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ZINGT! A CELEBRATION OF YIDDISH CHORAL MUSIC
the brand new CD with mainly never-before-recorded Yiddish choral music, is available!
Recorded by the
Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus
with Binyumen Schaechter, Conductor
**Full text and translations included in booklet.**
A great Chanukah gift!
For more info (and to order), go to www.thejppc.org and click
on "Our CD".
From a recent email from SoCalled:
... check out the myspace.com/socalled stuff for a taste of what's up right now... thanks for the interest and support, as usual... Ghettoblaster just came out in France this week, sold 3 thousand copies, the "You Are Never Alone" song is on heavy-ish rotation on 3 radio stations, got crazy shout-outs in a couple magazines... cool stuff... playing with Krakauer and funk legend Fred Wesley at Carnegie Hall next week [and in France the week after. ari]... hope all's well by you,
Rokhl Kafrissen, one of many brilliant writers wasted in the deadened layout of Jewish Currents (and don't get me started about their faux website) writes:
Has it been two months since I hocked you to get a subscription to Jewish Currents? It must be, as the new issue has just come out. My column, the Rootless Cosmopolitan, features a write up of the new album by Dan Kahn and the Painted Bird called "dos tsebrokhene loshn/the broken tongue". Get Jewish Currents (www.jewishcurrents.org) then get Dan's album! You won't regret either purchase.
Mr. Grumpy says, "get the braille version of Jewish Currents so you don't have to actually look at it, and definitely consider the Dan Kahn album. I haven't heard it, but Rokhl is the latest in a long line of people who have and who rave about it.
Inna Barmash, now in Bucharest on a seekrit mission, writes that if I thought Balkan Beat Box is outasite, I should really lend an ear to Besh o DroM - www.beshodrom.hu.
"They've toured everywhere [but the USA], but the logistics are that much harder for US touring. I've been a fan of theirs for years, but only met Gergo, the leader, here in Budapest for the first time a few weeks ago. It turned out that he's Jewish and even made Aliya a few years ago (and came back to Hungary). So there's klezmer/Israeli influence in their music, too... "
Barmash' band, Romaska has a CD out, and her fiance, Ljova, has a new release, "Vjola" - "it's not klezmer at all, or at least he didn't conceive of it as klezmer. But the following comment is somewhat typical (and mystifying to him). Perhaps you can explain it better than anyone else... Here's the response from one listener: 'Hi Ljova, I got your CD last night, and I've listened to it 3 times over already. I'm a big fan. And that's from someone who usually doesn't like Klezmer music.'" Inna continues:
"Another news tidbit - I was talking to Kalman Balogh yesterday - the great Hungarian gypsy cymbalom player. He says he's coming to the States in April to tour with Joel Rubin. But he said they're only coming to Virginia... which is a pity. That would be an amazing show... I didn't realize that Joel has collaborated with him before, but this whole gypsy-klezmer scene is closer than ever."
With luck, Joel or Kalman will drop a line and I'll get the details into the KlezmerShack "Global Calendar of Interesting Music". You can follow Inna's blog at innabar.livejournal.com
No sooner did I post about my recent reviews to the Jewish-Music mailing list, but Elliott Simon 'fessed up about some of his own recent writing:
Hi all and best of the holidays...after Ari's recent post I felt compelled to send in some CD reviews of potential interest that have recently appeared in the pages of AAJ-NY.... Mayim Rabim/ Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, The Absolutely Complete Introduction to Klezmer/Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi, Live @ The Fat Cat/ The Sheryl Bailey 3 (guitarist with Klezmer Madness in her B3 group), Andy Statman: Blue Grass and Black Hats, Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble / Reflections of the Road
December's issue is just out with our Best of listing.....and I am pleased to say that the very cool collaboration between Irving Fields and Roberto Rodriguez, Oy Vey Ole, garnered a best Latin/Jazz mention...January should also include a review of the KM! show at Merkin, Statman, Afro Semitic Experience and other goodies...I also have a "diaspora" themed piece coming out in the journal Ethnomusicology that looks at both the collaboration, "Maurice El Medioni meets Roberto Rodriguez Descarga Oriental: The New York Sessions" and Gilad Atzmon's "musiK", best of the holidays to all...Elliott
Andy Statman / East Flatbush Blues. Shefa Records, HORN-3001, 2006 www.andystatman.org .
