by Ari [➚] · Sunday, May 23rd, 2004
Back in the last quarter of the last century, I made my living largely by working with multilingual typography – with Hebrew, English, and Cyrillic in particular. In 1990 I led a panel at Type90 at Oxford on multilingual typography and felt confident that I would be doing similar work, but better, forever.
As it happens, the tools continued to suck and I was frustrated and there was all this cool stuff to do on the web, so I moved on. Fifteen years later, tools are finally beginning to get exciting again, and I’ve started a “Hebrew Typography” weblog to get some of the materials I’ve developed, along with new ones, onto the web.
Now consider something else: KlezKanada, one of my favorite Klezmer gatherings. This one takes place at a Jewish summer camp north of Montreal in late August. It always includes amazing teachers in everything ranging from dance to singing to theatre to making music. There are great kids activities, as well.
The one thing lacking at KlezKanada, KlezKamp, KlezCalifornia, and other such events has been someone to speak to Hebrew letterforms: what Hebrew typography looks like, or how to put together a songsheet or CD liner notes that work well for readers (or singers). Being the only Hebrew Typesetter, Extraordinaire of my acquaintance, and desiring to spend time with some of my best friends, I have convinced the organization to let me teach on these subjects this year. I hope someone is able to tear himeself or herself away from playing music to do so. My wife, Judith Pinnolis, of the Jewish Music WebCenter will also be there, speaking about Women in Jewish American music, as well as giving her popular workshops on finding music resources on the web. We’ll also be working on an as-yet-unspecified weblog project to put pictures, writing, and possibly sounds from the week up on the web as it happens.
In short, klezmer may be middle of the road Jewish activity now, but KlezKanada is still out there on the edge of what defines Jewish culture and Jewish memory, and this summer, Judy and I and fellow Kampers will do what we can to explore the edges of Jewish culture in cyberspace. You can follow the prep on the various related websites (the Klezmershack, the Jewish Music Webcenter, the Hebrew Typography weblog, or best, come on up to KlezKanada and party with us for the week, Aug 25-29, 2004.
For further information about KlezKanada — and do register soon to get a place — see the Aug 23 listing, or visit the KlezKanada website, www.klezkanada.com.
by Ari [➚] · Wednesday, January 14th, 2004
There must be something about Irish music and Jews, because so many Jews I know who make music play Irish music. Could be some similar fascination with language – we’re people of the book, and the Irish have so far given us the Book of the Kells and James Joyce. In any event, Andy Rubin posts dates for the NY showings of a new film, “Shalom Ireland,” on the Klezmershack, for which he and friends have done a bang-up fusion of Jewish and Irish musics.
by Ari [➚] · Wednesday, January 14th, 2004
It seems simple to describe “Ghetto Tango.” It is a program Adrienne Cooper sings comprised cabaret songs written by Jews in the ghettoes during the Holocaust, many of which are political, many of which are poignant and personal. If that seems to invite contradiction, then you owe it to yourself to see a rare New York performance this coming Sunday.
Sunday, January 18, 8 pm
Adrienne Cooper, Dan Rosengard & Frank London
Ghetto Tango
Satalla, 37 W. 26th St., NYC
212.576.1155
$15
If you’ve already seen the show, you’ll probably be there to hear it again. Cooper has an amazing voice, and is an amazing storyteller. Most reviewers put the album containing much of the music for the show in their annual Top Ten lists — the KlezmerShack, my website, did as well. But however good the recording is, it doesn’t begin to describe how good this show is. Cooper is one of the great vocal interpreters of Yiddish music appears with Dan Rosengard, pianist/arranger, late of Saturday Night Live; & Frank London, famed trumpetter/Klezmatics/ All-Star Brass Band. Together, they bring to life the extraordinary cabaret music of war-time Eastern Europe. In the Nazi-mandated ghettos during World War II, audiences gathered in makeshift clubs and theaters to hear newly-created songs, rooted in Jewish folk song, European cabaret, American jazz and Argentine tango. Jewish performers tuned these cosmopolitan songs in a local key: satirical and elegiac, political and personal, angry and heartsick, creating something scarcely conceivable: art at the edge of the abyss. Don’t miss it.
by Ari [➚] · Thursday, January 8th, 2004
Brave Old World is probably the most exciting band doing “new Jewish music” anywhere. They all have roots in klezmer and Yiddish folk music going back before the beginning of the klezmer revival – Stu Brotman, the bass player (also the main tsimbl player), was playing middle eastern and eastern european sounds in Kaleidoscope with David Lindley even back in the Sixties, Their new album, “Bless this fire”, their 4th, is the best yet.
