Songza - Music aggregator search engine

Whew. Between a touch of the plauge, an extra busy work week, and working on my second podcast this blog hasn't gotten much love lately. But never fear. Lots high weirdness (I mean Jewish music) by Internet coming your way.

Last week I found yet another new Internet music service I can no longer live without. It's called Songza (yes, all Internet music services have wonky names. But I'm no one to judge. Last week I named a NASA research project I'm working MCP for "Mission Control Procedures" and also for Master Control Program, the evil computer program in Tron. Nerd bliss.) Anyway, back to Songza. Songza is a meta-search engine. If you punch a query into it, say "Adon Olam", you'll get back 40 hits from music sites such as YouTube (Ross Levy's "Funk Version" and "Yehuda Glantz's on the Charango" Yee Ha!) and Imeem (The Shetl All Stars and Fortuna). Did you know that Moshie Skier's first band Kaballah recorded a cool version of Adon Olam that sounds a lot like Blue Oyster Cult? Now you do.

Here are some fun queries to get started with. Songza won't let me link to them, so you'll have to go types them in yourself.

Adon Olam, Rabbi (over 40 hits including lots of Israel Mizrachi recordings), and Jewish (naturally. Results include both recordings of Hava Nagila, the song Jewish Women that played recently, and an interview with Jewish secular musician Gary Lucas talking to a Jewish Leadership website, a Yemeni Jewish Dance, and a Moroccan Sephardic wedding song). I got good results for Mizrachi, Sephardic, Klezmer, and Yiddish (including Janet Klein's inimitable "Yiddish Hula Boy". Random Hebrew and Yiddish phrases work great including Golem, Shir, and Belz. (Ladino phrases don't work as well because of the similarity between Ladino and Spanish. Too many false hits for me, but give it a try.) And of, course, try your favorite artists. Here are a few that I tried immediately and got lots of hits on: Basya Shecter, Sway Machinery, Socalled, Lipa, Davka, Craig Taubman, Daniel Kahn, and Geoff Berner.

Have fun and let me know what you discover.

Maurice Bernstein talks about founding a record label, and not much else of interest

Music promoter and lifestyle marketer Maurice Bernstein sat down recently for an interview with the website LeadEl - Leadership Elements (Jewish Leaders, Jewish Activism) . It's a milding interesting video, but, for me at least, a very frustrating one. Once the interview gets past Bernstein's personal background everyone seems runs out of steam. Bernstein and the interviewer discuss the fact that there are lots of Jews in popular music. (We know that). They note the long standing and complicated relationship between Jews and African Americans in popular music. (We know too. Really.) For a leadership lecture produced by a group that claims to be about Jewish activism I was keenly disappointed that there was no discussion at all about new energy being invested in Jews making and promoting culturally and/or religiously Jewish music. Even though Bernstein isn't involved in this aspect of music, I would have loved to have heard his thoughts. Hearing about his passion and naivete when starting out is a lot less useful than a few practical suggestions for marketing Jewish music would have been. LeadEl says that"[t]raditional definitions of identity disappear, or become irrelevant, are not cool. Yet generations’ of accumulated wisdom and insights are lost in the process, and many people, particularly young people, find themselves rootless." I personally object to the first sentence of your thesis, guys, and this video did nothing to support the second. Bleah.

"How do you go and find a music label? For Maurice Bernstein it was a gradual process, and in this interview with Leadel.NET, he tells us of the path that led him there. He also discusses his role models, the issue of Jews in American music, and the comfort of being a Jew in New York where, unlike his hometown of Manchester, Hanukkah is mentioned on TV."

Maurice Bernstein

Standards for a Jewish Retirement Home Gig

One of the best parts of this writing this blog is the great questions I get in my inbox. Today's came (via Twitter) from a fellow who is going to be playing violin at a Jewish retirement home sometime soon. He was hoping to get an idea of what to play. This is a tough question because I don't know who the audience is or, besides being mostly of Ashkenazi descent, what their background is. But it's hard to go too wrong with the standards. I'll give my answer in a moment, but first I want to give credit to Joy Perrin "Music for Seniors," from Millvale California, who's set list gave me a jumping off point.

