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From Ha-aretz:
Legendary Israeli singer Yafa Yarkoni dies at 86
Yarkoni was known as the singer of Israel’s wars and was one of the most acclaimed artists in the country."
From Judith Cohen:
While we are still reeling from the loss of Adrienne—waking up wondering how she could not be here—just learned that Sofia Noël passed away on December 27, at the age of 96. I met her only once, in the early 80s when I was just beginning to work on Sephardic music, and she was friendly, to the point, elegant... Sofia Noel was both Sephardic and Ashkenazi; she fled Brussels for Spain during World War II. A classically trained singer, she performed Spanish chamber music, as well as Hassidic songs, and songs from different cultures, including a "three cultures" approach long before it became de rigueur. She also carried out research, published articles, taught enthusiastically, and brought Sephardic (and other) music to a wide public through her radio broadcasts. In the '70s and '80s many people in the world of Spanish folk music mentioned her frequently; since her retirement from public life, her central role in bringing Sephardic music to people's attention has become less and less known. For those who read Spanish, more information at www.rtve.es/radio/20111228/fallece-sofia-noel-voz-sefarad/485525.shtml
From Jeff Warschauer:
Memorial service and funeral for Adrienne Cooper in California tomorrow (Wednesday). Memorial event in NYC January 1.
A memorial service for Adrienne Cooper will take place at 11 am tomorrow (Wednesday) at Congregation B'nai Shalom, 74 Eckley Lane, Walnut Creek, CA. This will be followed by a graveside funeral (approximately 12:30 PM) at Oakmont Cemetery in Lafayette, CA.
There will be a memorial service in NY on January 1st, New Years Day at Temple Ansche Chesed at 12 noon. To learn more about Adrienne and her extraordinary legacy, and for more details on Funeral and Memorial Services, click here.
Adrienne Cooper passed away peacefully on Sunday evening after a long fight with cancer. Famous primarily for her extraordinary voice and ability to make Yiddish song clear to all, regardless of whether or not the listener understood the language, Cooper was, in many ways, the mother of the Klezmer/Yiddish revival of the 1980s.... [more]
Bob Blacksberg's photo, of Adrienne singing with a group at KlezKanada 2010, captures how I remember her, perfectly.
From Jeff Warschauer, last night:
"Adrienne Cooper passed away peacefully earlier tonight.
Borukh dayen emes.
Zol zi hobn a likhtikn gan-eydn un zol zi nisht visn mer fun keyn tsar."
The funeral will be held on Wednesday in California. A memorial is currently planned in NYC on Sunday, Jan1. Details to follow.
Despite knowing that she was failing, I find myself still unable to put down in words the grief I feel at losing a friend, and the grief of a larger community that has lost a friend, a teacher, an amazing performer and scholar, an advocate and activist. Among her lesser accomplishments is the co-founding of KlezKamp, an annual gathering whose 27th annual gathering convened just yesterday. Ari
In Monday's Forward, Jeffrey Shandler writes: Adrienne Cooper Embodied Progressive Spirit
Judith Pinnolis, who wrote Cooper's entry for Encyclopedia Judaica, expands it and adds her own appreciation: Adrienne Cooper: A Yiddish Light Goes Out
There is an article on the last page of this issue of the Frankel Center newsletter (the University of Michigan center for Jewish Studies) of great interest to many people on this list: "Dos folk fodert sotsyale gerekhtikayt: Social Protests and Yiddish in Tel Aviv," by Shachar Pinsker.
The article concludes, describing the tent city and the protests, thus: "... More than everything else, this is a revolution of consciousness, one in which even a speech, or a demonstration poster in Yiddish are not out of place."
Much fun. You can read a copy at
www.lsa.umich.edu/judaic/pdfs/newsletter1011.pdf
Since getting an iPad for my birthday, I have been trying it out as a recording device with varying success. It is more cumbersome and creates video/sound of slightly less quality than I get with the Flip camera from work. But, alas, Flips have been discontinued and the iPad is often with me, where the Flip is not. And, the iPad lets me take notes while wandering.
