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If you get excited by the diversity of Jewish music, than the arrival of the Boston Jewish Music Festival at the tail end of a long, cold winter, is the surest harbinger of spring.
This year, the music ranges from ancient piyyut to Klezmer. Tonight, following last night's music Sabbaths, the festival kicks off in earnest with the return of the Israeli ensemble, Yemen Blues
This is a case where I can claim to have known the person "back when," since Ellie and I met back in the mid-1970s in Jerusalem. I don't think that either of us back then considered "Jewish music" to be a relevant term. We were both Arik Einstein fans, of course. But, we were young.
Now, Ellie is on the verge of a doctorate and the Jewish Music Festival is celebrating one last time in its current form. It's a big deal. I first heard bands like Brave Old World and The Klezmatics at the festival, along with Bukharian Jewish music, cantorial music, and an ever-growing wide range of new and old traditions. Having taken over the festival full-time from founder and Holocaust survivor Ursula Sherman, in 2004, Berkeley is finally giving her some respect:
Berkeley honors Eleanor Shapiro during final year of Jewish Music Festival
Over the years, we've seen and heard lots of musicians who blend a little of this and a little of that. Mark Rubin doesn't really mix anything. He plays the gamut of American music styles from blues to bluegrass, from Cajun to klezmer, closing out with some joyous rhythm 'n' blues. You can tell which is which. What I didn't notice, even from his Americana band, Bad Livers, is how good he is as a song-writer, singer, and fiddler. This CD should make the point.
It takes a Jew from Oklahoma to give us the folk ballad, "The murder of Leo Frank" ("Next time you're at services / say a kaddish for Leo Frank"), followed by a lovely "Rumainyan Fancy." I also appreciate the topicality, breadth, and poetry of the songwriting, from "Key Chain Blues," ("Well the boss man called me up today / Said I gotta take a key off your key chain....") to "(Why am I trying to) kill myself" to the organizing song, "No more to you."
The recording opens with Rubin leaving Texas in "Blues rides a mule," but this music is the best cure for the blues I've heard in too long. This one will be on the playlist for a long time. Best, you can get your own copy—physical CD or download—from our friends at CDBaby. Download it soon, y'all. Time to enjoy some prodigious good picking and feel good about the world again. Great album art, too.