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.
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.
Recently there has been a wave of new recordings of interesting approaches to Chassidic music. In recent posts, I've written about Jeremiah Lockwood's Niggun Project and Brook and Harkham's Darkcho album. Coming up soon will be the Breslov Bar Band's debut album. These recordings are all interesting because they are, to a large degree, neo-Chassidic. Or, Chassidic inspired. Today's album, Songs at a Table, is straight up Chassidic niggunim and I'm pretty exited about.
As I've mentioned any number of time, I'm a big fan of niggunim. As such, you'd think I'd have a pile of fantastic recordings to thrown on anytime I get the urge to listen to some. Sadly...not true at all. Partially, I'm fine with this. To a large degree niggunim are music to be sung, not listened to. They're not a performance music, so why would I expect lots of recordings? Partially, though I'm pretty frustrated. Most niggun recordings I've run across miss the mark by either adding instrumentals (for check the amazing, but highly orchestrated Chabad nigun collection) or by presenting them as part of a musicians performance (e.g. the many Carelbach recordings).
At last, Songs on a Table gets it right. This is a collection of niggun recorded in the wild, at a table, with nothing more than a bunch of guys* singing, clapping hands, and banging the table. The niggunim presented are a diverse set, including traditional Bobover, Breslover, and Lubavitch niguns as well as more contemporary compositions. The guys voices are well practiced and authoritative. And, most importantly, it sounds nothing like a well mannered performance. Most interestingly, while niggun are intended to be spiritual songs, they are as often as sung joyful rowdy table songs. This album is on the joyful rowdy side. Great fun. Pass the schnapps.
Berl's Niggun(Breslav)"
The one caveat, and my one annoyance with the album, is its production. Which I don't like. At all. Between poor microphone placement (which made it hard to pull out the occasional harmonies) and the addition of a layer of lacquer (e.g. studio effects including reverb), it's just not recording it could have been. The result is solid and appreciated, but not brilliant. (For an outstanding, but not Jewish, recording of similar music check out the Tsindali Choir singing Georgian table songs [video] [album])
I should mention that the Songs at a Table recording is a fundraiser for Leket Israel, Israel's national food bank.
"With the help of 45,000 annual volunteers and a dedicated staff, Leket Israel supports hundreds of non-profit organizations caring for the needy. Leket Israel:
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Rescues over 110 tons of food a week that would otherwise be destroyed from hundreds of food producers.
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Coordinates the largest food purchasing cooperative for non-profit organizations in the country.
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Provides professional guidance to non-profit organizations in nutrition and food safety.
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Supplies over 5,000 volunteer prepared sandwiches a day to school children from dysfunctional homes in 24 cities."
Chanukkah is coming up folks... good music, good cause. How about it? You can get more info at Songs at a Table.
*Ok, let me be clear. I have nothing against women singing niggunim and would be very receptive to hearing a recording of such. But all of my experience with traditional niggunim has been with guys, both in personal singing and in recordings. The only recordings I've heard with women (e.g. the really mediocre UJR / Transcontinental recording "Niggun Anthology") have been really poor stuff. C'mon sisters. Get you're niggun on!
Jeremiah Lockwood is one of my favorite contemporary Jewish musicians. With this band Sway Machinery, he has the uncanny ability to fuse cantorial singing and old-school R&B guitar and horns and create something deeply resonant, both hip shaking and soul shaking at the same time. Recently, with support of the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, Lockwood has begun a musical experiment. In monthly installments he's exploring Chassidic niggunim by creating contemporary settings of older melodies. The exercise is an experiment in many ways. While he's deeply familiar with niggunim, he wants to see where they take him musically as a contemporary musician and he wants to see what happens when he brings on board his musician friends who aren't familiar with niggunim.
Here's a representative example, with Lockwood working with Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on the nigun "At the table."
Lockwood explained his motivation, and a bit on the background of niggunim, in the first Forward article back in March.