A couple of nights ago, I took some video of the Sukkoth gathering at Occupy Boston, then promptly lost the recording during an ill-timed maneuver on the iPad—I am still learning how to care for and feed the darn thing. Given the quality of the video at night with little illumination, this is not the loss it could have been, although I would not have minded putting the brief gathering and ceremony online.
In any event, last month I recorded most of the Klezmatics concert in Boston. Great fun. I'll start with the concert finale, a deconstructed "Ale Brider:"
You can view the entire series on the "KlezmerShack" channel playlist for the concert on YouTube.
At the beginning of October I tried again, this time in full daylight, and using the "Luma" iPad app, which hopefully takes some of the jitters out the recordings. (Thanks to a car that ran through a stop sign while I was bicycling to work in August, I had an encounter with the street that left me with a broken collarbone. The car did not stop after causing the accident, but the collarbone is healing. Unfortunately, it will still be a few months before it is comfortable to hold up a recording device for more than a few minutes.) So, here is Somerville's delightful "Honkfest," a celebration of street marching bands held each fall. In addition to my injury, the delight of just wandering and shmoozing got in the way of serious recording, so here is a brief taste of the afternoon (and more tastes on YouTube in my Honkfest2011 playlist)
From Davido Chevan, about the new a href="/bands/chevan/further/">Afro-Semitic Experience CD:
A story about the new CD on the NPR News Show, "Tell Me More," aired today. Samples of four tunes from the new CD are being aired along with an interview of Alvin and David by NPR’s Jacki Lyden. I know we cannot get that show anywhere around here but there is a pod cast that you can stream or download (for free!): www.npr.org/2011/09/28/140876465/jewish-new-year-brings-new-music
And if that was not enough NPR has chosen “Adoshem, Adoshem,” one of the tracks on the album to be today’s SONG OF THE DAY!! Here’s a link to that site: www.npr.org/2011/09/28/140875436/afro-semitic-experience-pray-sway-love-the-lord
It is a measure of my distraction these years, countered by Sam's patience, that this is finally available. Heavily illustrated and footnoted, a version first appeared in "Journal of Synagogue Music," Vol. 34, Fall 2009, published by The Cantors Assembly.
"The 50th anniversary of the release of Haneshomoh Loch, the first record album by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, is an opportune time to assess his musical and liturgical legacy....." [more]
You can read all about it at www.klezmershack.com/articles/weiss_s/carlebach/
and a very happy rosh hashana to all....
Tonight, of course, is selichot, the midnight prayers held on the Saturday night before the New Year. With that in mind, I have shuffled the mountains of CDs on the review table and come up with six especially wonderful recordings that most seemed perfect for tonight, and of course, for the new year:
First on the list is last year's long-awaited recording from Adrienne Cooper / Enchanted. I would have reviewed this long ago, but that would have implied that I would put it on the shelf and move on to other CDs that I need to review. No way this CD is unshuffling from the iTunes. Read more, and you'll understand why.
I couldn't stop kvelling about the Veretski Pass project, "The Klezmer Shul" back when I first saw it live over a year ago. Now the CD is out and you can hear why. A fusion of klezmer and jazz and avant garde modern music, the arrival of this CD a couple of weeks has pushed almost everything else out of mind.
This one CD summation of three monster concerts from a year ago, "Further Definitions of the Days of Awe" is a perfect summation of both the Afro-Semitic Experience's wonderful fusion of Jewish and Black sacred music, and the art of the Cantor as mostly represented by the irrepressible Jack Mendelson, but also including several other significant names. And what better time for High Holiday nusakh than the High Holidays?
All last year we got periodic new sounds from "The Nigun Project" by Jeremiah Lockwood, commissioned by the Forward. What is most striking is how much ground Lockwood covers in re-imagining the Nigun while also making deep music. I love this one.
