5$ CD Sale at Craig N' Company

I don't do a lot of advertising but I thought I'd pass this one along... From Craig n' Co "Even if the markets are down...we've found a way to lift your spirits! This week only, every CD is $5!"

Craig 'n Co "produces award winning Jewish and Children's music as well as live concert events around the country." They've got a pretty interesting assortment of CD's including Craig Taubman's own discs (Friday Night Live is my favorite), Shira Klein and Todd Herzog's latest recordings, a range of great sampler discs including Celebrate Yiddish and Celebrate Passover, the Hanukkah Lounge and Hanukkah Live! discs, My Jewish Discover and My Newish Jewish Discovery (my kids favorite), and lots more. For 5 bucks, you can stock up.

Rebecca Teplow's Kaveh

I received an email recently asking me to announce Rebecca Teplow's new album, "Kaveh / Hope". I sat on it a while I waited for Teplow to get her website in order, but now that she has I'm delighted pass along the link. I haven't heard the whole album, just the sample clips, but I'm pretty impressed with what I've heard. Teplow has a painterly approach to song writing, one that layers the tiny precise brush-strokes of her clear and controlled voice over large voluptuous brush-strokes of shifting musical genres and textures. Which means that she can do the neat trick of swinging between cabaret, folk, and rock sounds without sounding contrived, clearly drawing on the different emotional strengths of each.

Teplow describes her approach likes this..

"People gain an image of what my music is about without reference to Hebrew. This is because the words are so vividly linked to the musical techniques used. For instance, in Kaveh, the hope that we are trying to hold onto when we are in a desperate situation is presented in the opening notes of "Kaveh" (which means "hope") with a series of dissonant chord clusters. When the words move into "strengthen yourself and G-d will instill courage in your heart", there is a strong resolution of the dissonance presented. Another example is present in the rhythmic drive of "Nachon Libi" (which means "steadfast is my heart") reflecting your heart racing towards G-d presence in your life, as if you are singing to G-d with your whole being. It is an announcement that you are ready for a spiritual connection. I will sing music even with my soul. The beat is awakening the world to G-d's presence in their life."

Here are a couple of samples. Check 'em out.

Teplow's "Nachon Libi" (sample)


Teplow's "Min Hametzar" (sample)


For more info or to order, visit her website or CD Baby.

Stereo Sinai - Biblegum Pop

I got a note via Facebook this morning from Miriam of Stereo Sinai, a self-described "biblegum pop" band from Chicago. Biblegum? Yikes. Fearing great kitsch, I bopped over to their website and hit play on their video for the Lech Lecha G-dcast. I was quite happily surprised. No kitsch here, just a duo with a great crackly, bouncing sound and a lot of heart. I lost about 20 minutes listening to the 'cast and a bunch of their other tracks. Great stuff. Love their "Gideon's Song" and "Beautiful City."

Here's their bio...

"If Kelly Clarkson and Gnarls Barkley had been on the mountain with Moses, they would have come down sounding a lot like Stereo Sinai. Mixing conservation with innovation, the band is working to lend renewed relevance to ancient texts.

Miriam Brosseau (vocals/guitar/songwriter) and Alan Jay Sufrin (vocals/guitar/bass/producer/songwriter) had been making their own music for several years
before Stereo Sinai came along. They'd recently moved to Chicago, and the rabbi who welcomed them into the community had just had a son. Wanting to do something special for the rabbi's family and their new baby, Gideon, Alan and Miriam teamed up to write a lullaby in what would become their unique ancient/modern style. Stereo Sinai's "Biblegum Pop" is the flip side to Ray Charles' and Kanye West’s pioneering steps, fusing traditional gospel music with modern themes. Taking original Hebrew verses from the book of Judges and mixing them with a synthesized pop arrangement, the band's first single, "Gideon's Song," was born."

Here's the Lech Lecha G-dcast. If you haven't caught a G-dcast before, you're in for a treat. Each G-dcast is a short, animated story or song from the current weeks parsha. This one, Lech Lecha, tell of the struggles of Abraham and Sarah from Sarah's perspective. Fabulous.

Stereo Sinai's Lech Lecha G-dcast

Parshat Lech Lecha from g-dcast on Vimeo.

Stereo Sinai is pretty socially conscious, so much so that they don't want to issue resource consuming, landfill destined CD's. Just downloadable tracks, straight from them to you. Here's their current set, check'em out. And hit the Stereo Sinai website for more info and tour information. Rumor has it that they're hitting the East Coast this summer. Rumor also has it that Miriam and Alan are getting married (to each other, of course) on Tu B'Shvat. Mazel tov!

