Michigan Jewish Music - upcoming events

Lots of great Jewish music happening on the North Coast this summer. Check it out.

July 10: Matisyahu plays at Detroit's St. Andrews Hall

"Known for blending traditional Jewish themes with Reggae, rock and hip hop beat-boxing sounds, Matisyahu's single "King Without a Crown" was a Top 40 hit in the United States of America" I've seen Matisyahu twice before. He's fantastic live.

July 16: Michigan State Klezmorim and Wisaal play at Detroit's Concert of Colors.

One of Lansing's two great klezmer groups hits Detroit as part of a huge two day free music fest. While you're there also check out Arab fusion band Wisaal, who "attempt[s] to fuse elements of the Arabic musical heritage with Klezmer, Indian, and American influences while respecting the spirit of these traditions.

July 20: Israeli jazz saxophone / clarinet player Anat Cohen plays the Detroit Jazz Fest (at the Detroit Jewish Community)

Since arriving in New York in 1999, Israeli born Anat Cohen has established herself as one of the primary voices of her generation. The saxophonist/clarinetist is a bandleader and composer, conversant in jazz, classical, Brazilian, Argentine and Afro-Cuban styles. Her historic engagement at the Village Vanguard in 2007 marked her as the first female reed player and the first Israeli to headline at the club. She topped the Rising Star-Clarinet category in DownBeat Magazine’s critics poll in both 2007 and 2008, and placed prominently in a total of four categories including Rising Star Jazz Artist.

I'll probably be ushering. Come say hi!

July 20: Heartland Klezmorim play at the Meridian Historic Village in Okemos

Detroit's other great klezmer band play an outdoor show at the Meridian Historic Village.





July 23: Heller, Steyer & Green will be playing Java Havdallah at Temple Kol Ami

Heller, Steyer & Green features the talents of Cantor Penny Heller Steyer of Temple Shir Shalom and her children Tiffany Steyer Green, cantorial soloist at Temple Kol Ami, and Matthew G. Steyer, visiting cantorial soloist at Temple Kol Ami and Temple Shir Shalom. They stole the show at the Detroit JCC's Stephen Gottlieb Music Fest a couple of months ago.

August 26 to 29: Adrienne Cooper, Daniel Kahn, Susan Leviton, Judith Eisner and Douglas Cole, Neil Alexander and Klezmer Fusion Band, Cantor M. Smolash, and Cantorial Soloist Neil Michaels, along with the PuppetART theater of Detroit and dancer Steve Weintraub, perform at the International Association of Yiddish Clubs 14th Conference in Novi

Check out the IAYC conference entertainment page for bios of all the bands. So much great music. I may have to crash this party.

The Red Sea Pedestrians play pretty much everywhere and everywhen.
My favorite local roots jazz klezmer gang have a crazy busy gig schedule and a brand new album out. They'll be playing near you soon, so no excuses.





Steve Klaper, The Jewish Troubadour, will be hanging out at the Song & Spirit Institute for Peace in Berkley MI and Congregation Shir Tikva in Troy, MI

Ravid Kahalani's Yemen Blues

The excellent music blog Aspara "genre- and tradition- crossing music from around the world" recently ran a nice piece on Yemen Blues, an Israeli group led by Ravid Kahalani. As Aspara notes, Kahalani mixes "blues blended with Yemenite Jewish chants, West African percussion, funk, and much, much more. Great stuff. Check out the Asapra article for the full story.

Um Min Al Yaman - Yemen Blues

You can get more info on Yemen Blues at the usual places including YemenBlues.com, twitter, and their MySpace and Facebook pages. YB is touring North America right now, so check out their gig schedule (this means you NY, Chicago, Calgary and LA).

Lana Ross: Jewish Classical Guitar

Here's what I know. Lana Ross plays classical styled guitar and has three recordings on CD Baby, two of which are Jewish themed. Lana Ross based out of Canada and is associated with married to Russian - Canadian classical / flamenco guitar player Andrei Krylov. That's it. That's all I've got. Which is very weird, normally musicians go to great lengths to provide all sorts of bio material and contact information. Ah well. We can just enjoy the music.

Variations on themes of Odessa, Klezmer, Sephardic, Hasidic, Jewish Folk Songs and Dances for Classical guitar, (2011) and Fantasy on Themes of Sephardic, Hasidic, Odessa Jewish Folk Song and Dances (2009) are sprawling series of finger-picked folk and classical style guitar pieces that, as the title suggests, cover a lot of territory through Jewish music. Which in itself is a small wonder. I rarely see that much specific knowledge of Jewish music repertoire in single recording. Ross plays beautifully, with a lot of bounce and humor, weaving classical and folk sounds in a manner that reminds me a bit of John Fahey style 'primative guitar." Not quite at Fahey's level, but very solid.