I am a year late in my review, but at least I am right in time for the holidays with this return of Steven Greenman's sacred music persona, Stempenyu. This time, he captures "Stempenyu's Neshome". I typeset and laid out the CD, so it can't be all bad—actually, if I were as good a typesetter as Greenman is a violinist, this would be long out of print. Fortunately, you can still get your copy in time for the holidays.
Why? Because if there is one thing that will ensure repentence, and get us in the frame to approach the awe of the approaching holidays, it is a reminder of what makes us happy. This loving 2008 re-release of Danny Rubinstein's original 1958 "The Happy People is all that.
Come Play Klezmer with Deborah Strauss at the 92nd Street Y, New York City!
5 Sundays starting September 25, 3-5 pm
All instrumentalists (intermediate and above) are invited to join the kapelye (band) led by international klezmer star-fiddler and educator Deborah Strauss.
For more info and to register go to:
www.92y.org/Uptown/Class/Klezmer-Ensemble.aspx
One of the neatest projects to come out of Berkeley's Jewish Music Festival is the Ger Mandolin Orchestra, which has performed at the festival, and this past winter (? spring?), back in Poland. The project was initiated by a descendent of a member of the original Ger Mandolin Orchestra (a century ago, every town&mdashand many US "Workmen's Circle" groups, had mandolin orchestras), Bay Area resident Avner Yonai.
CDs sometimes come in far faster than I can review them. I am going to try to at least get the word out on these with release dates in the coming week, and hope to catch up with reviews as I can.
I have already mentioned this new Klezmatics release celebrating their 25th anniversary. The main CD release party is on September 14th in NYC. Let me also repeat that when I first saw the band 15 years or so ago. At that time, as on this CD, the band came out and Lorin launched into a cut off their breakout CD, Jews with Horns, "Man in a Hat." Well, same cut, same energy—or more, and the broadest repertoire of new and traditional Jewish music and Americana played by anyone. You need this CD, and you can get it by doing good: In five days, on September 13th, the Klezmatics either reach their Kickstarter goal of $15,000 to pay for this tour and CD—or they don't. Then what? The band sets up shop as housepainters? That would be bad. Check out the Klezmatics Kickstarter campaign and pledge until it hurts. Make this happen.
David Chevan has been exploring Jewish and Afro-American spiritual music through the lens of jazz, for years. As I love mentioning, my first date with the person who is now my wife was at the CD release of one of his first efforts. The music gets better. David writes: "For most of the past decade the Afro-Semitic Experience has played the midnight Selichot service with Cantor Jack Mendelson at his synagogue in White Plains. We have, in the process, created a new way to accompany cantorial music and we decided to document it. We recorded three concerts in August, 2010 just before the High Holy Days, one in New York City, one in New Haven, Connecticut, and one in Greenfield, Massachusetts. And now that music is ready for you to hear. The new CD is called Further Definitions of the Days of Awe and it features the band with special guests Cantor Jack Mendelson, Cantor Lisa Arbisser, Cantor Erik Contzius, cantorial soloist Danny Mendelson, and trumpeter Frank London. The CD officially drops on Tuesday, September 13, but it is already on sale at iTunes and amazon.com
If, like me, you have noticed that the fiery new violinist in the Klezmer Conservatory Band these last few years also seems to be a favored accompaniest and band-member on other Hankus Netsky projects, you won't be surprised that the classically trained violinist's first CD, Yaeko Miranda Elmaleh features a broad spectrum of underplayed, but very traditional klezmer tunes, ranging from the "Philadelphia Sher" (from whom could you have learned that?) to "Meron" and "Kaddish" (okay, this is Ravel), to some Carlebach tunes and "Waltz from the Hills of Manchuria." The CD release party is this Tuesday, Sep 13, in Boston at Club Passim, one of my favorite venues.
