Bluegrass Fringe

Just discovered Andy Statman.

He's the one on the left, with the tzitzit:-



"Andy’s most recent mandolin album, included a track (Rawhide) nominated for an instrumental Grammy. AWAKENING features Andy’s clarinet"

Enjoy.

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New Jew Genesic Music

Visited the latest Jewish music adventure?

Jewrhythmics.

From the depths of the Tel-Aviv-Moscow resistance, recreated with scrupulous attention to detail, using analogue machines of yesteryear, we have combined Yiddish and Italo Disco. Dead music in the dying language which sounds equally apt at an underground club just as it would at a bar mitzvah. Kosher nourishment for the not necessarily Kosher minds.

Facebook wall.


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Schoenberg's Jabotinsky 'Music'

Found in "A Survivor From Warsaw As Personal Parable" by Michael Strasser in Music and Letters (1995) 76 (1): 52-63 -

The composer Schoenberg, who converted to Christianity, the Protestant version, was an admirer of Jabotinsky:-

As early as 1923, Schoenberg foresaw the importance of armed struggle when he wrote that the ultimate 're-establishment of a Jewish State can come about only in the manner that has characterized similar events throughout history: not through words and moralizing but through the success of arms and a happy combination of interests'. 27

And, a decade later, in a letter to Jakob Klatzkin dated 13 June 1933 he expressed this sentiment even more forcefully:

The timid will never be able to make the sacrifices required by courage and self-denial. Those unwilling to risk life and property won't be able to participate in our struggle for liberation. We must succeed in persuading Jewish youth of the necessity of this struggle completely and without qualifications. 28

These two passages illustrate Schoenberg's support for the affirmative, militant Zionism advocated by Vladimir Jabotinsky. He undoubtedly saw in the Warsaw uprising a useful example of what it would take for the Jews finally to acquire and maintain a land of their own. He may have been moved to include an oblique reference to the rebellion in his text, but again, I do not believe that he ever intended that this reference be taken as the central point of the work.

27 Pro Zion, ed. Rudolf Stein, Vienna, 1924, p. 34; quoted ibid., p. 124.
28 Quoted ibid., pp. 128-9.

Interesting.

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Enjoy - "If I Forget Jerusalem..."

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That was Ben Snof

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Not Well-Composed?

The former cantor/music director at Central Synagogue of New York City has an opinion on synagogue music which he shared with the readers of the NYTimes:-

...Change has indeed occurred in Jewish music — but not toward “traditional” music (whatever that is). What you will hear today in American synagogues is a mixture of Hasidic-like tunes with an Eastern European sound; up-tempo 50s-like melodies and new up-tempo songs by young Jewish songwriters.

Unfortunately, well-composed and structured synagogue music is seldom heard. All of this, to make the worship accessible to the congregation. Time will tell if it was all for the best!

Richard Botton
Norwalk, Conn.

First, I don't think there is anything wrong or inferior with that type of music. After all, our great-grandfathers sung that basic type of music for 300 years or so in Eastern Europe.

In music, secondly, usually all is for the best for it's what makes people happy and involved in the davening.

I understand cantors are very self-conscious about their standing in the eys of the congregation but the idea is that he should be leading the service, not just performing.

Shlomo Carlebach had many more "congregants" than Cantor Botton and Reb Shloimeleh could also perform as a cantor.


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Merry, Merry: Music, Religion, Multiculturalism

...Many Christians feel that the true essence of Christmas has been lost, and I respect that opinion. It must be difficult to see religious tradition eroded in the name of commerce and further dissipated by others’ embrace of a holiday without a sense of what it truly means to the faithful.

Yet I also hope that those who feel this encroachment will on some level understand that the spirit of the holiday is universal. We live in a multicultural time and the mixing, and mixing up, of traditions is an inevitable result. Hence we have the almost century-old custom of American Jews creating a lot more Christmas music than Hanukkah music.

If you look at a list of the most popular Christmas songs, you’ll find that the writers are disproportionately Jewish...

Source

Subject: Music

First there's Nomi Teplow.



Her new single is out, Or (Light).

Ynet (in Hebrew) has a story and a sound clip.



And there's Good for the Jews, a group who hit the NYTimes where this appeared:

The MySpace page for the music duo Goodfor the Jews lists enough rules to warrant a Talmudic debate : No songs about dreidels; no Israeli folk dancing, just Jewish music for people who don’t like Jewish music. See if they adhere to these questionable commandments when they perform tonight at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The pre-Hannukah show features the band’s Rob Tannenbaum, co-creator of “What I like About Jew,” and David Fagin, lead singer of the Rosenbergs. They will perform along with special guest DeLeon as well as the comedians Morgan Murphy, Seth Herzog and Rachel Sklar. Listen for classics like “Goin’ Down to Boca” and “Good to Be a Jew at Christmas.”

A Youtube clip of there's is here.


Between you and me, Nomi has a much better voice - and looks better, too.

New "Yaakov Chesed" Album Out

Go here. Or here.



Of the "Blue Fringe" style.

Musical Interlude

Yossi Suede and his band on the London & Kirschenbaum Show on Channel 10.

Yossi works at the Begin Center in the Education Unit.

The band is called "Hot, Heating Up and Boom".



Watch another clip:

Leave It To A Reform Rabbi... - UPDATED

...to leave out the Chazzanut choirs or communal Carlebach singing in modern Orthodox synagogues in his letter:

Personal, private prayer thrives on solitude, but the spiritual engine of communal prayer is music. Whether it be the praise band of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, the “old-time music” of Berkeley Springs’ love church, the antiphonal call and response of the Roman Catholic Mass, austere Gregorian chants, our Reform synagogue’s packed services or the powerful gospels of the African-American Baptist church that makes its home in our auditorium, music lifts the spirit, stirs the soul and enables us to experience transcendence in ways that even the most well-written liturgy cannot. Those who seek to learn how to pray should look for a congregation where the music is inspiring and worshipers sing their hearts out.