Here's my response:

"I think your best bet is picking up a copy of Velvel Pasternak's Jewish Fake Book. It's well respected with lots of the standard repetoire represented. I don't think it's in the right key for the violin, but transposing it should be pretty straightforward.

http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Fake-Book-Books/dp/0933676697

There's also a nice collection of standard klezmer repertoire in C that might be useful.

http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/store/smp_detail.html?item=1735726&cart=34406573975855679&cm_re=289.1.4-_-Results+Item-_-Title

There are many wonderful violinists who have recorded Jewish music, but probably the best violin focused albums are Itzhak Perlman's "A Jewish Violin" and "Klezmer: In a Fiddler's House." Here's a video of Perlman playing with some other notable klezmer musicians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkmFgQ9fM94

You can find Perlman's albums here:
http://www.israel-music.com/itzhak_perlman/jewish_violin/ and at amazon.com

Here's a list of songs (with videos) that would be reasonable starting points:

Oiffen Pripichik - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKpHhHA_oRM
Beltz - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K2A4W99ejs
Grine Kuzinah - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4SbUpOkp2o
As Der Rebbe Tzingt - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8MTSe6QdLY
My Yiddishe Mama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWWc7vBnSP0
Sheyne Vi de Levone - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWbYjr3i-nU
Abi Gezunt - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3iLIpKR0GE &
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMZE6PH6tKQ
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe2UXccid40
Rozhinkes mit Mandlen -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b3hxYFB068&feature=related
Hava Nagilah - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dIafKIty2s
Hatikvah (Israeli National Anthem) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd2v8kqjYwc
Tumbalalaika - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTnhxBENUAY
Papirosen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXxS4jLkVxY
Dona Dona - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySgIZCW1Uk
Rumania, Rumania - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeJGN9wUn5o
Shalom Aliechem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mvy2TCx3QQ
If I Were a Rich Man - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc
Sunrise Sunset - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLLEBAQLZ3Q

The last two are from Fiddler on the Roof. Can't go wrong with Fiddler.

One thing to note is that you can have some fun with this material. You can play the songs as authentic Yiddish / klezmer as you like, or not. In the 30's and 40's this material was often played in the US with a "Yiddish swing" feel and in the 1950's much of it was played to Latin rhythms during America's Latin craze (think Ricki Ricardo). In the 1960's much of was reinterpreted through the lens of American Folk music. I've heard classical, rock, and jazz, flavoured versions of many of these. I'd also feel free to mix in other standard American repertoire pieces from the 30's, 40's and 50's."

If you've lived in a Jewish retirement home or played music in one and have any comments, I'd love to hear them and will pass them along.

Lecha Dodi with voice and organ

Shabbat shalom everyone,

It's a snowy day on the North Coast (Michigan) and I'm looking forward to Shabbat. For my weekly Shabbat get-in-the-groove video I've decided to broaden myself a bit. The video is of the Kabbalat Shabbat prayer L'chah Dodi sung by David Fair at Rodef Shalom, a Reform Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh, PA.

L'chah Dodi

I say broaden myself because, not growing up in the Reform Movement, I'm not so comfortable with instrumental accompaniment to Shabbat prayer. But the Reform community accepted the use of the organ as one of the early defining characteristics of the Reform service (though guitar is probably much more common these days). But my itchiness aside, Mr. Fair does a fine job leading his choir, organist, and community.

Hat tip to YouTube user castodivo for posting the video.

Mail Bag / News

Here are a couple of announcements I've received lately

- Brian Bender, of the Little Shop of Horas, the Wholesale Klezmer Band and other fine klezmer groups, recently went on a trip to Western Europe had as written about his adventure in his blog, A Klezmer Odyssey.

- Daniel Schide gave a great talk on John Zorn and Radical Jewish Culture at the Association of Jewish Libraries Annual Conference. You can get the mp3 of the lecture here: http://jewishlibraries.org/podcast/?p=169 or get it on iTunes by searching under podcasts for 'AJL'.

- I received the 26th English edition of Chasidinews - Jewish Music digital magazine. Chasidinews, as you'd guess from the title, focuses on the Chasidic music scene. In this edition, we find out that everyone is on everyone else's albums and they're all famous and important. But if you want a checklist of new Chasidic albums coming out in the near future, this is a great resource.

- The 16th Street JCC in Washington DC is hosing an "Inaugural Ball for the Rest of Us." Don't know who's providing the music.

- The Washington Post has an obituary for Joza Karas, "a Czechoslovakian-born violin teacher who spent decades tracking down and reviving musical compositions written by Jews in the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt, died Nov. 28 at his home in Bloomfield, Conn."

Creating a Jewish Journey Group

One of the things my synagogue does occasionally is organize "Jewish Journey Groups." These groups are communal Jewish learning experiences, are often lay led, and can be on any Jewish topic. I've been thinking for a while that the next time we do them (probably next fall) I'd like to lead one. My experiences learning and writing about Jewish music have been deeply transformative for myself and my family in a very positive way. I'd like to share and encourage that with others in my community. I don't have all of it worked out, but I thought I'd share my current rough plan and get feedback. Does this sound like something you'd like to attend? What would improve it? There will be plenty of holes that could be filled in.