Update: I forgot to mention that Miriam and Alan get serious style points for their hysterical Kol Isha sticker. What makes this sticker perfect is that if you're a traditional Jew who observes Kol Isha, this is a perfectly legitimate statement. In fact, I've had one or two requests (which I'm not going to honor) to put something like this on my blog when I'm highlighting a female vocalist. To a liberal Jew who doesn't observe Kol Isha, and maybe downright offended by it, this sticker takes on a much more derisive meaning. It's all about your own perspective. Love it. Guess what Miriam thinks?

Emap.FM for recordings of broadcast Klezmer concerts & more

Emap.FM, a streaming internet radio station from Austria, offers a great array of Jewish music programs with a strong emphasis in Klezmer. This includes a complete archive of the KlezMore concerts from 2004 to 2008 and includes performances from some of the best traditional and experimental klezmer bands out there. Some highlights (in my opinion) include

2004 - Adrianne Greenbaum's Fleytmuzic
2004 - Zakarya
2004 - Shtreiml
2006 - Klezmatics
2006 - Konsanans Retro
2007 - Daniel Kahn and Painted Bird
2007 - Isle of Klezbos
2008 - Klezmofabia
2008 - Andy Statman
2008 - Amsterdam Klezmer Band

In addition to the KlezMore shows, do a search for klezmer and Jewish and you'll find a bunch of other programs including a great set of "new Jewish drinking songs" by Geoff Berner.

Y-Love & DeScribe's "Change"

"Change", featuring DeScribe and Y-Love, is the first in the series of four songs that comprise "The Change EP". Shemspeed will be releasing one song per month, stay tuned to Teruah or to Shemspeed for updates. You can pick up the track on iTunes.

DeScribe & Y-Love "Change" (official music video)

Here's the Shemspeed blurb ...

"The BBC, Italy's La Repubblica, and XXL magazine have all featured Brooklyn-based MC Y-Love and his multilingual approach to hip-hop. Y-Love's 2008 debut album This is Babylon is still garnering praise for its mix of hip-hop, reggae, and r&b with global accents, but Y-Love isn't resting. Now, he's teaming up with Crown Heights collaborator DeScribe to give a fresh musical take on the most powerful word of 2009. Their new single "Change" mixes Y-Love's militant mysticism with the plaintive urgency of DeScribe's singing. Combining a driving, radio-ready beat, produced by Prodezra, and subject matter few dare to touch, "Change" truly stands out on the path from old to new."

Teruah Podcast Episode 2: The Story Show

It's been a whole month since I went live with the first Teruah Jewish Music podcast, Episode 1: The Hanukkah Show. The response has been amazing: over 750 downloads last time I checked and lots of great email. I'm glad that everyone's had fun with it.

Now it's time for Episode 2: The Story Show. In this episode I've rounded up a great array of Jewish story songs sung in English, everything from Yiddish novelty songs to brand new Indie Pop with stories ranging from the Torah to Chelm to New York. Check it out.

- Download - RSS Feed

Update: Sorry, I goofed. The iTunes subscription button wasn't working, but now it is.

Here's Episode 2's playlist. Please support the great musicians showcased on the podcast. Check out their websites. Go see them in concert. Buy a disc. Send them some email.

David Griffin's Hebrew School - "Irma Take Off Your Coat" Unreleased recording.

"Hebrew School is an innovative use of the genres of Indie rock and experimental music to mitigate, through recording and performance, the disaffection of Jewish life in a large urban center... This project is supported by a grant from the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, and made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York."`

And yeah, one aspect of Griffin's indie-pop sensibilities is that he uses his vocals as much for mood and tone as for meaning...which is a really polite way of saying I really wish he'd bring the vocals up in the mix so that we could hear the lyrics better. But he's promised to share the lyrics with us and I'll update this page with a link to them as soon as I get 'em. Griffin's hard at work on a full album of Hebrew School songs and has started to play them live. His website has details on his shows and I'm sure he'll drop me a line when the album is ready.

Update: Griffin came through with the lyric sheet, you can find it on his lyrics page. I love the phrase "the radio plays kenny rogers it becomes part of the songs we sings, along with the song about the almond and the carob tree." My dad was a big Rogers fan. Get me and my brothers together for more than 10 minutes and you'll be treated (or subjected?) to us singing The Gambler and Lucielle.

Dean Friedman - "Ariel" from his first album "Dean Friedman"

Note: Friedman's website says that the "Dean Friedman" album isn't available but it ain't so. I had no problem downloading it from Emusic.com and it appears to be available for download from Amazon.

"In the summer of 1977, Dean Friedman marked his entry into pop consciousness with the enormous success of his infectious hit single Ariel, a quirkily irresistible and uncategorizable pop song about a free spirited, music loving, vegetarian Jewish girl in a peasant blouse who lived, as the lyric goes, "...way on the other side of the Hudson."