RICHARD A. BLOCK
Senior Rabbi
The Temple — Tifereth Israel
Beachwood, Ohio

Do they still use organs?


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UPDATE

I have just been informed by Rabbi Block that:

My letter had numerous other examples that we edited out.

And as Rabbi Block feels that I was transgressing, in embarassing him in public, I hasten to add an additional note from him:

I see my initial reply to you contained a typo. What I meant to type was that numerous other examples “were” edited out. I had no control over what was excluded and was neither informed nor consulted in advance.
I will happily concede that Orthodox and Conservative synagogues often have beautiful and inspiring music. My reference to the denomination of my synagogue had nothing to do with other movements, but was addressed at the description of a particular Reform congregation described in the original article.

Not Quite Chazzanut

This blog has no qualms about musical pluralism:

"And He Saves Us..."

Words from the Haggada of Pesach, music by Yonatan Razel:

והיא שעמדה לאבותינו ולנו שלא אחד בלבד עומד עלינו לכלותינו והקב"ה מצילנו מידם

This is what has stood by our fathers and us! For not just one alone has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us; and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand!

Yonatan Razel At The Moskowitz Zionism Prize Ceremony

"Dance" Music - New Band

The call themselves Eshet Chayil, a new three-woman troupe - Revital Greenberg, Yael Shachar (both from Nes Tziona) and Mor Lichayani (from Bet Shean) who sing songs of traditional lyrics (Bible, Talmud, Rabbinic sources) but blend in a modern dance mode.

Here's Al N'harot Bavel:

Well, Well, Some Culture From 'Beyond-the-Green Line'

Here's one story that isn't, or shouldn't be, political:

Settler Rock Comes to The States

“We don’t get into politricks, man.” So says Shmuel Caro, the heavily bearded lead guitarist of the Israeli jam-collective Aharit Hayamim, or End of Days. It’s an unexpected statement from the front man of what’s been called the house band of the Hilltop Youth, the young radical settlers known for setting up makeshift outposts deep in the occupied territory of the West Bank.

Caro and his band are backstage at 92YTribeca, a Jewish music venue in Manhattan, preparing for a headlining set on the East Coast leg of a North American tour that had included a performance annual Jewlicious festival for Jewish college students, among other venues. While the band is associated with some of the most extreme elements of the settler movement, fellow performers and promoters say that their politics shouldn’t prevent them from appearing in mainstream Jewish venues.

“We’re here to represent the real vibe of Israel,” says keyboardist Yehuda Leuchter, before bursting into spontaneous harmony with the rest of Aharit Hayamim. Dressed in flowing shirts and large, knitted kippot, the four band members sang a reggae-inflected round of “Holy Mt. Zion.” After a minute, Yehuda announces: “That’s all we got to say, man.”

A clip:

...Chaya Hershkopf, a young Lubavitch woman from Crown Heights, says that she first saw Aharit Hayamim perform at T’Koa D, a small, unauthorized outpost 2 km from the settlement of T’Koa, itself 8 km past the Green Line. “They talk a lot about the earth and the land and how it’s ours and the importance of holding on to it,” says Chaya. “They talk about Jerusalem and keeping it ours. They’re very settlery, and that’s mostly what I like about them.”

When asked whether they considered themselves Hilltop Youth, the members of Aharit Hayamim are evasive. “If you have a beard and a big kippah, you’re on the spot,” says Leuchter. “Doesn’t matter if you’re, like, Arab…Kids all over the world have tattoos and long hair. So, in Israel, they don’t have tattoos and they don’t have earrings. They have big payis and they believe in the land and they believe in peace and they believe in music and they believe in redemption.”

...Dan Sieradski...doesn’t object to their appearances at major Jewish venues alongside American Jewish artists. “I think their views are abhorrent,” he says, “but if I don’t engage them and I don’t share a stage with them, how can I ever hope to change their minds or confront them to question their own beliefs? I don’t support cultural boycotts. I would support financial boycotts against companies doing business in the West Bank, but I wouldn’t support an artistic boycott of a band that lives in the West Bank.”...

Music: Embellished and Bullied

In Étude No. 72 (“Dorian Blue”), an ancient Jewish devotional chant played with the left hand was embellished and occasionally bullied by right-hand flourishes.



Source

Matisyahu is Back

Matisyahu will be off on a fall tour and a new disc is coming out.




Matisyahu's trek kicks off October 18 at The Rave Eagles Club in Milwaukee and will hit clubs and theatres across the U.S. and Canada before winding down December 18 at Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vt. Stops include Murat Egyptian Room in Indianapolis (October 22), Orpheum Theatre in Boston (October 29), Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C. (November 3), Variety Playhouse in Atlanta (November 8), Palladium Ballroom in Dallas (November 13), Grove of Anaheim in California (November 20), Ogden Theatre in Denver (November 29), Cannery Ballroom in Nashville (December 7), Bogart's in Cincinnati (December 11) and Metropolis in Montreal (December 17).

Shattered, a four-track preview of Matisyahu's Light which is due out early next year, can be heard here at this blogger. And the track Smashed Lies should be able to be listened to here or go back to the report here and click on down at the story's end. More info here.

His site has a short intro clip.

This Music Bit is Called "Simcha"

Have a great Simchat Torah

Happiness by Naor Carmi's Tizmoret group

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or try this Oriental-style piece.