CD available from amazon.com
The Klezmershack received two new CDs by Andy Statman, recorded contemporaneously, each featuring a different side of the artist. This is the bluegrass CD, and on it Statman is backed by Jim Whitney, and one of my favorite Americana drummers, Larry Eagle. Eagle I last heard propelling Bruce Springstein's "Pete Seeger Sessions" show. Statman I last saw playing with one of my favorite bluegrass bands, Wayfaring Strangers. But standing there, Statman merged bluegrass with klezmer and hassidic music. On this CD, he pays tribute to Bill Monroe and to his bluegrass roots only. I gotta say: when you're Andy Statman, that's enough.
As you might expect, this isn't just bluegrass. It's bluegrass improvisation. Bluegrass nign, if you will. From his opening take on Bill Monroe's old "Rawhide, thought his own, "Sensitive Waltz" (and the most psychedelic "Old Joe Clark" you'll ever hear), Statman shows how and why he has had such an influence on bluegrass mandolin. The title track, alone, is a worthy successor to the "Flatbush Waltz", the last all-mandolin album he recorded--the album released 25 years ago which first established his reputation as an amazing mandolin player. It is notable. The Andy Statman who wrote the best-known klezmer revival tune, "Flatbush Waltz" was not religious. The Andy Statman who wrote the new "East Flatbush Blues," a beautiful new bluegrass tune, is steeped in hassidut. It's the same Andy Statman. He's still a genius, and as much as I'll always prefer to see him in an ensemble of peers that push him, hearing just the bluegrass side, here, backed by Whitney and Eagle, is still mighty wonderful. [GRADE: A]
Marilyn Lerner / Romanian Fantasy. ML-001, 2006 www.marilynlerner.com JD003, 2005.
CD available from CD Baby.com
I am at the point that if Marilyn Lerner breathes on a piano, I am already giddy. Here, on the first solo outing in a few years based on traditional Eastern European Jewish music, I am doubly ecstatic. Her improvisational playing is as inventive as ever. From the explorations and chording the forms the bones of the "Yismekhu", there is something magical about her sense of sound and tone and music. As Michael Wex notes in the liner notes, this isn't klezmer, or Eastern European Jewish folk music, nor classical nor jazz. It's the Jewish music about which I once wrote, "I can see the Shekhinah sitting up in the heavens, listening to this music performed, smiling to herself and saying to the assembled angels, 'Finally, we can listen to it in its true time and place.'"
This is improvisational music very different from Tzadik's Radical Jewish Music. I don't quite know how to describe the difference. It isn't that Anthony Coleman (another of the piano players of whom I never tire) never plays quietly, for instance. But he plays quietly differently—loudly. Part of the difference is that Lerner isn't playing jazz. This is improvisational music, like jazz, but it is much more influenced by 20th century classical music (to the very limited extent that I know it). The scales and explorations are different. Her "Nign" is quiet, but incredibly complex. It eschews jazz chords and phrasings. Like Coleman's music, however, this stays interesting. More than interesting. I find myself listening, rapt, focused. The title track is a marvel of unstated complexity. Like a Hasidic tale, there are layers and layers of listening such that one is drawn in from the first, but each time the ears come up for air, more meaning is apparent. The transition from the rhythmic "Dem Tzadik's Zemerl" to the less structured, quieter "Gasn Nign" perfectly captures the spirit of both. It is too short a hop from there to the closing (using Wex's translation) "good-natured people". As Wex writes, "Rigid categories can be fatal; Lerner melts the boundaries away. [GRADE: A]
Balkan Beat Box JDub Records JD003, 2005.