Shelly Hirsch - "544 Hemlock Street" from "O Little Town of East New York"

"Shelley Hirsch is a marvelous performer with remarkable vocal talents, charm and a wicked sense of humor. She is one of the best-known improvisers of the Downtown New York City scene, performing with virtually every major experimental artist in New York and Europe, but has thus far released only two albums of her own music (both released only in Europe).

An award-winning radio play and Hirsch's most ambitious work, O Little Town Of East New York is a semi-autobiographical musical suite about growing up in Brooklyn in the '50s and '60s - reenactments and reminiscences of childhood, family, rites of passage, the ethnic melting pot, Johnny Mathis... It's a hilarious, nostalgic, touching and stunningly original album merging avant and pop sensibilities."

You can pick up Hirsch's album through the Tzadik Radical Jewish Culture website or Amazon digital download.

Pharaoh's Daughter - "Daddy's Pockets" from the album Daddy's Pockets

"Blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality, Basya Schechter leads her band, Pharaoh's Daughter, through swirling Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute, strings and electronica.Her sound has been cultivated by her Hasidic music background and a series of trips to the Middle East, Africa, Israel, Egypt, Central Africa, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece."

You can pickup "Daddy's Pockets" from CD Baby or iTunes.

Avi Kunstler - Shalom Aleichem from the album Eyes on Jerusalem

Avi Kunstler is a musician, songwriter, and father of current Jewish music performer Aryeh Kunstler. His wonderful "Eyes on Jerusalem" isn't available through JewishJukebox, MostlyMusic, Hatikvah or any of the other usual suspects (Eichler's has Avi's most recent album, "In this place of mercy"), but Avi still has some copies that he'd be happy to sell to anyone interested. Email me and I can get you hooked up.

Dovid Kerner - The Ballad of Ruth and Naomi from the album Bond of Love

From the New Jersey News "Kerner, 49, became a ba’al teshuva about 25 years ago and told NJ Jewish News he used “my new lifestyle, new way of living, confronting the prayer book every day, just putting my experiences, thoughts, and feelings into music” as the impetus for his project. He teamed up with his brother, Steven, 53, at the latter’s recording studio in Manalapan to produce Bond.

Dovid Kerner said he enjoys creating “message music” to encourage people to think. Some of the most admired folk musicians have been his inspiration; the influence of Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and others are quite recognizable in his music. “Woody could sit down and write a song about anything and everything,” Kerner said. “The Book of Ruth has always spoken to me very strongly, and I patterned [‘The Ballad of Ruth and Naomi”] on Woody’s ballads.”

You can out more about Kerner at his website and pick up his Bond of Love at iTunes.

Golem! - Warsaw is Khelm from the album Fresh off Boat

"Contrary to popular belief, Golem is neither a towering Jewish Frankenstein who defended the Jews of 17th Century Prague, nor a creature from “Lord of the Rings.” Golem is a 6 piece Eastern European folk-punk band.

Fronted by Annette Ezekiel Kogan - singer, accordionist, and 5-foot powerhouse; and vocalist, tambourine player, crazy-man Aaron Diskin; violin virtuoso Alicia Jo Rabins; trombonist extraordinaire Curtis Hasselbring; elegant upright bassist Taylor Bergren-Chrisman, and unstoppable drummer Tim Monaghan, Golem’s sound evokes wisps of old-world elegance filtered through the successes and disappointments of new-world dreams. Spending nights in Lower East Side immigrant-owned bagel shops and summers in Eastern Europe, Annette collects Jewish, Gypsy, and Slavic folk songs, and, with Golem, rewrites, adds, edits, and rearranges them along the way. These are the songs to which Eastern European grandparents danced over a century ago, and now Golem has its unwrinkled fans moshing to the same pulsing beats."

You can get Golem's Fresh Off Boat and other albums and goodies from their website.

Eden Mi-Qedem at The Sephardic Music Festival

I also missed the Sephardic Music Festival again. That's the trouble with being up here on the North Coast. I keep missing things.

Anyway, here's a great clip from this years Festival. The band is Eden Mi-Qedem a Jewish and Arab musical and cultural fusion group from Jerusalem. They describe themselves as "fus[ing] elements of Middle Eastern and Arabic World Music, Electronica, Pop, and Classic Rock, creating a genre-defying sound that is as modern as it is ancient. The group unabashedly draws inspiration from the Hebrew Bible as well as the Muslim call to prayer and shows the beauty that is possible when Jewish and Arab cultures and faiths work in harmony. The lyrics, which are in Hebrew, Arabic and English, are based on original poetry as well as sacred texts, and wed spiritual themes to highly danceable music."

You can find more information about the band, their new album and their tour schedule at their website and at CD Baby.

Eden Mi-Qedem at Sephardic Music Festival- Yedid Nefesh


Hat tip to YouTube user Kaphtziel for posting the video.