One reason that I rave isn’t just that this is great music. I think that, now that “klezmer” is sort of an establishment thing where every synagogue has a band and, other than the Klezmatics, who cares, but this is the very exciting music, very rooted in Jewish traditions – it’s something special to Jewish culture that (while it may be hard to be farther from Jewish religion – that’s a whole ‘nother talk) isn’t klezmer. It’s deeper than most albums. The band’s playing is insanely good. They set the standard to the point that I’m convinced that Itzhak Perlman is the Kurt Bjorling (the band’s clarinet virtuoso) of violin. And I think that Michael Alpert’s words and singing give voice to this particular time and place in ways that I haven’t heard otherwise. (Well, except for, say, Josh Waletzky’s work, or Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss, and certainly the many wonderful Klezmatics projects – but that’s a short list, and all of those are still different from this.)
There is more to modern American Jewish identity that arguing about Israel or going neo-Chasidic Friday night at Benny J’s. Check it out at CDBaby.com. This close to the edge doesn’t come to Tower Records. You’ve got to find it elsewhere.
by Ari [➚] · Thursday, December 11th, 2003
Up in Boston, we just got to watch an astounding new band, Khevre, blow the house down. Comprised of (compromised by?) students from the New England Conservatory, including one the singers (Aoife O’Donovan) from my favorite bluegrass band, Wayfaring Strangers (the “Brave Old World” of bluegrass), this was intensely good. Bandleader Michael Winograd was amazing on clarinet. Maybe better. The drummer, Richie Barshay, was stellar. Hell, the whole band was amazing. (Part of the secret is the the entire rhythm section of the band is either from South America, or played there.)
The band played some Yiddish songs, bits of klezmer, some new compositions by Winograd, and mixed in lots of South American music and improvised wonderfully. The singer, clearly not a Yiddish-speaker (O’Donovan???!), gave an ethereal voice to old standards, and quite frequently I felt that the songs were transformed to nign – not inappropriate to the trance-like improvisation behind them.
Finally, for all the good things I have to say, I also have to say that the band is still growing. I feel like one of those old blues mavens who first heard Signe Anderson fronting the Jefferson Airplane singing “Me and My Chauffeur” realizing that I’m not listening to Memphis Minnie, but instead of complaining, hearing the new and timeliness of the music and knowing that this is just going to get better and more interesting over time.
The band is playing the Tonic in NYC on Sunday (1:30pm, 3pm). If you’re in town, I’d say that’s the place to be.
I’ll shut up now.
by Ari [➚] · Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003
Ill-timed to coincide with what all accounts seem to be describing as a dog of a commercial movie, this children’s classic has been released in a Yiddish version. Naomi Kadar has great fun wittily deconstructing and reviewing the volume in the Mendele Review, Vol. 7, No. 10.
Where an adult might see an excursion into the machinations of the ego struggling against the superego, the child is titillated in to enjoying the energetic emotional tug-of-war between the self-centered Cat and the fearful fish…. The significance of Di kats der payats goes beyond the parameters of translation of a story for children, and suggests an underlying subtext. Usually translations function as a key to allow one culture to partake of the literary treasures of another. Today’s “post-vernacular” Yiddish culture, (Shandler, 2002) reverses that assumption. We can safely presume that, at least for American adult readers, the enthusiasm to read Di kats der payats does not stem from a need to understand the contents of the tale, but rather from the desire to (re)capture something ineffable and lost, and to infuse it into our present. The instantaneous reversion to the carefree fun of childhood expressed in an animated, lively Yiddish tickles our fancy.
I might also add that the typography, while not exciting, is very apt. Although some might complain that it is over-exposed and bland (myself among them), Frank-Ruehl is readable, common, and retains some of the Art Deco grace which inspired its design. Plus, it is easy and familiar for kids (or adults) to read.
For more on Mendele: Forum for Yiddish Literature and Yiddish Language, visit their home page.
To get a copy of the book, see the Yiddish Voice Radio store.
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