Jazzman Roger Davidson explores klezmer with some of my favorite musicians, including Frank London, Josh Horowitz, Khevre graduate and current Klezmatics drummer Richie Barshay, the great Pablo Aslan on bass … and Andy Statman. The territory is relatively familiar, but this is an all-star cast. The CD, On the Road of Life
From Pete Rushefsky on the Jewish Music list:
Itzik Gottesman reports on KlezKanada in a nice video here on the Forverts's Youtube page:
If there is music I love being played somewhere in Boston, the odds are that Michael McLaughlin, of Shirim, Naftule's Dream, KlezWoods, and too many other ensembles, is behind it. So, when he suggests that we might all want to attend this upcoming event, I listen attentively and make plans to be there:
SqueezeBox Slam: Including the Big Stroll & Concert
Saturday, September 17 · 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Be part of the Boston area's first accordion & concertina festival on Sept. 17th! Squeezebox players of all shapes, sizes and musical interests are invited to come to Somerville and play/stroll/set up camp in the city's public spaces and parks from 12-3. No jury, no curation, kind of a flash mob for musicians. We are calling it "The Big Stroll". Then from 3-6 we will be hosting a free concert in Union Square as part of ArtsUnion. Produced by ARTSomerville, the Nave Gallery, and Michael McLaughlin. Made possible because of the awesome support of the Somerville Arts Council.
The Concert at Union Square goes from 3-6.
- Plamen Karadenov from 3-3:30;
- Joao Cerilo from 3:30-4:00;
- Michael McLaughlin 4:00-4:30;
- Mariache Estampa de America 4:30-5:00;
- Peter Bufano 5:00-5:30
- Roberto Cassan 5:30-6:00.
More information about the event, including parking, logistics, etc, can be found via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=245570485470802
The latest edition of my Kosher Jam internet radio show, first broadcast on Tuesday 6th September, can now be listened to anytime at: www.ukjazzradio.com/listenagain.htm.
Highlights include: Martial Solal, one of the great jazz pianists, performing live in New York just after the 9/11 terrorist attack; guitarist Michel Sajrawy, a Palestinian from Nazereth, whose albums are collaborations between Palestinian and Israeli Jewish musicians; the late saxophonist Arnie Lawrence, who also strove to bring musicians from these two communities together; and one of the rhythm and blues hits Jerry Leiber, who died last month, co-wrote for the Coasters; and Jewish jazz from Australia.
I am catching up from a year of overload, it seems. Here is a review of Yale Strom's new book on Dave Tarras—if you look at the KlezmerShack calendar you'll see that Yale is doing some appearances this fall based on the book, so it is still current.
Dave Tarras, the King of Klezmer - by Yale Strom : A book review by Michael Sherman, January 2011.
Many thanks to author Michael Sherman for bringing this to my attention.
From Dobe Ressler, currently visiting Israel:
git a kuk - fayne frumer muzikers fun Medines Yisroyel
Fishel Bresler remarks on the Jewish-Music mailing list:
A sheynem dank, Dobe!
The dance they were doing is (as I understand it) the last remnant of the old "Broiges Tanz," once done by the mothers-in-law at a wedding, now done by two guys instead, fighting (*nebech*) over a bottle...death resulting. Followed, of course, by "t'chies hameisim" *(b'ashkenazit)* - the resurrection-of-the-dead dance. It's not specifically a hassidic custom; I've been asked to play it for litvaks, too.
From Craig Taubman. This download is available for free only in the United States:
We put together a free High Holy Day Music sampler for Amazon. Until Rosh Hashana (Tishrei 1), in honor of Jewels of Elul (www.jewelsofelul.com) you can download all of the songs for free (Alas, Amazon.com limits this to US visitors only). There is an amazingly eclectic mix of music from Josh Nelson, David Broza, Basya Schecter, Alberto Mizrahi and a handful of other artists.
Cantor Sam Weiss, has once again put up a recording of us own:
This one's totally free, all over the world, and available till after Hoshanah Rabbah!