Name: Journeys in Jewish Music
Journey Group Description: Listen, share, and discuss the various forms of Jewish music as means to enrich our lives and guide us to trans-denominational, trans-national, and trans-generational engagement with Judaism.
Number of Meetings: 5 (?)
Meeting Format: 1 hour, with 20 to 30 minutes of introductory lecture and music, followed by music sharing and discussion.

Meeting 1. The music of prayer
Description: In this meeting we'll talk about and listen to examples of traditional nusach and cantorial, contemporary pop / songleader style, Reform organ and choral prayers, Chassidic niggunim, and Hindu-chant-style Hebrew Kirtan as well as contrast leader vs. participatory approaches, hard skills and easy skills, and emotional / spiritual vs intellectual engagement.
Discussion questions: What kind of prayer music speaks to you? How do you trade off the contrasts above? What prayer experiences have moved you? Do you have a favorite prayer melody or practice? Can you teach us it?

Meeting 2. The music of the home
Description: In this meeting we'll talk about and listen to examples of shabbat z'mirot (table songs), lullabies, holiday songs, and the evening sh'ma.
Discussion questions: What does your home sound like? What are your family traditions? Can you teach us? Have you added anything new to the mix lately?

Meeting 3. 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?

UPDATE: Wow I messed this one up. The hip-hop musician Y-Love just wrote about an email he received about the Jewish equivalent of "White Privilege", where American Ashkenazi Jews unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) marginalize non-Askenazi Jews. His comments and those of the email author are right on and very much what I want to challenge the group with in this meeting. But after reading his post, I think I can go much further than I did here.

Meeting 4. Radical Jewish Culture and Shiny Shoe Music, the music of the contemporary Jewish pop scenes
Description: A year a go I bought a Matisyahu album in a Target, not a Judaica store. What's going on here? In this meeting we'll talk about and listen to a wild array of music voices that are making right now a silver age in American Jewish music including jazz, rock, punk, hip hop, and pop artists from across the Jewish cultural and religious landscape including Matisyahu, Y-Love, SoCalled, The Shandes, Hassidic New Wave, Pharoah's Daughter, Blue Fringe, Avraham Fried, Lipa Schmetlzer, Eli Gerstner, Hip Hop Hoodios, Sway Machinery. If there's a teenager in the house, bring them to this one!
Discussion questions: What's driving the demand and inspiration for pop Jewish music? What experiences have group members had? Jewish immigrants to the US had a vibrant musical culture, but as we assimilated we (the assimilated Conservative and Reform Jew) gave that up in favor of the larger American culture. Is developing our own musical culture now a retraction of that assimilation? Is that a positive thing (adding our cultural voice to the mix) or a negative thing (elitism, loss of a communal sense of being American)? What about the traditional Jewish groups (Chassid, Orthodox) that have their own well defined music culture & industry? Is that a model to be emulated or feared?

I've got ideas for more, but need to give it more thought. Any feedback, folks?

Matisyahu: Havdalla & "I Will Be Light"

Shabbat shalom, everyone

Hanukkah's done. New Year's done. Normalcy will resume any minute now. I'm really looking forward to Shabbat tonight. I needed it this week. Here's this week's pre-Shabbat, get in the groove, video. It's Matisyahu performing Havdalla at a recent show. By the way, in case I haven't said it enough, if you have the opportunity to go see Matis in concert you should do it. He's an amazing performer. His new EP is amazing. Every bit as good as his first album, and that's saying something.

"Havdallah" - Video Blog

Zeda's Beat Box rocks St. Louis

Here's a quick Friday morning shout out to Zeda's Beat Box in St. Louis. I was looking for a pre-Shabbat, get in the groove, video and ran across this one from Zeda's recent concert at Cicero's. Wish I was there. It looks like it was a great show.

According to their website,

"Zeda's Beat Box is an interfaith rock band that sets ancient Hebrew text to the deep groove of reggae and modern dance music. The band performs in both temples and rock music venues around the St. Louis area. Zeda's Beat Box was formed in January of 2007 by Dave Simon, the founder of Dave Simon's Rock School. Simon has written new compositions under the guidance of Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose, Rabbi Dr. Neal Rose, and Cantorial Soloist Sharon Nathanson of Congregation B'nai Amoona. Lyrics are set in new English text as well as segments of Hebrew text derived from the Jewish Friday night Shabbat service. To build the band, Simon recruited four teenagers who participate in Rock School's All-Star Band program. The All-Star Band program is for musically advanced teens that can play their instruments at a semi-professional skill level.

Great job, gang. Rumor has it they have an album out, but I haven't heard it yet.

Zeda's Beat Box: Havenu Shalom Aleichem

Hat tip to YouTube user hblieb for posting the video.