To get a feel of her work, check out these tracks. From Variations, the lyrical and lush Bessarabia Romance sits next to aptly named Klezmer Guitar - Funny And Sad. From Fantasy, her Fantasy to theme of Jewish folk song Avinu Malkeinu and Variations to theme of Jewish folk song Lo Jisa showcase her classical and folk styles.

Bessarabia Romance


Klezmer Guitar - Funny And Sad


Fantasy to theme of Jewish folk song Avinu Malkeinu


Variations to theme of Jewish folk song Lo Jisa

If anyone knows more about Ross, please let me know. I'd love to track down a live recording or video or, even better, to catch her performing live. I've contacted Krylov and will report back if I get more information.

Update: I was able to reach Krylov, who confirmed that Lana Ross is his wife and that they live pretty far out in the country and don't use the internet much. Anyone interested in Ross's work can grab the albums from CD Baby or get in touch with her through Krylov's website.

Jewish Rap music? Not for this kid.

YouTube user likewowwowwow does NOT like Jewish rap. Nope. Not a bit.

My thoughts on Jewish Rap Music



Specifically, she's not impressed with the following BibleRaps track.

Moses Rap - A Pesach / Passover Music Video



She isn't wrong. BibleRaps is an educational outfit, but even for 'educational' Jewish music, this is pretty weak stuff.

But it isn't all weak. Check out Prodezra's Rosh Hashana Song for more thematic Jewish rap done right. For more straight up Jewish rap, likewowwowwow should check out Matisyahu, Socalled, YLove, Kosha Dillz and Eprhyme. (I'd recommend the Hip Hop Hoodios too, but maybe they're a bit adult for her. Hey, I'm a dad... I haven't played HHH for my girls yet either).

So, likewowwowwow... good job! If you do any more reviews let me know.

The Wondering Jew Talks Jewish Music

I was catching up on Jewish music vids to hit Google recently and stumbled across this gem. The Wondering Jew, an anonymous "Benjamin something-that-sounds-like Chielminitzy", an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, recently started a video blog. One of his first topics is frum Jewish Music, and why he just can't get into it. If you want a crash course in contemporary frum Jewish Music that's laugh-out-loud funny in spots and dead on accurate, check it out.

The Wondering Jew: Jewish Music



To be fair, there are some really good and really interesting musicians who are frum and playing to frum audiences. Yosef Karduner may not be Sting, but his voice and music work are as deep as it gets. And I have to differ...I really dig Lipa and actually listen to Carelbach for the music as well as the stories. Really. But still, this is priceless.

Ofra Haza & Jonathon Elias' The Prayer Cycle'

Shabbat Shalom everyone.

This isn't exactly a 'get into the Shabbat grove' video, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I recently ran across an Ofra Haza track that I'd never heard. The track is called 'Forgiveness' and comes from composer Jonathon Elias composition / album "The Prayer Cycle." In this song-cycle, Elias explores faith through music and invited a wide range of top-flight vocalists to sing in a wide variety of languages. Haza's Forgiveness track is the Hebrew language offering. She sings with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who is singing in Urdu.

Forgiveness



I nabbed the album from eMusic and found the entire composition quite moving. It's also available through Amazon. Enjoy.

Hat tip to YouTube user SuperShims for posting the video.

Reb Yosil Rosenzweig - Still rocking and davening

You want to hear a track that rocked my world recently? Press play.



Now go read the story.

Wow. What an wonderfully simple, wonderfully intense recording and an immediate add to my playlist.

So who rocked my world? Reb. Yosil Rosenweig, my (handsome and modest) pal Benji's dad, and long time Jewish music fixture. I want to say icon, but can't quite. Reb. Yosil has written songs and made music with two of the most important folks in Jewish music in the 20th century; Chassidic rabbi and folk singer Shlomo Carlebach and Avraham Rosenblum, founder of the Diaspora Yeshiva band, the seminal Israeli Jewish rock group. But he, himself, never rose to the icon status of Carlebach or Rosenblum. But, icon or not, Reb Yosil has been making great Jewish music for a long time. And as evidenced by the track above, he's still doing it as well as anyone.

About a year ago Reb Yosil released Pitchu Li, his first solo album. It's a recording of Reb Yosil with his Kosher Gravy Company live in concert, with Reb Yosil telling stories, giving Torah, and singing some of his many songs. He's backed by a fine, bluesy jam-band. Doing a more detailed review of the album had been on my to do list for a while (sorry Benji), but I'd had trouble getting started. I'm not much of a fan of fine, bluesy jam-bands. Just not my style. And Reb Yosil's voice is a bit rough in spots. I bet I would have loved the show... but the album? Good, but not great.

