This page gives information about the music that we're listening to this semester at the beginning of each class. Don ByronPlays the Music of Mickey Katz (originally released in 1993). A review of the album says: So, can a black musician have Jewish soul? I mean, sure some Jews can play jazz (Benny Goodman!), but can blacks play klez? At least in this case, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Byron first came to the notice of klezmer fans as the lead clarinet player for Boston's wonderful Klezmer Conservatory Band.
He is also known as a habitue of New York's Knitting Factory--home of
interesting jazz and a well-known John Zorn hangout. (The Klezmatics hang there, too.)
I'll cut right to the review. This is the album that Mickey Katz would have made if he were around today. Byron clearly understands Katz, his music, where he was coming from--the ganze megillah. Byron is also an incredible musician, so there are wonderful breaks of pure klezzified jazz on this album. And the fun--if the Litvak Square Dance doesn't get you, try to escape the "Mechaye War Chant" without thinking of Cab Calloway or that "Chinese" blues oddity, "Hong Kong." If I were to introduce someone today to Mickey Katz' work, I'd point them at this album, rather than to Katz rereleases, as the better starting point. DivahnGaleet Dardashti. The website for the band says:Anyone
who thinks Jewish music equals klezmer needs to hear Divahn's Middle
Eastern and Sephardic grooves. Fans first heard Divahn's energetic
music deep in the heart of Texas. Today, this dynamic New York City-based
quintet delights audiences throughout the country and has made numerous
live radio appearances. Divahn infuses traditional songs with sophisticated
harmonies and arrangements using tabla, cello, rabel, doumbek, violin
and other acoustic instruments, plus vocals in Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish,
Persian, Arabic, Aramaic and Turkish. Galeet's own website provides a player with fantastic music from her about-to-be released album, The Naming. (The album artwork is beautiful - it comes from Siona Benjamin, an Indian Jewish artist whose work was displayed at the Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery a couple of years ago). On her website there's a description of the album: The Queen of Sheeba's shaven legs. A witch's bitter prophecy. The female superheroes who saved Moses. These stories make up The Naming,
singer and composer Galeet Dardashti's electronica-edged exploration of
the little-known lives of the Bible's female icons. Of Persian Jewish
descent, Dardashti unites the Persian classical music that made her
grandfather an icon in Iran with her family's deep connection to Jewish
poetry and song, creating music that springs from where the midrash
meets midwifery, where modal melody meets sleek modernity. IC KlezmorimMusic from Hawaiian Gardens - IC Klezmorim with Ryan Zawel, directed by Peter Rothbart (2005). From Joel Rubin, who taught at Cornell and Ithaca College (now at the University of Virginia):When I hung out flyers announcing the formation of my first klezmer band twenty-five years ago, people would ask me, "klezmer what?". The picture looks very different today, as a music which was previously known among Jews of Eastern European origin has become a part of the international soundscape. The notion of a klezmer band being included among the world music ensembles offered by music schools and departments has been long in coming. It wouldn't be until the early to mid-1990s that college students would begin to found klezmer ensembles. The IC Klezmorim were formed around 1999 at the behest of Professor Peter Rothbart, eventually becoming an Ithaca College School of Music-supported student ensemble offered for chamber music credit - one of the first of its kind in the country. What had begun as a roots-seeking movement by musicians largely of Jewish origins has become one further piece in the mosaic of the student's understanding of the musics of multicultural America and of the world. Yoel ben-Simhon and Sultana Ensemble.To hear clips from the album, go to this page on his website. From the Amazon website:As a child, composer/instrumentalist Yoel Ben-Simhon was immersed in
the Moroccan-Jewish culture of his parents and grandparents, who
emigrated to Israel in the late 1950s: "My grandmother Sultana was
always my babysitter. At her house, I was exposed to my family's
Moroccan and Arabic heritage. It was in the language they spoke, the
tobacco my grandfather Mimon sniffed, the food they ate, and the music
they picked up via short wave radio from Morocco. We went to a Moroccan
synagogue, and I heard the music there, too; both liturgical hymns and
secular songs." With the musicians and dancers of the Sultana Ensemble,
