Anim Zimros, Breslov Niggun

Hi Folks,

Shabbat shalom. I've had a long week couple of week. I was in upstate NY yesterday on a work trip, then got up at 4am this morning finishing up some work. Also got grumpy at my daughter for no really good reason. sigh. Hopefully the candy buttons I bought her, along with a good hug, will make up for it.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to shabbat. Here's a good 'get in the shabbat groove video. According to the YouTube notes, it's Yisroel Gottlieb singing an old Breslov niggunim for Anim Zmiriot. I really love niggunim and could listen to them all day. I really need to find some better recordings than I have, though. I keep finding accompanied choral arrangements. What I really want is disks of niggunim like this. A few voices, unaccompanied. I'd like to finding them for as many of the Chassidic groups as I can. Sounds like yet another project...

Anim Zimros, old Breslov Niggun

For another take on Anim Zimros, check out this jazz performance by Jeremy Siskind, Miles Brown, Yonatan Rosen at the Knitting Factory in NYC. I could get lost in this too, though maybe not all day.

Anim Zmiros - Knitting Factory

Update: I've gotten a couple of great recommendations for Niggunim albums. My friend Binyomin Ginzberg, of JewishMusician.com and the Breslov Bar Band, suggested "The Hasidic Niggun as Sung by the Hasidim", which is a set of field recordings put out by The Jewish Music Research Centre in 2004. Avishai suggested Yehuda Solomon's Beyond Words albums. They are available from JewishJukebox.com and Mostly Music. All of the web sites have clips. Check 'em out.

Hat tip to YouTubeUsers GotToBeNanach for the Breslov version and Seinav for the jazz version.

Andy Statman Plays Jazz version of Modzitz Chasidim Melody

The Heichal HaNegina blog recently posted this wonderful video of Andy Statman (clarinet), with Jim Whitney (bass) and Larry Eagle (drums) playing a house concert in Nashville, TN. Statman is playing a jazz version of a traditional Modzitz Chassidic melody. Modzitz is a Chassidic dynasty known for it's nigunim. The Modzitzer's have a web page with lots of their traditional nigunim. They're well worth the listen. I immediately recognized and was signing along with Ani Monim.

Andy Statman Trio: Live In Nashville

Hat Tip to BlogInDm for pointing me to the Heichal NaNegina post.

Rebbe Nachman's Lecho Dodi Niggun

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

Rebbe Nachman's Lecho Dodi Niggun


"The Kisufim Trio and Rav Lazer Brody sing this beautiful melody that highlights the Friday night (Kabbalat Shabbat) prayers of the Breslever Chassidim."

Video posted by rabbilazer aka Rav Lazer Brody

Acoustic Niggun (and other music videos for Lag Ba'Omer)

I was catching up on some of my favorite j-music blogs and ran across a bunch of music videos posted on "Life of Rubin" for Lag Ba'Omer. They're all worth watching, but I particularly enjoyed this one:

Niggun - Acoustic style
A new band aiming to play niggunim (Jewish songs) in a way that captures the energy and beauty of the songs but keeps the overall sound as "raw" and "stripped-down."


I'm not sure who this "new band" is, hopefully I'll be able to track them down. There are a couple of other videos on YouTube from the same video session, but no more clues to who/where these folks are.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the same niggun that Dave Grisman and Andy Stateman recorded on "Songs of Our Fathers" (another heavy rotation disc for me). You can see Ari Davidow's review of SoOF at KlezmerShack.

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.

A Treasure Trove of Nigunim

One of the regular posters on the Shamash.Org Jewish Music mailing list shared a pointer to an amazing collection of Chassidic niguninim. The collection, which also includes audio lessons on a variety of Chassidic topics, includes both versions with Yiddish and English introductions and commentary. The collection is hosted by Heichel Menachem, a non-profit organization, "established in 1994 to spread the teachings of Chassidus (Hassidism)."

I've had an interest in nigun for a while, but this is the first place I've run across that not only has a good collection but does a great a job of leaving them situated in their religious context. I'll be listening to these for weeks and learning a lot about Chassidus from the comments.

I'm particularly happy to run across this site right now. As I mentioned in a previous post I've been trying to get my head around the frum music scene. While I read the blogs and listen to the podcasts, I've had a hard time really getting into the music. My theory has been that I just don't have the basic reference points to know how to listen to music (I also hate the perky, glossy production, but that's a different issue). I've come to understand that the driving energy of the frum music community is Chassidus, which has a long and deep musical tradition.

One of my goals right now is to get my head (and ears) into that musical tradition. Nigun is an important part of that and provides a basis (I think) for a lot of the currently popular chassidic music. And this collection of nigun has the raw, authentic, unproduced field recording sound that I can appreciate.

One thing I'm trying to find right now are some good essays (hopefully with accompanying recordings) that talk about the role of music in Chassidus. I'm aware of a highly regarded one called "Song in Hassidic Life" by the prolific Jewish music author Velvel Pasternak. Unfortunately, the article doesn't seem to be online anymore. I've emailed Pasternak's publishing company, Tara Music, to see if they can provide a copy. If I can get the article or can round up any other good references or nigun collections, I'll let everyone know.