the KlezmerShack

The Young Philadelphians: Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, Jamaaladeen Tacuma & Calvin Weston at 8pm & 10pm, $12 per set With Anthony Coleman (keyboard / piano), Marc Ribot (guitar), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass) & Calvin Weston (drums). Four professional, harmelodic noise improvisers with an uncommon love of Philly soul and hard groove. Sometimes backing, sometimes fronting, sometimes ignoring, but always rockin’ the house. Forever young, forever Philadelphian, forever fixated on the moment before dance went digital. Ladies and Gentlemen…the hardest working men inn punk/funk/soul/noise: The Young Philadelphians!!!

TONIC
107 Norfolk Street
(Between Delancey & Rivington)
212-358-7501
www.tonicnyc.com

Posted by Ari Davidow at 8:40 PM | Permalink

Eva Broman spotted this article on Canada's oldest Jewish folk choir:

Since I have understood that several members here are involved with the "Workmen's Circle", I thought you might be interested in this article. You'll need an Acrobat reader to open it, and it takes some time to load if you don't have broadband connection. Leftist, Jewish, and Canadian Identities Voiced in the Repertoire of the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir, 1939-1959, by Benita Wolters-Fredlund, Canadian Journal for Traditional Music, 29:04 (2002).

"Abstract: This article focuses on a twenty-year period of the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir during which the ensemble was conducted by Emil Gartner. Considering historical contexts, including political pressures and social frameworks, the author shows how repertoire choices were linked to overlapping patterns of identify, notably the choir as a voice for progressive political ideas, as a Jewish community group, and as a player in the emerging multicultural Canadian fabric."

Posted by Ari Davidow at 11:11 PM | Permalink

Stu Brotman writes about the "great lost" Brave Old World program, now being released on CD, and now appearing in NYC!

Brave Old World will be presented by the Folksbiene Theatre in New York this May 11-15. We¹ll be performing our program called "Song of the Lodz Ghetto," which has just been released as a beautiful new Winter and Winter cd called "Dus gezang fin Geto Lodzh."

From the Folksbiene's announcement on their website, folksbiene.org/!musical-events.html:

The New York premiere of the innovative klezmer group's moving, theatrical musical program blending Yiddish tradition, classical music, jazz, and rare Jewish street and cabaret songs from the Nazi ghetto of Lodz, Poland between 1940 and 1944. (At the Triad Theater, on West. 72nd Street.) The New York premiere of the innovative klezmer group's moving, theatrical musical program blending Yiddish tradition, classical music, jazz, and rare Jewish street and cabaret songs from the Nazi ghetto of Lodz, Poland between 1940 and 1944. (At the Triad Theater, on West. 72nd Street.)"

I¹m very proud of this show. It¹s essentially a through-composed tone poem, a one-act musical play, in suite form, in Yiddish and Polish, with English supertitles projected overhead. Long-lost songs of resistance from street-singers of the Lodz ghetto are contrasted with pre-war Polish and Yiddish songs; original klezmer laments and deep jazz improvisations, references to Beethoven, evoke powerful emotions.

Posted by Ari Davidow at 12:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

To: The Recording Academy

Currently, there are 107 different Grammy award categories. And of those 107 awards, at least six are handed out each year for Christian-themed music. We think it's great that those who record inspirational Christian music are recognized by the Recording Academy. However, we feel its time for the Jewish voice to be heard!

www.petitiononline.com/jvibegrm/petition.html

Posted by Ari Davidow at 7:35 AM | Permalink

Okay, here's a treat. Frank London being interviewed by Benjamin Bresky on the latter's show, "The Beat" (streamed live on 11-12am on Sundays). The Klezmatics are currently touring Israel with Ehud Banai—I'd give a lot for tapes of the concerts, because just as the Klezmatics mix punk and rock and avant garde with klezmer and Yiddish; Banai got his start as an Israeli Mizrahi punk rocker and his albums have always featured a wonderful mix of interesting music, strong, proud Mizrahi roots, and interesting words. As I listen to the interview, London is having a lot of fun dissecting klezmer as practiced in Israel, Europe, and the US. (Israeli klezmer, except for Moussa Berlin and his Meron-derived melodies to which London offers considerable props, is dismissed for being something that sounds suspicously like "they're still stuck in playing klezmer as mere dance music". What London actually says is more subtle, and truer.) Also discussed is Woody Guthrie's Jewish music, the factoid that Rabbi Meir Kahane officiated at Arlo Guthrie's bar mitzvah and Mordechai Ben-David's Yidden. London even manages to get a welcome mention in of Kruzenshtern and Parohod, that amazing trio of avant gardeists based in Tel Aviv.

The interview should be available for at least a week at www.IsraelNationalRadio.com.

I do need to note that while I really enjoyed Bresky's show, it seems to be in odd company. Israel National Radio as a whole (based on the show that preceded Bresky's, the website, and the house ads with which his broadcast was peppered) seems to have much more in common with the loony intolerant international right wing fundamentalist conspiracy at its scariest than anything else. So it goes. I'll continue to brave indications that right wing crazies are alive and well in order to listen to future shows by Bresky, now that I've found the show.

Posted by Ari Davidow at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Seth Rogovoy's latest article (April 29, 2005) in The Forward, the English-language version of the esteemed Forverts, provides an interesting take on new Jewish music: "Radical Music for the New Global Shtetl: New Recordings Combine Dizzying Cosmopolitanism With Distinctly Jewish Melodies" in which he reviews recent releases by Charming Hostess, Zohara, Koby Israelite, John Zorn, et al.

Posted by Ari Davidow at 10:27 AM | Permalink