"In the Nigun Project, I am seeking to explore this seminal Jewish music form and remake it for the 21st century. The melodies of the Hasidim are a numinous and multivalenced text ripe for rediscovery and recontextualization, but as with so many aspects of Jewish traditional culture, the vast body of nigunim is lost to most people outside the religious community. The Nigun Project will reinterpret and bring these melodies to music lovers on the level playing field of art, where religious and nonreligious, Jew and non-Jew alike, can partake of that which is good."
I love Lockwood's work and I'm all for experiments but, after six or so installments I'm not sure how I feel about this one. For me two questions echo: how interesting are the reinterpretations (how good is the music) and how well does the project bring some essence of the niggunim to a contemporary audience that doesn't have direct connection with the niggunim tradition (how good is this music at conveying niggunim)? While I applaud the experiment, I don't think the music holds up well to either question.
First...is it good music? Lockwood and his guest musicians are all talented and have put a lot of energy into each recording. Undoubtedly each will find fans. And because of the revolving door of collaborators, Lockwood is systematically exploring different stylistic choices: mostly different flavors of indie-pop and hip-hop so far. That gives a certain breadth to the music but also makes it a bit thin. There is much less consistency or vision to link the installments than I would have hoped. While Lockwood understands niggunim, he seems to be giving too much control to his collaborators who don't. The result is fairly inconsistent and underwhelming.
This leads to the second question..how good is this music at recontextualizing (showcasing, drawing from, interpreting) niggunim? Unlike his work on recontextualizing cantorial singing, I find the niggunim project disappointing. As someone who deeply loves and finds power in the niggunim tradition, but also loves contemporary music and experiments like this, I had high expectations to love this project. But after listening to the first six, my only thoughts are that the tracks were well constructed but lacked any vision. After hearing them once, I had little interest in listening to them again. After listening to them a few times each I still had little interest in listening to them again. There's just a lot better out there.
Niggunim are not a melodic style as much as a participatory performance style. Niggunim melodies came from a wide variety of sources, some internal to the Chassidic movement and many borrowed from surrounding cultures. If there's a melody you love, you can make a niggun out of it. It's the making the niggun out of it that's the interesting part. Nigun as a musical practice is centered on a voice, typically a group, singing with an emotional intensity that rivals cantorial singing but in a much more intimate space. The reason that niggun are powerful is because there is a deep seated yearning in them, to escape words, to escape the body, to connect with the group and God. To my ears, this yearning and passion is lost in Lockwood's recordings. And with that lost, any real connection to niggunim is lost.
So, while I feel that Lockwood's Sway Machine truely understands and communicates the essence of cantorial singing, I feel that he's failed to do the same for niggunim in the Nigun Project. But not all experiments succeed and I'm very glad he's trying.
Here's an interview with Lockwood where he describes niggunim and what he's trying to do. Listen to Jeremiah Lockwood discuss the Nigun Project:
For the full set of Nigun project recordings see the Jewish Daily Forward. I want to thank and congratulate the Forward for their support of the experiment. My understanding is that they've provided Lockwood the recording facilities he needed to put the project together. That's a wonderful use of their facilities and I hope they continue the project and consider other similar ones in the future.
Finally, I want to point out a much much better current recording that interprets the nigun tradition from a contemporary perspective. The group Darkcho's recording, now out on Shempspeed, does a fabulous job at picking up and interpreting the core essence of niggunim. Check it out.
The singer is Ohad Moskovitz, an Israel performer on the Chassid circuit. This is a pretty big budget affair, but, from what I understand, pretty representative of this style of music in Israel. Whew.
One thing I always enjoy about this kind of performance is the use of boys to sing the high parts and provide contrast, the way a female backup vocalist might support a male lead vocalist in a secular concert. It always reminds of how in Elizabethan theater boy actors were used to play female parts for the exact same reason: women were not allowed on stage.
I love it when things grow organically. I post some new pop piano tracks from Moshe Benasher, and through the comments get introduced to a Jewish Chassid cellist. Elisheva's "a Jew, a musician and a student finding [her] balance" and is author of "Free Elisheva" blog. Here she is playing the Alter Rebbe's Niggun. Check it out..