Phil Blank's "Old Songs"

I'm a big fan of Phil Blank's paintings and illustrations and have posted them here in the past. I saw this this one pop up on his blog today and immediately shot him an email to get permission to repost it here. In his response Phil explained that the" third story came from someone who saw a show of mine- hopefully that cassette will turn up! I'd love to hear it. The "old Russian lefties" were indeed Jewish and the neighborhood was coney island or thereabouts. Apparently there are some pictures too." While he didn't specify, the show Phil mentioned could be one of his art shows or could have been one of his klezmer concerts with his band Gmish. They're onstage as I write this at Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC. Wish I could be there.

Lost in translation - Di Grine Kuzine (The Greenhorn Cousin) in Yiddish and English

The working title for my next podcast is The Story Show. My plan is to focus on songs with strong narratives that come out of various aspects of the Jewish experience. Oh, and the songs should be in English. I'll explain that constraint another time, but I acknowledge that it's a problematic one for a lot of reasons. It is pushing me to search in interesting corners of Jewish music, though. One of my recent searches was to see if anyone had recorded the Yiddish classic "Di Grine Kuzine (The Greenhorn Cousin)" in English. Answer: Absolutely. But what I found was at that the moment in 1942 that a mainstream American musician (Benny Goodman, with vocalist Peggy Lee) wanted to take on the song the lyrics were substantially rewritten. I'm not a good historian, so I'm on shaky ground speculating about why the verses were re-written. Some obvious candidates, though, include the fact that the United States was in the middle of World War II and that non-patriotic verses would have been a big problem and the changing self-image of American Jews at that time.

The original song lyric, translation courtesy of the Zemerl archive, was a classic frustrated immigrant song. In it the singer's starry-eyed cousin arrives from Europe looking for the American dream.

"A girl cousin arrived, a greenhorn,
Beautiful as gold she was
Cheeks red as oranges
Tiny feet, just made for dancing. "

The cousin, once confronted by the realities of life in America, grows bitter about her new home.

"But, as the years passed by
My cousin went downhill
From working hard week after week
Nothing remained but a wreck.

Today, as I meet her in the street
And I ask: How's everything, Greenhorn?
She just sighs and I read in her eye:
To hell with Columbus' paradise! "

This progression is typical of not only of many Yiddish immigrant songs, but of immigrant songs in general. For example, The contemporary Los Angeles-based American Latino group Ozomatli has a similar lyric in their song "(Who Discovered) America " (lyrics courtesy of All The Lyrics.)

The song begins...
"I heard her story from across the sea,
There was never one as fair, lovely as she.
With sun soaked skin and eyes of green,
with all kindness and grace of a queen."

and ends

"How could I've know I'd been hypnotized.
There was more to my queen than first met the eye.
She had a chain of lovers who died her slaves
With a notion of blood for every drop that she gave."

Getting back to Di Grine Kusine, the song has been recored many times using the original Yiddish lyrics. Here's a raucus contemporary version of the song performed by the outstanding Danish band Klezmofobia. As best I can follow the Yiddish, the band is sticking nicely to the original lyric. (Any Yiddish speakers want to verify that?)

Klezmofobia - Grine Kusine

While this story of the difficulties of immigration was immensely popular to an earlier generation of American Jews, it wasn't what got presented to war-time American ears by Benny Goodman and Peggy Lee. Their lyric, which you can listen to in the recording below, looses the immigrant frustration with America and focuses on the romantic tensions between an inexperienced young woman and her equally fumbling suitor. Here's the Goodman / Lee renamed and rewritten version.

My Little Cousin - Benny Goodman & Peggy Lee

I've had no trouble finding more contemporary recordings of musicians following the original Yiddish lyrics, the Klezmofobia version for example. I've also had no trouble finding musicians following the Goodman / Lee version. Here's a live video of Paul Shaprio and his Ribs and Brisket Revue playing My Little Cousin from his album Essen.

"My Little Cousin" by Paul Shapiro's Ribs and Brisket Revue

What I haven't been able to find is anyone singing a translation of the original Yiddish lyric in English. Again, while I don't know why that is I'm not shy about speculating. One answer might be that someone has and I just haven't searched hard enough. Another might be that the Klezmer and Yiddish revival movements have generally focused on the use of authentic Yiddish, not on the use of in-authentic English translations. As I've noted elsewhere, while I approve of this focus I am also sometimes frustrated by it. A lot of our cultural history is locked up in languages (Yiddish and Ladio) that are not spoken by many contemporary Jews. Getting more Jews to speak these languages is a noble adventure that I'm sure will yield some limited success. But with Israel adopting Hebrew as it's nation lanaguage, it seems unlikely that Yiddish or Ladino will every play a significant role again. Keep the songs in their original helps us hold onto our cultural history in one way. But I would personally love to see more effort made to develop singable translations of Yiddish and Ladino songs to help unlock some of this history in another way.

Hat tip to YouTube users Heimdal4 for the Klezmofobia video and Brandibb for the Benny Goodman video.