A song for the High Holy Days season based on the Yiddish-Hebrew song "A Mayseh" attributed to the son of Reb Levi-Yitzchak of Berditchev. Complete description, translation and transliteration with the download:
If you aren't familiar with "The Other Europeans" project you have been missing one of the most exciting projects of recent years. They have a delightful CD out ("Almost Bootleg") and give one hell of an intense concert. It was one of the highlights of my life to help bring them to Boston last year and watch a thoroughly excited audience cram into Johnny D's. I'll let Alan Bern take it from here:
many of you already know about The Other Europeans (www.other-europeans-band.eu). It's a truly incredible, 14-piece band playing heartbreaking and virtuosic music that goes back to pre-WWII Bessarabia and a community of professional klezmer (Yiddish) and lautar (Gipsy/Roma) musicians who live and played together for more than a century - a rare, historical example of such close cooperation between these groups. The Other Europeans restores this almost lost heritage to the 21st century.
The project brings together some of today's greatest klezmer and lautar musicians from 8 different countries - Moldova, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Great Britain, the Ukraine & the USA and combines historical and ethnographic research with the highest levels of musicianship. It was only possible to create with the help of funding from the European Union. But now that funding has run out. To continue to exist, we have to connect with agents and festivals and find ways to continue to tour and record. That's no small financial task for a 14-piece international ensemble.
Now we've been invited to play a showcase at the 2011 WOMEX in Copenhagen—by far the most important trade fair for world music. It's the best possible chance for us to attract just the kind of attention and support we need. But first we have to get there! We have to pay our own expenses for travel and accommodations, and we also need to launch our live double-CD at the showcase. To accomplish that, we really need your help.
Some of you are already familiar with Kickstarter. It's an internet site that lets artists raise funds for projects just like this. As a reward for their support, donors also get our music and many other interesting and unique benefits. I've set up a kickstarter campaign for The Other Europeans. If you are already a fan of The Other Europeans, or if this project sounds worthy of support to you, then I hope you'll visit the site below and contribute whatever you can—every little bit helps! Thanks to all of you in advance, and I hope that with your help we can launch The Other Europeans at the WOMEX and visit your area in the near future to play a concert. Here's the Kickstarter website:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/2102598033/the-other-europeans-womex-cd-launch
This one is easy. After all, I already have the CD because I are the KlezmerShack. I first saw the band in the mid-90s, but the concert I remember, the one that blew my mind, was in 1996 in San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall. If you help them meet this goal, I'll tell you all about it (your preference--if you'd rather I shut up, I can do that too!). That concert helped kick off the KlezmerShack! What I will tell you now is that they started the concert with "Man in a hat," with almost as much energy as there is on the new CD. The repertoire has grown since then, and the CD features many alumni and friends. And you can take part. Here's their pitch:
To mark its silver anniversary, the band that helped bring klezmer into the 21st century is releasing Live at Town Hall, a sonic souvenir of a remarkable NYC concert. And to help promote this, the Klezmatics’ first self-produced live CD, the Grammy Award-winners are launching their very own Kickstarter campaign. Your generous donation will enable them to cover post-production costs and hire a radio promoter and media publicist to bring the recording not only to those who already love the Klezmatics and klezmer, but also to those who are entirely new to the music.
We are pleased to offer a full length track from the album for your listening pleasure on our website. Click here to listen to Lolly Lo. We'll be releasing another track next week so stay tuned.
KlezCalifornia's TENTH Yiddish Culture Festival, at JCC San Francisco, President's Day Weekend, February 18-20, 2012! Headlining will be Klez-X, with Daniel Hoffman returning to the Bay Area from Israel, and bringing together Sheldon Brown, Alan Hall, Jeanette Lewicki, Richard Saunders, Stephen Saxon, and Charlie Seavey. Expect a hot klezmer concert on Saturday, February 18, 8:00pm, followed by a klezmer dance party. The best concert tickets are available right now at jccsf.org/arts. Mark your calendar! Invite friends and family to visit for the latest, great weekend celebrating Yiddish in the Bay Area. Lomir aleh freylekh zayn! (Let's have a wonderful time!)