Shabbat shalom everyone. This week's "get in the Shabbat grove" video has three new niggunim composed by YouTube user Zitzen1, the proprietor of the website L-ord.us. The site is interesting but rather confusingly laid out. If I understand it properly, Zitzen1 is an advocate of building a new Beis Hamikdosh (Holy Temple) right now in Israel. That's not a thought I'm comfortable with, at least not unless the moshiach comes really soon (which something I'm not holding my breath about either.) But each to his own.
So I'm catching up on my music reviews but still have a couple of good ones outstanding (sorry Gidi!). I would have gotten caught up except that I'm too easy to distract. This week's distraction, the Teruah Jewish Music Podcast. That's right, I'm working on a podcast. It's my brothers fault, really. I've had a couple of folks suggest that I start a podcast before, but when my brother and calls up specifically to ask me for one, I take notice. I've got a first draft just about done and will be circulating it to a few friends (maybe you?) for feedback this weekend and then posting it for all to hear sometime next week.
Right now, I'm looking forward to Shabbat. To help get in the groove, I thought I'd share one of my recent finds: the NeoHasid niggunim site. Niggunim are partially or fully wordless songs from the Chassidic tradition. The thought is that words are fine to help you focus your thoughts, but eventually they just get in the way. The NeoHasid site "is dedicated to bringing the wellsprings of Chasidut as far as the internet can carry them–an open door to Chasidic songs and traditions (aka "Chasidus"), for everyone: women and men, religious or secular, however observant, connected to a Jewish community or not." Neohasid is interesting because, unlike many Chasidic websites, NeoHasid.org "also features eco-Torah, egalitarian liturgies, and cultural reports on the new Chasidim." For a liberal Jew who loves much about Chasidus but has difficulty with the non-egalitarian aspects, it's pretty refreshing. New Chasidim? Must investigate further.
And I love their eclectic niggunim collection which includes very traditional niggun (often sung by women without any handwringing about Kol Isha) right next to contemporary compositions and interpretations (including a Rebbesoul electric jam on Avinu Malkeinu). While they're all worth listening to (and learning and singing), today I'd like to highlight the nigun Tzur Mishelo, from the Breslov tradition. The singer, Emilia Cataldo, describes it saying, "[t]his is a Breslov tune for the well known shabbat song. It is usually sung by men and is loud and rowdier. I picked up this more feminine version at Midreshet Bat Ayin, where I learned in 1999."
[Tzur Mishel] does not mention Shabbat. It is based on Birkat HaMazon. The first stanza - HaZan et olamo... He Who feeds His world... we ate His bread and drank His wine, therefore, we must thank Him... This is the theme of the first bracha of Birkat HaMazon. The second stanza announces that we will bless G-d with song and the sound of thanks for the lovely Land He gave our ancestors and for the food which has satiated us... This parallels the 2nd bracha of Birkat HaMazon. The third stanza (that's the one on the AW) relates to part of the third bracha - Jerusalem. We ask HaShem to have mercy on His people (us) and on Zion, the site of the Mikdash (in other words - Jerusalem), and send the Moshi'ach. The other part of the third bracha relates to the Beit HaMikdash. This is the fourth stanza of Tzur Mishelo - Yibaneh HaMikdash... All this over a full cup of wine, as Birkat HaMazon is (should be, can be) recited. The refrain, is like the Birkat HaZimun, the call to join together and bench.
I'm thinking I need to learn this one and add it to my families Shabbat zemirot repertoire..
Hi folks, sorry I've been scarce lately. Some work and home activities have kept me quiet. Hopefully I'll be back up to speed this week. To get things moving again, I want to let folks know about a niggunim mailing list that I joined recently. The list, managed by Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen of the Jerusalem-based Hazon study-program, is a periodic email containing a recorded niggun and some commentary. One of Yosef's recent emails begins like this...
"I am sharing with you a soulful nigun about our souls. This nigun was composed by Rav Yitzchak Hutner, a leading sage who headed the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York. He composed this nigun in honor of the wedding of his disciple, Rav Shlomo Freifeld. The nigun and the words of this song are on an old record produced by the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva, titled, “Torah Lives and Sings!”
