THE BEAT
New Jewish music for Chanukah celebrations
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Dec. 19, 1997) -- In recent years, there has been a renaissance of creativity in new Jewish music, some of it based in the tradition of Klezmer -- the instrumental celebration music of Eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jews -- and some drawing upon other traditions, including Yiddish folk songs and Hebrew cantorial melodies. Part of this is no doubt due to a generational trend toward re- exploring cultural roots -- a trend that has similarly fueled interest in Celtic, Latin, African and other ethnic musics -- and part is evidence of a longing for spiritual renewal.
The festival of Chanukah that begins next Tuesday night commemorates the rededication of the Jewish people to the historical and spiritual roots they lost under the Hellenizing influence of the ancient Greeks in the second century B.C.E. While little if any of the music that follows directly addresses the historical events surrounding Chanukah, in its delicate balance of ancient and modern, Jewish and non-Jewish, most of it does speak eloquently to the themes of the season.
While the Klezmatics's own "Possessed" (Xenophile) was one of the most exciting, groundbreaking Klezmer CDs in years, the members of that band have also been busy with various side projects.
When he is not playing trumpet with the Klezmatics, Frank London can often be found playing with Hasidic New Wave, which he co-leads with saxophonist Greg Wall. While the Klezmatics are widely considered to be at the forefront of progressive Klezmer, by comparison Hasidic New Wave makes them sound downright traditional. HNW's CD, "Jews and the Abstract Truth" (Knitting Factory Works), contains edgy, avant-garde compositions and improvisations based on contemporary Hasidic wedding music, but equally steeped in funk, free jazz, hard-rock and world- beat. Selections range from the Ladino/cool of "Tzur Mishelo" to the polyphonic "Last Temptation of Lady L" to the lyrical/country-laced "Bobover Wedding March." Worth it alone for Wall's achingly gorgeous solo on "Eliyahu Hanovi."
The clarinet usurped the violin's place of primacy in the klezmer ensemble, or kapelye, somewhere around the turn of the century. On Alicia Svigals' "Fidl" (Traditional Crossroads), her virtuosic technique and her unmistakably personal voice -- at once hauntingly ancient and strikingly contemporary (among her credits are appearances with rock band Led Zeppelin) -- returns the violin to its rightful place in the Klezmer ensemble. The traditionally-flavored CD also boasts amazing liner notes in a genre where the standard for such notes is already set way above the ordinary.
Matt Darriau, the clarinetist for the Klezmatics, fronts his own group, the aptly-titled Paradox Trio (it's a quartet). While not nominally a Jewish-music group, the Paradox draws on Balkan folk and gypsy music for its inspiration, both traditions that heavily inform Klezmer. On the group's second CD, "Flying at a Slant" (Knitting Factory Works), which features Darriau on a variety of reed instruments, flutes and bagpipes, the music -- mostly original compositions by band members -- takes on cross-cultural overtones beyond anything that has come before: a vital, contemporary world-beat stew.
Historically speaking the mandolin and guitar were not found in Klezmer ensembles, but that hasn't stopped Jeff Warschauer, whose CD, "The Singing Waltz: Klezmer Guitar and Mandolin" (Omega) features 15 melodies -- about half traditional, half modern -- arranged for guitar and mandolin, with occasional, spare accompaniment by instruments more typically found in Klezmer groups, including clarinet, violin, accordion and piano. In compositions of his own, such as the solo guitar piece, "A Slow Hora for Those Who Wait for Freedom," Warschauer, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and a member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, sets the standard for a new, classically- influenced, Klezmer-guitar idiom.
As its name indicates, the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, based in the Big Easy, put a decidedly unconventional spin on its mostly original compositions on "The Big Kibosh" (Shanachie). The group is at its best when it pushes the envelope and lets loose its front-line of polyphonic horns and its second-line of funky, marching band rhythms, as on "Klip Klop" and "D'Bronx Tants." It also boasts one of the best song titles: "Taking the Flower Arrangements Home After the Wedding."
"Beregovski's Khasene" by the Joel Rubin Jewish Music Ensemble, is the latest in clarinetist Rubin's wonderful Jewish Music Series on the Weltmusik imprint of the German label, Wergo. As a player, an arranger and a curator of music from Klezmer's Golden Age in Eastern Europe, Rubin does essential work, transforming what is essentially a folk form into art music without destroying the soulful expression at its core.
Just as in the early-20th century when cantors took the religious liturgy out of the synagogue and brought it before a popular audience, so does Wally Brill recontextualize Jewish prayer melodies on "The Covenant" (Six Degrees/Island). In this case, Brill samples early recordings of cantors and combines them with contemporary rhythms and textures based on the latest in electronic and world music. Brill's keen understanding of and respect for the source material keep this from devolving into simply a Jewish version of the pop-chant group Enigma, justifying its self-description as "sacred music for the 58th century."
A similar, if even more experimental, juxtaposition can be found on "Slichot (Forgiveness)" (Rawkus), by Rea Mochiach and Alon Cohen. The songs combine ambient electronica with Sephardic cantorial melodies from the Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah liturgy dating back over 2,000 years, making for another starkly suggestive fusion of ancient and modern.
While the fusion on Wolf Krakowski's "Transmigrations" (Kame'a) is of two, distinct, 20th-century styles -- Yiddish popular song and American roots-rock -- its effect is no less stark, timeless or suggestive. Retaining the haunting melodies and provincial concerns of Yiddish theater, folk and pop tunes while recasting them into rootsy rock and honky-tonk arrangements, Krakowski invests them with contemporary power and a politically-charged urgency worthy of Judah Maccabee, the hero of the Chanukah story.
READERS POLL: Radiohead or Portishead? Marilyn Manson or Janet Jackson? Bjork or Phish? There's still time to sound off about your favorite CDs of 1997. E-mail us a list of your favorites for inclusion in our upcoming reader's poll.
NEXT WEEK: The Top 10 Concerts of 1997.
[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Dec. 19, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
Next Article || Previous Article || Back