But then I heard Reb Yosil's Rosh Chodesh recordings. Particularly the Mah Ne'Daber. And I was hooked. There's a fire to his solo recordings that I didn't get from Pitchu Li. Mah Ne'Daber is incandescent. I now look forward every month to his next Rosh Chodesh song. They're offered monthly for free download. If you've missed them, go get them. Or wait a couple weeks. Pretty soon they're going to get bundled up as Reb Yosil's next album. It'll be a great collection. Then he'll start the process over with a bunch of new songs, one per month.

I got the chance to sit down recently with Reb Yosil and hear a bit of his life story. I was really interested in finding out more about his relationship with Carlebach and Rosenblum and, given his obvious talent, why he ended up in their shadows. And why the new recordings now after all this time? The answer revolves around the life of a Canadian pulpit rabbi and musician who found himself in Israel in the late 1960's, a moment when North American ba'al teshuva were coming to Israel in waves and creating a new Jewish music scene that mixed rock music and spirituality, Zionism and Torah.

Reb Yosil, far right with glasses and white yarlmuke, and Shlomo Carlebach, left with silver yarlmulke and guitar)

Reb Yosil moved to Israel in 1968 for "a four year summer." During that time he started composing music and met and played with Carlebach. Like Carlebach, Reb Yosil was interested in being able to use music as an emotional component of prayer. (And like everyone who knew Carlebach, he has some great Carlebach. Listen to the intro to Reb Yosil's Gam Ki Eilech for classic from the days of the Yom Kippor war.) At the same time he met and married his wife (whom he met at a Carlebach wedding) and opened a restaurant, and in 1971 started a band with Avraham Rosenblum called B'nai Tzion that included original material and popular Jewish song by The Rabbi's Sons and the Simchatones. B'nai Tzion played regularly on the stage in Reb Yosil's restaurant and at NCSY event. At that time he composed the songs Tzadik Katamar Yifrach and Pitchu Li, songs that went on to be hits for Rosenblum's next band, The Diaspora Yeshiva Band. Performed by DYB, Pitchu Li won Israel's 1976 Chassidic Song Festival. In 1978 DYB won again, this time with Reb Yosil's song Hu Yiftach Libeinu.

Reb Yosil (guitar, on right) Avraham Fried (standing and singing) and friends

But DYB won these songfests without Reb Yosil, who was never a member of the band. Yosil wanted to be a rabbi, not a full time musician. Prompted by that and the opportunity to work with the Canadian Zionist organization, Yosil and his wife had already moved back to Canada when Pitchu Li won the festival. Yosil spent the next 30 years as a pulpit rabbi and raising a family, using music in his rabbinic work and playing community concerts and kumzitz. After a recent bout with illness, Reb Yosil retired from the pulpit and started playing music regularly again, putting together the Kosher Gravy Company band and playing concerts around Ontario and Detroit.

It's pretty exciting for a Jewish music geek like myself to see someone writing and performing new material in the style that was popular in Jewish music the late 1960's / early 1970's at that birth of Jewish rock. Particularly, it's exciting to see that music from someone who was there at the time and contributed classic songs to the repertoire.

Prodezra Beat's "Proud To Be"

Prodezra Beats is best know for doing the production work on Y-Love and Describe's "Change" video. He dropped a new track "Proud to Be" recently. Good stuff. I wasn't keen on his first solo outing but this is definitely on the right track.

Proud To Be



Even better than Proud to Be, though, is the track Shofar Calling that he did for the ever awesome G-dcast website last year. I missed it when it came out so here it is...

Shofar Callin': The Rosh Hashanah Song

Love the detail in the lyrics and the shofar break. Get more info on Prodezra and his new album at Shemspeed.

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra...US-wide live on July 28th

The Israeli Philharmonic will be doing a cool live concert on July 28 that will be broadcast live* to movie-theaters around the US. To promote the show, the sponsors are doing a free ticket giveaway. See below for details.

On July 28th, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta join the extraordinary talents of soprano Renée Fleming and tenor Joseph Calleja to honor the legacy of the great American tenor Richard Tucker. Although the concert takes place in Jerusalem, we are pleased to be able to extend you an invitation through Fathom Events, who will be presenting a live* broadcast in theatres across the country. Fathom is giving away a pair of tickets per participating theatre, which means over 1,000 tickets will be given away to this event! To enter to win, just write the name and location of the participating theater where you plan to attend the live broadcast, along with the phrase “Free ‘Live from Jerusalem’ Tix”, on the Fathom Events Facebook wall (here: http://on.fb.me/FreeFathom Tix You must click “I am Attending” in the upper right to access the event wall). One winner per theater will be randomly selected from the qualifying entries to receive a pair of tickets.