The nigun is to the opening words of the ancient Hebrew prayer about the neshamah soul – that we chant each morning. The following is an English translation: “My God, the soul You placed within me is pure. You created it; You fashioned it; You breathed it into me. You safeguard it within me, and eventually You will take it from me and restore it to me in the future that is to come.”
As I've discussed before, the singing of niggunim is an important part of and introduction to traditional, particularly Chassidic, Jewish spiritual life. I'm excited to have Yosef's in my inbox on a regular basis. If you're interested, you can get more information at the Hazon website including info on their other Torah learning materials and mailing list. You can also contact Yosef at: chazon8 @ 012.net.il
Here's my weekly pre-Shabbat 'get in the mood' video. This week I don't know much about the recording other that the musician's name is Adi and that it's that the lyrics are from the Psalms (Psalm 63 and 19?). Elokai Netzor, recited at the conclusion of the Shemonei-Esrei/Amidah prayer and Psalm 19.
Open my heart to Your Torah
Here is a rough transliteration offered by the poster of the video.
yih'yu l'ratzon imrei fi v'hegyon libi lefanecha ANONAI tzuri v'goali
Update: I got a nice note from Adam (aka YouTube user FeivelJay770) correcting my lyrics source and pointing me to two other cool videos.
"Hi Jack, I'm go glad you shared the video on your blog. Many thanks. Spread the light. Here's the other video I recorded of Adi singing his niggun to this prayer at a Lag Bomer bonfire our friends made this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8GthSgFTuo
One thing- none of the lyrics are from Psalm 63. The prayer is from Elokai Netzor, recited at the conclusion of the Shemonei-Esrei/Amidah prayer though the last verse is indeed from Psalm 19, as you mentioned. However, Psalm 63 is indeed one of my favorite psalms and here is a video of me singing two verses from it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0V2QJeKRvc
Be blessed, have a happy and healthy new year, Adam"
Hat tip to YouTube user FeivelJay770 for posting the video.
According to Reb Edwards video notes the music being performed is...
"A niggun (Jewish melody) composed by one of the great Kabbalists of the 20th century, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag, ZTS"L, set to a piyut (liturgical poem) written by one of the Tsfat Kabbalists 400 years ago."
Here are two lovely examples of new niggunim from Israel. While both are instrumental, not vocal, they interpret and draw inspiration from the niggun tradition.
This first video doesn't have any of the arty dissonance I love, but every once and a while I force myself to listen to something that's just pretty. (It's good for me) And this video of Yoel Taieb and the Techelet Ensemble from Jerusalem, is pretty, but there is also a gentle sense of adventure to it that's gotten me to re-listen to it a number of times. It's basically a wedding video, but if you can take your music with a dose of rosy cheeked hand-holding then it's worth the watch. The Techelet Ensemble have two recordings available through CD Baby, "The World to Come" and "I will hope for him.
Techelet Ensemble Nigun
The second video is Amir Perelman and the "New Song for Jerusalem Quintet." I couldn't find out much about Perelman other than he "meshes the many musical styles he's picked up while plucking his way around the globe. Whether dabbling in traditional Indian music or playing contemporary Western material, the Israeli composer seems to always teeter his tunes on the edge of complexity." Whatever that means, this is lovely piece.
Amir Perelman Shtaltem Nigunim
hat tip to Yoel Taiem and YouTube member abperi for posting the videos.
'Music is the pulse of Jewish spirituality – song charts the biorhythms of the Jewish soul.' - England's Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks (from the Jewish Music Institute)
I received an email today from a relative who recently had very positive Jewish experience (musical and spiritual) with Rabbi Sigal Brier.
"While at Kripalu [Yoga Center] Dec. 24 and and 25, [we] participated in a kind of Cabbalistic sing-a-long led by Rabbi Sigal. We really enjoyed chanting with this very personable, interesting woman (and about 40 other people in the group). This was a very unique musical experience for me. It was so repetitious that I actually felt the Hebrew words flow (so different from my usual tortuous pronunciations!) and as the melody changed, got faster or quieter, the nuances of the words changed, too."
