one built out west where they still build them. Then again it's another one of those things that would sound annoying to hear someone learning to play it.. But on the other hand, it's about the 3rd most "klezmer" instrument after the violin and clarinet. If I could ever get good enough to play that, though."

So starts the first post of Dan Carkner's new blog "Learning Tsymbaly." Dan's off to a great start and has posted lots of links to tsimbl (cimbalom) history, current players and makers, and recordings. He's also talked about his learning process, including how he's strung and tuned his tsimbl and his take on the role of the tsimbl in various klezmer forms. I'm looking forward to learning more about the tsimbl from Dan and wish him the best for his playing and his blog.

Metal Jew and A Secret History of Jewish Punk

I ran across the blog "Metal Jew" this morning. The author Keith Kahn-Harris describes himself as a "Semi-ambivalent Jew, ambivalent Metaller. Occasionally ambivalent sociologist, researcher and educator. Non-ambivalent husband and father." That description resonates for me, though, of course, the details are wrong (I'm a human-computer interaction scientist and not ambivalent about being Jewish). Definately non-ambivalent father and husband. The "Metal Jew" blog has been active since May of '06 and Keith's book "Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge" was published in December '06. Mazel Tov, Keith.

Another place where Keith and I diverge is that I was never an "ambivalent Meteller." I was an ambivalent punk. Black trenchcoat and beret. Dead Kennedys, the Adolescents, 7 Seconds, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. I even had a mohawk hair cut once (I looked like an idiot). This was the 80's. The Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union were only slightly scarier than Thatcher and Regan. We watched movies like "The Day After," "War Games," "Suburbia," and "Red Dawn" and were sure that nuclear war was right around the corner. We also read the Diary of Anne Frank and watched the Marathon Man. The cold war had the shadow of the Holocaust all over it and we knew it. Punks were fascinated with Nazi symbology, either applying it to our current governments policies or (for the "skinhead/Nazi Punk" minority) getting nostalgic for it's clarity.

Keith reminded me of all this by blogging about the new book "The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk" Here's the blurb from the book's website:

Based on recent interviews with more than 125 people — among them Tommy Ramone, Chris Stein (Blondie), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Hilly Kristal (CBGBs owner), and John Zorn — this book focuses on punk’s beginnings in New York City to show that punk was the most Jewish of rock movements, in both makeup and attitude. As it originated in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the early 1970s,
punk rock was the apotheosis of a Jewish cultural tradition that found its ultimate expression in the generation born after the Holocaust.

As a kid who hung out in punk clubs in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, I have to say that I never found punk a particularly Jewish experience and never identified with it at that level. Other than the Nazi/Holocaust references, punk music was only Jew friendly in that it lacked Heavy Metal's preoccupation with Christian imagery.

So, I don't know if I agree with the author's view, but I can't wait to read the book and find out.