Ben-Simhon blends the sights and sounds of his childhood in Israel with
those of his adulthood, spent as a working musician in the United
States. The resulting project is as personal in conception as it is
global in scope, mixing el
ements of Moroccan, Andalusian, Sephardic,
and Middle Eastern music and dance with Latin jazz. The KlezmaticsSilence=Death. From the Klezmatics website:The Klezmatics are globally-renowned world music
superstars — and the only klezmer band to win a Grammy award. The
Klezmatics emerged out of the vibrant cultural scene of New York City’s
East Village in 1986 with klezmer steeped in Eastern European Jewish
tradition and spirituality, while incorporating contemporary themes
such as human rights and anti-fundamentalism and eclectic musical
influences including Arab, African, Latin and Balkan rhythms, jazz and
punk. In the course of over twenty years and nine albums they have
stubbornly continued making music that is wild, mystical, provocative,
reflective and ecstatically danceable. I just discovered from the website that the latest Klezmatics album is Wonder Wheel, which puts music to some of the songs that Woody Guthrie left behind. (Click on the link to listen to some of the songs). The Klezmatics already recorded some of Guthrie's songs in their wonderful Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah. Woody Guthrie was married to a Jewish woman, and his mother-in-law was the well-known Yiddish poet, Aliza Greenblatt. We'll be listening to songs from this album soon. From the Klezmatics website: Woody Guthrie, father of American folk music, writer of "This Land
Is Your Land," also wrote Hanukkah songs!
In 1942, Woody Guthrie moved to Brooklyn and soon, through his mother-in-law (the renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt), he became involved with the Coney Island Jewish Community. He wrote songs about Hanukkah, about Jewish history and about spiritual life. After his death in 1967, these songs sat forgotten in archives. "Lost" for almost 30 years, Guthrie's Hanukkah lyrics were discovered in 1998 by Woody's daughter, Nora Guthrie. She was so inspired by what she found, she asked the Klezmatics to write new music for the lyrics. Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah is the second recorded release of this amazing material. Deftly intermingling Klezmer with American folk and bluegrass,Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah is destined to become a holiday classic for generations to come. This delightful collection of songs, including 'Hanuka's Flame", "Hanuka Gelt", "Spin Dreydl Spin", "(Do the) Latke Flip-Flip" and others, is among the best of Guthrie's work, and the Klezmatics playful renditions cast a new light on the Hanukkah tradition. Chava Alberstein and the Klezmatics - The Well. We listened to one song from this album - Di Golden Pave (The Golden Peacock). From the Klezmatics website: When Israeli singer Chava Alberstein produced a
documentary film on 20th-century Yiddish poets in 1995 (“Too Early to
Be Quiet, Too Late to Sing”), the writers' stories provoked Alberstein
to set some of their poems to music. The results are gathered on The Well,
with vocals by Alberstein and music performed by the Klezmatics. The
compositions reflect Alberstein's wide range of influences, from
klezmer and traditional Jewish music to French chanson, German cabaret,
American folk, and Middle Eastern styles all popping up. There are some haunting songs on this album, including one entitled, "Mayn Shvester Khaye (My Sister Khaye)," a poem written by the Yiddish poet Binem Heller about his sister, who died in Treblinka. See below for the full text of the poem. Mayn Shvester Khaye – My Sister Chaya My sister Khaye, with the green eyes My sister Khaye, with the black braids - The sister Khaye, who raised me In the house on Smotshe Street with tumble down steps. Mother left the house at dawn When there was hardly light in the sky. She went off to the shop, to earn A wretched penny's worth of change. And Khaye stayed with the brothers, She fed them and watched over them. And she would sing them pretty songs At nightfall, when little kids get tired. My sister Khaye, with the green eyes My sister Khaye, with the long hair – The sister Khaye, who raised me She wasn't even ten years old. She cleaned and cooked and served the food, She washed our little heads All she forgot was to play with us -- My sister Khaye with the black braids. My sister Khaye with her eyes of green Was burnt by a German in Treblinka. And I am here in the Jewish state: The very last one who ever knew her. It's for her that I write my poems in Yiddish In these terrible days of our times. To God Himself she's an only daughter, In heaven she sits at his right hand. |