CD available from amazon.com
If there is an album that I like as much as Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, this is it. Balkan Beat Box provides a wonderful fusion of sounds from balkan brass to rai to international hip hop. Like their label-mates DJ SoCalled (but entirely different in sound), BBB pull together a new world folk dance gestalt. Favorite cuts? The incredible middle eastern weave around Victoria Hanna's chant, "Adir Adirim" or the amazing harmonies on "Bulgarian Chicks," the unstoppable beat and cheer of "Sunday Arak," the growling bass and kaval of "Hassan's Mimuna," or the bluesy intro to the "La Bush Resistance" rap ... Stop me before I kvell over each track. If you ask me, world hip hop like BBB and Idan Raichel, SoCalled's new album, and Frank London's (okay, not hip hop) that define the exciting dance music this last couple of years, and I expect, the next years to come. Stay tuned—the band is doing a lot of Hanukkah tours. Could be coming to a town near you real soon. [GRADE: A]
Merlin Shepherd Kapelye / Intimate Hopes and Terrors: Tales from the Kishkes. Oriente Musik, RIEN CD 58, 2006. Available from Oriente Express
I met Merlin Shepherd about ten years ago at KlezKamp. He was an awesome clarinet player then. He has gotten scarily better. On this outing he gathered up a posse of so-far-unknown-to-the-west klezmer players of the former Soviet Union. The ones you find jamming non-stop at the Klezmer festivals and blowing everyone's minds. These guys already knew the repertoire from KlezKamp, so Merlin wrote new stuff. This is the sort of CD I've been waiting for, for years. New klezmer music. But, at this first listen (the CD only arrived today), it's klezmer that manages to sound both traditional, but also as though it were written this year (which it was). This isn't the worshipful, "I can write like the old guys" klezmer. This is the "okay, the old folks stole all our best ideas. let's work on some new ideas" klezmer. Must get the word out now. May have more to say once the CD has sunk in. You can catch some tracks at Merlin's MySpace page.
Andy Tannenbaum, who maintains the Jewish web resource page on Shamash, sent this to me. In a dispute over radio royalties, Mizrahi artists find themselves lock out of regional Israeli music stations: Off the Airwaves, By Tamara Sukenik, in Ha-aretz, (Nov 27, 2006?)
Frank London Klezmer Brass All-Stars / Carnival Conspiracy. Piranha Records CD-PIR1902. Delightful notes by Frank London are available on the Piranha website. CD available from amazon.com
It's been over a year since Frank handed me the pre-release CD of this album so I'd have something to keep me awake during an early-morning airport run at KlezKanada. I was immediately blown away by the incredible vocals and insane brass wall-o'-joyous-sound on the opening "In Your Garden Twenty Fecund Fruit Trees" and never looked back. I'm still awake and still tapping my toes. Of all the Frank London projects, the one I love the most unceasingly is the brass band, and so far, each new CD has been mind-blowingly good, and still different from the one preceding. While writing about the KlezKanada Faculty CD a couple of days ago I got that guilty feeling. I had never reviewed this CD on the KlezmerShack. A shande!.
From the relatively traditional Yiddish "Oh Agony, You Are So Sweet Like Sugar I Must To Eat You Up" featuring Lorin Sklamberg at his best, following by Michael Alpert doing the same, but to an Argentinian band´-klezmer fusion (What's with these song titles? It's like someone was inventing names for the original Naftule Brandwine tracks, but on acid.) The music swings from balkan brass to New Orleans with plenty of klezmer in between. The chorus that was assembled for the Divahn soundtrack (Kol Isha?) is back to good effect, as well. Susan Watts-Hoffman blows trumpet with the best and then sings to bring tears to our eyes. The people participating on this album include the best of the best, from up-and-coming tuba god Ron Caswell, to the recording debut of the late clarinetist German Goldenshteyn. The album finally closes with a cluster of sad fanfares, a familiar hasidic nign(?) that invariably cause me to start again at the beginning. This is one of the major feel-good CDs of the last couple of years, and still one of the most frequently played on my CD changer. [GRADE: A]
A quick shout-out to the Society Hill Synagogue, just south of the Old City in Philadelphia. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Judy and I were guests at the congregation's "fourth Friday" singing shabbes, and greatly enjoyed it. To paraphrase congregational clarinetist Bob Blacksberg, it felt very good to bring doinas and other klezmer (and hassidic nign, and lots of singing, ranging from modern Debbie Friedmanish tunes to traditional Conservative nusakh.