To find the closest participating theater in your area, visit the ticket order page: http://bit.ly/LiveFromJerusalem (no purchase necessary), and enter your zipcode in the “buy tickets” field. You will be directed to a list of the closest theaters. Simply copy+paste the theater name and address into your entry.

*Broadcast will be delayed to play at 7pm in all time zones around the United States.

Sponsors of this event include EL AL Airlines, (who are sending me additional prizes soon), The American Friends of the Isreal Philharmonic, The Richard Tucker Foundation, and Mod 3 Productions.

Enter the contest to get free tix: http://on.fb.me/IPO-tix

Watch a video about the event: http://youtu.be/qIQBiusOdpg

Buy a ticket/see more info: http://www.fathomevents.com/performingarts/event/reneefleming.aspx

Who are we that dream and what is that dream? Kutiman, Lawrence Dermer, and the perils of making music about Israel

Music about Israel is tricky thing. And I don't mean music from Israel. Israeli musicians can grab a guitar or an oud and have at it with no complications. Just do their thing. But music about Israel is fraught with all the tensions and complexities of Israel itself. If the music is written by a non-Israeli, it also comes with all the tensions and complexities of our Diaspora perceptions. Which ends up with writers like me thinking much to hard (or not hard enough) about what it all means.

Israeli mashup-phenom Kutiman recently released a brand new track called "Thru-Jerusalem." Like his previous collection of "Thru-You" videos, "Thru-Jerusalem" stitching together fragments of found sound and video into something brand new. Unlike T-Y, which featured video clips that Kutiman discovered on YouTube, T-J features video clips that Kutiman shot himself. What was found was the musicians and the moments, which Kutiman discovered walking around Jerusalem. Stitched together by Kutiman, they become a moving sonic landscape of a hopeful multi-cultural city. If you dig it, like I do, the track can be downloaded for free from SoundCloud.

Thru Jerusalem



Lawrence Dermer, an American BMI Award winning & Grammy nominated Songwriter and Producer (and Cantorial Soloist) released "We are Strong" back in 2008. I missed it then, but got pointed to it recently. We Are Strong has an upbeat 'We are the World" kind of 'unity through music' vibe and contemporary world-beat sound. This is an earnest, big anthem stuff. If you dig it, which I don't, you can get the track or album from CD Baby.

We are Strong



Of the two I find Kutiman's "Thru-Jerusalem" the more compelling effort. Partially this reflects my personal taste... I'm not a big fan of Dermer's smooth, radio-friendly anthem sound and wish he'd lose whatever effects processing he's using to obscure his voice, but I love Kutiman's sensibility. Kutiman has a great ear for the texture of sound and makes surprising sound combinations fit together beautifully.

This also reflects my read on the song narratives. Kutiman is an insider. His assemblage of Jerusalem musicians reflects both a realistic portrayal of Jerusalem (these are real Jerusalem musicians, after all) and Kutiman's optimistic vision of Jerusalem (this varied group of musicians blending together into a unified, but not homogenized) whole. From the perspective of a Diaspora Jew who's never been to Israel, it sounds about how I'd hope Jerusalem would sound if I could visit and wander around as Kutiman does. I wonder how real and how constructed that vision is. Is it a better version of reality than news reports show, or a delightful fiction?

Dermer's song on the other hand feels jingoistic. When he sings "We are strong" it's unclear who "we" are. He could mean all Israeli's, but I don't think so. Instead it feels inclusive of Jewish Israeli's with only a passing nod at non-Jewish Israeli's. Where Kutiman's videos showing real musicans of different backgrounds being themselves, explicitly acknowledging the complexity of Israel, Dermer's repetition of vague and banal slogans such as "what we believe we will become" and the constructed reality of him mugging in front of children who sing his song on cue, leaves "We are Strong" feeling strangely out of touch. This doesn't seem to be a song for Israelis, instead it seems like a song to raise spirits of Diaspora Jews? If we're strong, all Israel's problems will just go away.

So who are we that dream and what is that dream? Do we (American Jews) fall behind Dermer's sentimental utopian vision of happy children of all (Jewish?) races singing in unison? What dream do this children really share? Or do we (Israeli Jews and Muslims) accept Kutiman's vision of Israeli adults existing together peacefully in a complex shared space? (Remember that this too is a dream. The collaboration of Kutiman's musician's only happen inside Kutiman's mind and computer...they never actually meet in real life).

Maybe the answer is that either way, all we can do for now is dream.