The Music Of Awe

by George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week

The holiest days of the Jewish year approach and, appropriately, we have a remarkable range of music on hand that reflects and amplifies the sense of anticipation that Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur bring. What links these quite disparate recordings is the adrenalin rush that is compounded of equal parts dread, awe and love.
Greg Wall’s Later Prophets: “Ha’Orot” (Tzadik)
As most Jewish Week readers know by now, Greg Wall is not only an excellent jazz reed player, co-founder with Frank London of Hasidic New Wave; he is also an Orthodox rabbi with a congregation in New Jersey. This new set combines his great passions in a deft and quite lovely blend, taking the words of Rabbi Avraham Kook, using them as counterpoint to some

elegant and poignant post-bop blowing. Rabbi Itschak Marmorstein reads the texts in a graceful mixture of awe and ecstasy, while the Prophets (Wall, pianist Shai Bachar, bassist Dave Richards and drummer Aaron Alexander) respond mightily. A thoughtful, frequently pensive recording that will reward many, many repeated listenings. Rating: *****.

The Sway Machinery: “Hidden Melodies Revealed” (JDub)
Jeremiah Lockwood and his group have been performing this extraordinary music live for well over a year, but it’s great to finally have a recording of it. From the driving, explosive drumming that opens this set, you know that this isn’t like any other album of the High Holy Day liturgy you’ve heard before. The melodies here are traditional, or the work of Golden Age cantors like Kwartin and Glantz, but Lockwood has updated the material in ways that simultaneously render homage to those great composer-performers (including his own grandfather) yet bring them into an electrified 21st century. Think Tom Waits with throbbing Afro-funk horns. A dazzling feat in both concept and execution, audacious and exciting.
Rating: *****.

Steve Cohen: “Shir Chadash/A New Song” (self-distributed)
Cohen is a talented classical and theater composer whose settings of liturgy are beginning to find their way into the concert repertoire. This set showcases some of his liturgical writing, which is quite tuneful, but hardly easy listening (or singing). Like one of his teachers, John Corigliano, he is a gifted melodist who isn’t afraid to write “pretty” music, but there is a steeliness underling the melodies that prevents them from becoming the sort of cocktail-lounge droning that characterizes too much new Jewish shul music. Anyone who can listen to Janowski’s “Avinu Malkeinu” and hear chords from Harold Arlen (a comparison Cohen made in recent interview) is a composer after my own heart and ears. Available from www.stevecohenmusic.net.
Rating: **** 1/2.

Eyal Maoz’s Edom: “Hope and Destruction” (Tzadik)
Is there any phrase that better sums up the two poles of the High Holy Day liturgy than this one? Maoz is a tough Israeli guitar slinger who walks a fine line between metal mayhem and free jazz. Edom is basically a power trio-plus-keyboards that leaves plenty of room for the leader’s skronk and strut and synth squiggles and screams from Brian Marsella. My favorite cut, “Slight Sun” sounds like a cross between the Rascals and Vanilla Fudge on speed. Not to all tastes, but inventive stuff.
Rating: *** 1/2.

Jewish People’s Philharmonic Choir: “Zingt! A Celebration of Yiddish Choral Music” (Self-produced)
This recording is both a vivid reminder of how dramatic choral music can be in the hands of a conductor-arranger like Binyumen Schaechter, and a tribute to the wide range of material in the Yiddish choral repertoire. Schaechter has an almost operatic sense of narrative and he makes rich use of the palette afforded by a chorus of more than 40 voices. What a shame that he couldn’t combine that sound with a full orchestra; the pianists here are excellent accompanists, but the recording’s sound buries them. Available from www.thejppc.org.
Rating: ****.

Kohane of Newark:
“New Midlife Crisis” (Joodayoh)
This one has been lingering in a prominent place on the CD changer in our house. A smart, funny collection of original songs, played in a sort of folk-punk-cum-Middle Eastern style. Kohane, a former yeshiva bocher named Ricky Orbach, writes clever, bittersweet songs about growing out of one’s family and into a Jewish identity that has its pros and cons. A very entertaining debut set, available from iTunes or at www.myspace.com/kohaneofnewark.
Rating: **** 1/2.

Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg:
“tusker-zis” (Tzadik)
The latest in the London-Sklamberg exploration of sacred Jewish vocal music focuses on mystical Hasidic songs for the cycle of festivals. They’ve dispensed with the traditional rhythm section, going with tabla, dhol, oud and saz, with the result that this is their most low-key outing yet, intensely contemplative, moody and plaintive. In some ways a strange, uncharacteristically folk-like CD, this one grows on repeated listening. It probably won’t get into my CD player as often as “Hazonos” or “Nigunim” simply because it calls for a level of concentration that isn’t easy to draw on, but this is certainly a keeper.
Rating: **** 1/2.