I was down in Philly a couple of years ago to work on the election, and Adobe technical evangelist Leonard Rosenthal showed me around some of the synagogues in the area—it's worth remembering that Philadelphia was the center of American Jewish life until about 150 years or so ago. It's also a nice measure of how the original musical interests that sparked this website have broadened, just a bit, to include actual davenning: traditional and new age and unclassifiable.
So, fourth erev shabbat of the month, Society Hill Synagogue, Philadelphia. Tell 'em the KlezmerShack sent you.
While I am busy reviewing a few favorites from the huge piles around the CD changer, Inna Barmash writes in from a visit to Eastern Europe:
Just wanted to share the website for a wonderful new CD "Oyfn Veg" by the
Russian-based duo *Igor Beliy* and *Yevgeniya Slavina* - some fresh
executions of old chestnuts, some originals, and some more rare numbers. I
don't know the performers personally, but I do love their style, and
hopefully will see them perform live one day (meanwhile, there are several
mp3s on the site under the "Music in Mp3" section.
The website for the recording/duo is: oyfnveg.ru/index_e.htm
Judith R. Cohen / Sefarad en Diáspora, Pneuma, 2006 PN-780.
Ordering information: Karonte Distribution, Avda. Alfonso XIII Nr. 141, E-28016 Madrid.
Fax: +34 91 350 3358.
Available from Casa de Jacob's (they're in alphabetical order by CD title - scroll way down,
or, apparently from HMV in the UK
A new CD from Judith Cohen is always a treat. Her recent albums have been primarily, but never exclusively, Sephardic folk songs. In this latest outing she has assembled a wonderful ensemble featuring Wafir Sheikh and Bill Cooley. Her daughter, Tamar Adams, has also matured vocally, and is a greater delight with every recording. The call response on "Romance Hermanas Reina y Cautiva," accompanied by solitary kanun(?) is wonderful.
On this CD, Cohen is focused on the Sephardic diaspora, and the way that songs and melodies travel. Sometimes one changes, sometimes the other; sometimes all that is left is the theme. What unites them on this recording is wonderful singing and playing. We hear two variants on the shabbes song, L'cha dodi. And then there is "Romance de la Vuelta", the familiar story of the faithful woman awaiting her soldier, gone for seven years. In the seven very different variants here (Moroccan to French to Italian to Turkish...), as, here, in "John Riley", after testing her faithfulness, he reveals that he has returned. In other variants, she is told that he is dead. A very gloomy song in some versions, but the singing and instrumental playing make them all worth hearing, whether it is the supposedly happy ending of damsel first tried by her alleged lover, or the sadder versions. [GRADE: A]
The LeeVees / Hanukkah Rocks. JDUB Records Available from amazon.com
It's been several years since Rob Tannenbaum ("What I like about Jew") inflicted "Hanukkah with Monica" on an unwilling world with the claim, "there aren't any good Hanukka songs." In the intervening years, we've had Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song", and now, for the ultimate in total cultural fun, the LeeVees, featuring Guster's Adam Gardner and Dave Schneider of the Zambonis. By total cultural fun, of course, I mean that this is a CD that rocks, that celebrates Hanukkah, and has absolutely nothing to do with what you may have learned in Hebrew School. Hmm. Nope. This CD has everything to do with what you may have learned in Hebrew School, even if you didn't attend. It doesn't have anything to do with what your parents meant for you to learn in Hebrew school. This album considers the important cultural imperatives, like "Applesauce vs. sour cream" (no-brainer. Applesauce. Sheesh.) or "How do you spell Channukkahh?" with a brief bow to tradition in recounting the dreidl rules: "Nun Gimmel Heh Shin."