Now, help us plan the Festival:
We encourage you to email us to suggest Festival workshops. Here are workshops we offered at our February 2010 Festival in Palo Alto: For all: Jewish Music Beyond Jewish Life, Yiddish Literature in Translation (2010: Yiddish Epitaphs, Monologues), History of Yiddish Language and Literature, Acting, Papercutting, Amulets, Klezmer/Balkan/Roma Connections, 110 Yiddish Words the Average Puerto Rican New Yorker Knows and You Should be Ashamed if You Don't, World of Our Great-Grandparents, Shared Melodic Repertory of the Yiddish and Greek Worlds, Growing Up With Yiddish, Yiddish Words and Expressions for the 21st Century, Yiddish Film. For singers: Yiddish Love Songs, Yiddish Song Rarities, Master Classes, Sing-Alongs. For dancers: Learn Klezmer Dances, How to Lead Klezmer Dance, Dance Parties. For instrumentalists: Master Classes, Ensembles, Make Them Dance, Klezmer Style/Technique: Melody or Accompaniment, Composing and Improvising, and Klezmer Theory. Want the same? Different workshops? Send us your ideas!
From Christian Dawid comes a reminder of another excellent kickstarter project that still needs a bit more help (and if I can work on this with my busted clavicle and grumpiness, all akhat kama v'kama--what is your excuse?!):
We have the rare chance to make CD recordings with Arkady Gendler this coming October. Over the last ten years, Arkady has written a number of beautiful new songs. Most of them have not been recorded yet, some have never been performed in public.
It is Arkady's wish to still see his original work published and accessible to everyone—he is proudly approaching his 90th birthday this fall.
Several of his songs are dedicated to the places and festivals Arkady visited during the last years, songs about Kiev, Vienna, Weimar, his home Zaporozhye and the Dniepr Klezmer Cruise. There is a moving song called "Khaves Tekhter" that he wrote when his wife passed away—it has not been performed yet.
I am now writing arrangements for a small chamber ensemble (piano, vl, va, vcl) plus a few additional instruments - it is a total of twelve songs that Arkady wrote (one has a borrowed melody, for another one he created complementary lyrics). We will record all of his original work, plus a few other favourites.
And yes, we need funding!
While studio costs, tied to successful funding of the entire project, are already secured, we need to raise funds for travel, food & lodging, visa, assistance for Arkady in Vienna, Yiddish documentation, transliteration, translation, the recording musicians, typography and graphic design.
This project is supported by a wonderful group of friends, scholars and artists, many of whom are donating their services, or, were they can't, agreed to more than modest financial conditions.
And you can help us, too!
About a decade ago, Alicia Svigals recorded a pretty amazing CD of Hassidic nigunim under the name of the "Nikolayev Ensemble." In celebration of the decade since the original re-release, JewishLearningGroup.com maven, Zalmen Goldstein did the impossible: He improved upon the original. The cover is differently cheezy, and he has renamed the bass-player known to most of us as "Marty Confurious," but the production is even better. An unrelated first track by a different ensemble is gone. Aaron Alexander's outstanding drumming was added to the tracks. The result, quite frankly, is quite delicious. If you don't have the original, or if you're ready to compare the two, check out "Chassidic Breeze" (now credited to no ensemble until you get to the website where it is, indeed, credited to the much-missed Ms. Svigals).
If you already know the recording and need read no review, you can purchase it directly from JewishLearningGroup.com. Rosh Hashanah is coming. This could be the soundtrack!