Irving TV & The Klezkamp Slow Jam

Once again I've missed KlezKamp. Robin didn't. She finally got to go this year and, with trusty sidekick Irving the Rubber Chicken, documented the festivities. The video below is just one of her "Irving TV" productions which also include videos of the Hasidic Dance Band, Yiddish Singers, and, of course, the Chanukkah Chicken. They're a hysterical (and musical!) snapshot of one of the premier klezmer events of the year. Someday I hope to make it too, but until then I'll have Irving TV.

According to Robin, "[t]his is the evening Slow Jam, led by Sherry Mayrent on the evening of 22 December, featuring a mad kickass solo by Hartley."

KlezKamp 2008 - Slow Jam - 22 December - Part I

Hat tip to Robin for shooting and posting the videos.

For MLK Day: Dave Brubeck's "The Gates of Justice"

Dr. Martin Luther King day is a rather singularly American holiday. It captures a pivotal moment in our collectively national history, reminding us of who we were and who we are becoming. It also challenges us individually, both to live up to the ideals of our nation (all men are created equal) but to be ready to work hard as individuals to push our nation in the right direction. The national ethic on the shoulders of hardworking individuals. So American and such a good yearly reminder for us individuals. Even if our shoulders are neither as strong or as resolute as those of Martin Luther King, we have no excuse for not trying.

I spent yesterday at work, not at a Martin Luther King Day celebration, though I've been to many in the past. I did spend a good chunk of it listening to Dave Brubeck's "The Gates of Justice." Here's an excerpt from its liner notes (courtesy of the Jewish Virtual Library).

"Henry David Thoreau once said, “When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” No album comes closer to fulfilling this statement then Dave Brubeck's The Gates of Justice, a jazz-tinged cantata that combines wisdom from the Torah with speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the writings of Hillel.

Written in the late 1960s at the end of the civil rights movement, Gates was Brubeck's musical attempt at forging a common bond between the American Jewish and black communities. In a time of national polarization over the Vietnam War, and the fight for equal rights for all Americans, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati invited Brubeck to compose a piece that would awaken the spiritual connections between the two communities. According to the composer, “They were both enslaved, uprooted from their homelands and wandered in the diaspora.” Brubeck also noted that the historical narratives of both peoples have many parallels. Thoreau would be pleased to know that Brubeck masterfully combined elements from the “earliest and latest” times to create this powerful composition.

This is not a “Jewish” sounding album, but its message is undoubtedly a Jewish value: the brotherhood of man."

I think that's right, in the sense that it doesn't use motifs from any recognizable Jewish liturgical or secular source. But I've always loved this piece and feel strongly Brubeck's impulse and it resonates for me as being deeply Jewish. But I want to be clear. While there were many Jew deeply committed and involved in the Civil Rights movement (including being murdered for their participation), I have no interest in appropriating Martin Luther King Day as a Jewish holiday or making a big "us too" claim. The only "us" I'm interested is the American us and how Martin Luther King Day motivates the American us to better live up to King's dream and our national ideals. I think that Brubeck's piece capture both beautifully.

To listen to excerpts of this amazing piece of music hop over to Amazon.

Quick note: The Martin Luther King photo above comes from the Life Magazine archive hosted by Google. It was take in Washington DC in 1963 by photographer Francis Miller as Dr. King addressed a crowd during a civil rights rally.

Jewdyssee - The return of Yiddish cabaret!

There's definitely something in the air. Jewish music, everything from klezmer to cantorial, is getting caught up, chopped up, and whipped up into a frenzy in dance clubs around the world by adventerous DJ's and musicians who love the crazy funkiness of many traditional Jewish musical forms. I wrote recently (here and here) about the British klezmer / house DJ mashup "Ghettoplotz" and many times (including here and here) about the Canadian klezmer accordion player & hip hop DJ Socalled. Not to mention Diwon and Erran Baron Cohen. Today's addition to the fray is Germany's Jewdyssee, who draw on the over-the-top visual theatrics of Yiddish cabaret as the focus for there genre-bending music excursions.

From a recent interview over at The Jew Spot"

"Jewdyssee is currently a music project. What we are aiming to achieve through our music is the celebration of Jewish music and culture that shows this culture is alive, vibrant and evolving.

The name Jewdyssee comes from the word Odyssey that describes a journey – a journey to consciousness. The name reflects our musical journey exploring the old Yiddish songs and bringing them into a current day musical context.

Jewdyssee is not about making a political or religious statement. We just want to show that our culture not only has a tragic history, but that there is a great wealth of music and culture to be celebrated and that this culture is a current part of our lives that we want to express and share."

Sounds great to me. Both the sentiment and the music. Check out Jew Spot for the full interview. And check out the Jewdyssee MySpace page for more info.

JEWDYSSEE

Update: Ok, so I forgot to mention that Jewdyssee will be playing the upcoming Jewlicious Festival at the end of February - early March in the LA / Long Beach area. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, check it out.