Some days I find myself getting uptight about this new Jewish culture stuff that celebrates symbols of "Jewish" without requiring any knowledge of or living Jewishly. Fortunately, such days do not occur around Hanukkah, when the infectious beats and good will of this album keep me full of good cheer despite that other holiday that is being commercialized all around me. I say, good will towards all, even to our goyim friends—especially if they don't mention dreidls made of clay or ocho kandelikos one more time until my nerves fray just a bit too far. Nope. I'm a convert. Hanukkah Rocks, and so will you. Don't forget to see the band in concert, too! Coming to a major center of Jewish life near you this Hanukkah season. [GRADE: ungraded, of course!]
KlezKanada Faculty Anthology. KKCD-01, 2006. Available from CDbaby.com
[Updated from the KlezKanada newsletter, 24 Aug 2006] KlezKanada
faculty include not only the most
amazing musicians playing traditional
music from Yiddish-speaking cultures
of the last century. Faculty also include
some of the most amazing musicians
playing entirely new types of Jewish
music grounded in those cultures.
Produced by former KK
scholarship kid Eric Stein, this CD is
a fundraiser for KlezKanada. All faculty contributed
tracks free of licensing charges (and
got their record companies to do the
same). It not only includes the sorts
of things one would expect: tracks by
Elaine Hoffman Watts, Steven Greenman
and the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble,
but also tracks that push the edges
from David Krakauer's Klezmer Madness
with DJ SoCalled, still-unreleased
material from Alex Kontorovich's new
band, D Minor, a cut off the brand
new Susan Hoffman-Watts CD, and
a first recording by an amazing new
collaboration by Marilyn Lerner and
Adrienne Cooper, amazing material
from Shtreiml (hint, they aren't "just"
a klezmer band any more) and Frank
London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars (personal
favorites of the KlezmerShack). I
haven't even mentioned the revolutionary
(a strong word for such
traditional-sounding music, until
you think of what has just come
together and how well it was done)
work by the Strauss/Warschauer
Duo. Other artists include Khupe,
Beyond the Pale, Pete Rushefsky/
Elli Rosenblatt, and Brave Old
World—if you haven't heard them
and made up your own mind, you
know them from the aforementioned
KlezmerShack and general
media already.
The CD production was underwritten by the Tauben Family Fund of Irwin and Sara Tauben. Says Stein, summing up succinctly: "I've seen a million klezmer sampler CDs. I think this is the most interesting—top artists performing a veritable cross section of the contemporary klezmer scene." You can read more about this CD in a longer KlezmerShack review, with links to more info about each of the featured artists. [GRADE: A+]
Continuing my series of quick reviews for those wondering what to get for the holidays....
KlezKanada regular Alan Sissel
calls it "the only CD I’m listening
to right now." Goldenshteyn is
backed by some of the best klezmorim
around, from Josh Horowitz to
Michael Alpert. The real star, however,
is German Goldenshteyn, whose songs
and whose clarinet are, as the label
says, a Living Tradition. This is traditional
klezmer as no one knew it was
played any more until German arrived
in the US and demonstrated the music
that he had been playing all of his life.
a bisl of the music that formed his living
tradition is now passed on to us. The money from the sale of the CD
is going to a special fund set up to
support his family. [GRADE: A+]
German Goldenshteyn / A Living Tradition. LTD 1803, 2006. Available from CDbaby.com
[Updated from the KlezKanada newsletter, 24 Aug 2006] Nothing makes up for the sudden
loss of German Goldenshteyn
this past summer, but for those
who remember him and his
music, Living Tradition records
has released a CD recorded last
year at KlezKamp. (There will be
a second Goldenshteyn CD, probably
in Winter 2007. One track from
the second CD is available in the
KlezKanada Faculty Anthology
now.)
It was only yesterday that Christian Dawid posted this YouTube video URL to the Jewish-Music list:
Words fail.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0RtRTx7NMA
I can confirm that the group is Thai—apparently a popular Thai comedy troupe.
And then serendipity struck. Tonight, we were watching a rather pleasant "B" movie—"Keeping up the with Steins". Needless to say, this film features two versions of Hava Nagila. One features DJ Quik; the other Neil Diamond. Both are, um, memorable. At my wedding, we asked the band not to play Hava Nagila whatever the provocation, a request with which they happily complied.
It isn't even Thanksgiving yet and I'm already in a panic about how few reviews I've written and how much I want to be sure that the people who make the music I love get the word out in time for the holiday.