Alexander Gelfand, a writer that I often admire, has a curious story in this week's Jewish Forward in which he laments the lack of remaining Jewish community in Istanbul. That is true—the Jewish community in Turkey in general, and Istanbul is much diminished. He doesn't mention, but I will, that even the Holocaust had an effect—witness Kurt Waldheim's nasty efforts to help eradicate the Jewish community of Salonica (since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, part of Greece).
But there is so much that is exciting that still remains!
First read the article, "Lost Music of Istanbul's Sephardic Jews", from the Sep 9, 2011 edition, which also contains some excellent pointers to new Sephardic music in US and Israel. Then look at comments by Judith Cohen and myself (and others?). I'll repeat my own comments:
I have several as-yet-unreviewed Jewish recordings made in Istanbul in recent years. Notable among those that I have reviewed are a recording by Hadass Pal Yarden (who also seems to perform locally in Istanbul, and internationally), "Yahudije" or this kid's recording reviewed by Professor Judith Cohen in 2006, "Izzet Bana & Estreyikas d'Estambol / Un Kavretiko".
In short, although the Jewish community in Istanbul is much diminished, it has not vanished and there are some fascinating places still alive and worth exploring.
From the Boston Jewish Music Festival. Need I say that Judy and I will be there, for sure? This is a not miss!:
Join Us For An Exciting Evening of Music With Great Israeli Band Shabate at Johnny D's in Somerville, Wed.,
July 27th
BJMF Benefit Concert at Johnny D's
The Boston Jewish Music Festival
DATE: Wednesday, July 27, 2011
TIME: Music at 8:30 and 10 PM
LOCATION: Johnny D's
17 Holland Street (Davis Square)
Somerville MA
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door (cash only)
Buy Advance Tickets by clicking HERE
or call 617.776.2004
Everyone knows Rabbi Greg Wall, one of the amazing jazz sax players of our time. I first met him through his work with Frank London in Hasidic New Wave, but was subsequently blown away by his "Later Prophets" recording (not to mention work with KlezmerFest, or the amazing variety of music hosted at his Sixth Street Synagogue in NYC).
So, when Greg, who spends part of his summer teaching music to high school students at a Brandeis University summer program wrote me last week to mention that someone of whom I had never heard, the "Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company" was appearing that night and that some of his music would be featured, I had to be there.
No one will take it amiss or unusual if I say that Wall's music, while incredible, was not the highlight of the evening. It was the incredible fluidity and inventiveness of the dance and the dancers as they performed three pieces from a collection created by Dorfman over the last decade, sometimes collaborating with Wall on the music, called "The Legacy Project."
Judy and I were just back from Jacob's Pillow, in the Berkshires, where we had seen an okay Cuban dance troupe--good enough--but nothing compared to what we saw Wednesday night (and the fact that Dorfman hasn't been invited to Jacob's Pillow, given the comparison, speaks quite poorly of the Berkshire-based dance festival). I have to post my amazement, astonishment, and pleasure at the evening, which took us from a dance that seemed to celebrate life in Europe prior to the Holocaust, then life in the Camps, and then, slowly, Tikun, a healing of sorts. We were further treated to Ms. Dorfman introducing each piece briefly before it played, as the dancers changed costumes and had a couple of minutes to drink some water in the hot, hot evening.
What made the dancing so special was how tight it was, how well integrated each movement, no matter how spectacular, was with the whole--and with an array of props that were, themselves, it seemed, dancers. The other factor was the joy and humanity of the dancer. Seldom have I watched dancers who seemed more like humans who happen to dance like angels, than ... dancers. (One note by Judy, as we discussed the first piece later: during a wedding scene, as the actors portrayed a simkhe the hand movements were very Yiddish, but the steps, well, the steps were anachronistic Israeli dancing styles. And the masks? The Masks were just brilliant, transgressive, and wonderful.)
Many thanks to the Dorfman Dance Company, and to Carolyn Dorfman and Greg Wall for an extraordinary evening.
Not the first Jew to sing the blues, or to die of them. From the Guardian, "an obituary.
You can read more on Tablet magazine.
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