I've never had an experience like this. I daven in a minyan a couple of times a week and sometimes have good prayer days when I feel a real connection and sometimes I don't. I know that my experience is common and that a lot of Jews actively seek more 'spirituality.' I only put it in quotes because I really don't know what the word means. What is a mystical experience? What does it mean to seek a imminent relationship with God? That's beyond my ability to really understand.
But Judaism has always had seekers, some following traditional paths such as the Chassidim or neo-chassidic (e.g. Jewish Renewal). Some follow more exotic paths. But all of these paths seem to have musical accompaniment. The practice of niggun, or wordless melody, for example, is central to Chassidic practice and it's derivatives. DovBear Pinson, a Chassidic scholar, describes the niggun's connection to spirituality in this way...
"A wordless tune--as is much of Jewish mystical song, particularly Chassidic--is the way two individuals can communicate on a soulular transcendent level. Any breakdown in the verbal communicated mode can be repaired by creating a conduit that transcends words. When a person feels alienated from his Source, or for that manner, from his fellow man, a wordless tune which exists on a realm that defies distinctions, separations, and disharmony, is the most fitting remedy, causing a unity of souls."
This understanding of creating a conduit seems to capture what Rabbi Sigal tries to achieve with her chanting groups. According to her website, Rabbi Sigal is a Reconstructionist rabbi with a focus on what she calls Integrated Judaism "the integration of Jewish wisdom, traditions, and practices, with other holistic wisdom and practices. The foundational idea is the awareness of oneness, wholeness, and unity." While I've never heard the term "Integrated Judaism" (I think it's a bit of a Rabbi Sigal trademark), I've seen concepts like this floated around before under the rubric of 'JewBu,' or Jewish Buddhist. One of the best Conservative rabbi's I've had was a bit of JewBu. He'd studied Buddhism for a while before entering seminary and becoming a Rabbi. While he left any specific Buddhist practices behind, his religious sensibility was an interesting mix. He could balance a sense of awe in the sublime with an earthy sense of daily life in a way I don't see in many other Conservative rabbi's. My wife misses his sermons terribly.
I was interested to see that Rabbi Sigal is, to a degree, neo-Chassidic and explicitly references and teaches Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, as well as Yoga and Eastern "holistic wisdom and practices." The Kabbalah connection is something I expect more from the Jewish Renewal community than the Reconstructionist community, but Rabbi Sigal is clearly setting her own pace. Listening to the recording samples she offers on her website (she has a number of CDs for sale) I hear more Eastern and Middle-eastern music than niggun melodies, but I understand the connection.
I don't have any personal experience with Rabbi Sigal, and am always a bit worried when folks feel the need to supplement Judaism in the way she does, but did want to pass along the my relative's recommendation. If you're in the seeking a spiritual or mystical connection, then the musical traditions of the Chassidic and neo-Chassidic approaches may have value. If you want a less traditional, more yoga flavored version, then Rabbi Sigal may have something to offer.
One of the good folks on the Klezmeshack Jewish Music mailing list contributed a link to this video a couple of days ago. I got excited because I don't hear a lot of guitar in Jewish music (other than in the Chassidic pop groups). I used to play guitar a bit. While I haven't picked it up in years, ever since staring this blog I've been looking ideas about how I could play Jewish music on the guitar. This is one example.
Stacy Philips is "Dobro player, a fiddler, and the author of thirty books about these instruments." I became aware of his playing from his work on David Chevan and Warren Bryd's "This is the Afro-Semitic Experience" CD. Paul Howard is a "Connecticut-born guitarist, singer and songwriter" that plays with Stacy Philips and with the American roots band, Last Fair Deal. From the other Phillips and Howard videos available, it looks like this is their one Jewish recording.
Stacy Phillips & Paul Howard -Klezmer Medley
"Stacy Phillips & Paul Howard in Washington state in 2001. The tunes are Shalom Aleikhem, Khupah Tanz and Andy Statman's Slivovitz"
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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