So, I'm going to do my best to mention at least one recording each time I sit down at night to work on school or do some programming between now and Hanukkah-ish.
I could begin this series in many, many places, but there is only one new Jewish music DVD. There are movies about klezmer, or other Jewish music, or even about the downtown radical Jewish music scene, but no concert movies of great (or even mediocre) bands until now. And it couldn't be more appropriate than this: Brave Old World, nor could it sound much sweeter—this is a monster concert, featuring much of the music from their "Royte Pomerantsn" and "Bless the Fire" CDs, in front of a friendly audience (Montreal, at a fundraiser for KlezKanada), with the band as tight as one can imagine, playing as if their very playing would bring the Messiah here and now. Indeed, after watching the DVD, one wonders how the Messiah is able to stay up in the heavens rather than come join us already.
When I watch Brave Old World in concert—in real life, and here, as well, I am always struck by how intense their playing is. Sometimes I hark back to myself as a teenager watching King Crimson thinking, "wow, I really don't get this music, but these guys are wonderful." Except that I do get this music, and thought it wonderful even before seeing the extra dimension of watching them play. Some pieces that never turned me on, on record, like the Itzik Manger poetry recited in "Der mentsh trakht un lakht" and reset on "Yankl Dudl" make perfect, ethereal sense here, live (oh, for joy, watch Stu's fingers with the tsimbl hammers while the band plays "Yankl Dudl"). Then, listening to Michael introducing the band before breaking into "Royte Pomarantsn," one of my favorite all-time songs here performed with the zest and life that it demands, I smile so happy.
Sure, the hits are here (hits? brave old world? Is it my fault that there isn't new Jewish music radio, or that the rest of the world prefers the silliness of Britney Spears or Eminem?). You got yer "Uncle Elye." You gotcher 'Still Happy." You gotcher Kurt Bjorling wailing away 90 miles and 50 souls away, "Reb Velvl, may his fingers live and be well". You gotcher "Ladder" with its reset "Shalom Aleichem" and gou gotcher "basarabye". You got Michael Alpert totally transforming the art and role of the badkhn in "The Band", here, as in every performance. But it's not just hearing it, the joy is in being able to see it—the band performing—as well (with subtitles, even, should you be Yiddish-disabled like me) that makes this so remarkable. [Disclaimer: I typeset the Yiddish text that is used in the DVD liner notes. And despite spending months pinning down one special band member to get it proofread, I'm still excited about this project!]
Where can I purchase this gem, you ask? Once again the band eschews the practice of putting the music where the people are. Fuhgedabout amazon or your local Judaica store. But, that's okay, this is the internet. Your browser can take you anywhere. In this case, visit videographer David Kaufman's website (he that produced this masterpiece), www.sunstreetproductions.com. Tell 'em I sent you. Order a dozen. They're cheaper that way, and with a DVD this compelling, you can easily give out that many over the holidays.
P.S. Did I mention that you can play this puppy on your PC so that you can have it right there while you're working like I'm doing now? Go ahead, order another one for the computer station: www.sunstreetproductions.com.
Mark Rubin's klezmer band, Rubinchik's Orkestyr, has released only one CD, back in 1998. Rubin is more often seen teaching at venues such as KlezKamp, or performing with the Youngers of Zion. But, for folks looking for the Texas swing in Klezmer, this is the real thing. Praise the Lord, it has now been re-released and is available on iTunes. Should you lack a copy, I must humbly and forcefully suggest that it is time to purchase a copy. Go to iTunes and look under "World" music.
Just got the news on one of the online news services that longtime Jewish-Music list participant Sylvie Braitman has passed away. Julie Sherman writes the following on the WELL:
Sylvie Braitman, singer, on Friday 11/10 after a very long fight with cancer
She was a child of survivors and sang songs from the Holocaust. She sang Kol Nidre for the Aquarian Minyan for many years. She was featured in the Jewish Music Festival numerous times.
Here is a link to a 2003 article about her life and work: www.sylviebraitman.com/architecture/sfchronicle.htm