the KlezmerShack

Here are three fun seder music things (and some bonus factoids) in honor of tonight's seder.

What I like about Jew is a new Jewish satire group that sounds kind of funny, the way that the Leevees were funny—"we don't know anything about being Jewish that we like, but we kind of like being Jewish and poking fun." My memory suggests that one of the duo, Rob Tannenbaum, is also the author of the hit single, "Hanuka with Monica" from a few years ago. You can hear a song off their first CD, and an interview with Terry Gross, at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5336255.

It's been a few years since DJ SoCalled released the original Hip Hop Seder. That was pretty neat. I think that after the runaway success of the HipHopHasene album, SoCalled got signed to JDub—home of Balkan Beat Box and original home of Matisyahu, and got to remake this. Either I didn't remember how good the original was, or the remake is pretty extraordinary, or both. It features the usual crowd, from David Krakauer to Matisyahu. This is worth playing to get the family ready tonight, or anytime during the year when you need a slight reconstruction of what "seder" means.

It wouldn't be Passover if we didn't mention the crossover hit by one of our favorite klezmer bands, Maxwell Street Klezmer's "Matzorena".

And finally, Inna Barmash just posted to the Jewish-Music list:

The New Yorker on Gershon Kingsley's Haggadah Da-Vida

"Most Jewish music—'My Yiddishe Mama,' 'Sunrise, Sunset'—is hardly music you race to listen to on a voluntary basis," Bennett said. "And then you hear Gersh, sounding a little bit Kraftwerk, with a dash of Styx thrown in for good measure. If this was playing in synagogue, we would go every week."