Jewish Jukebox

By AARON HOWARD • Thu, Sep 08, 2011

Roger Davidson
“On the Road of Life”
(Soundbrush)
Pianist and composer Roger Davidson was born in Paris in 1952. Although his parents moved him to the States a year later, Davidson’s compositions on his new CD, “On the Road of Life,” are built on the rhythms and sounds of Europe: klezmer, European tango, waltz and hora.

The 12 instrumental compositions that make up the CD all are Davidson originals. But, the pieces all sound like tunes you’ve encountered before. So, this isn’t an exercise in nostalgia, but a series of contemporary tunes that might have come from a European Jewish band, had there been no Holocaust.

Davidson studied classical composition, choral conducting, jazz improvisation and Argentinean music. One of his recordings won a Grammy in the Latin Music category. (This is the same Roger Davidson who was scammed for millions by two New York-based con artists.)

The story here is about how Davidson went to hear a performance of Frank London’s klezmer opera, “A Night in the Old Marketplace.” Davidson went home and began writing some tunes in an Eastern European vein. The next step was to call in Frank London, who agreed to collaborate in the project.

London arranged the compositions, played trumpet and assembled a group of New York klezmer musicians that included Joshua Horowitz on cimbalom, Andy Statman on clarinet and mandolin, Pablo Aslan on bass and Richie Barshay on drums.

Davidson has composed 12 sturdy tunes. He wisely stays out of the way and lets Statman, Horowitz and London do most of the embellishing. My favorite tunes include a 3/8 limping hora-inflected “On the Road of Life,” the Hungarian-sounding “Equal in the Eyes of God” and “Sunflowers at Dawn,” with outstanding cimbalom leads from Joshua Horowitz and the extended moody klezmer melody, “Night Journey,” with Andy Statman’s outstanding clarinet lead.

This isn’t “purist” Jewish music, but music that tends to follow Davidson’s life and interests. The CD is available via soundbrush.com.

The Klezmatics
“Live at Town Hall”
(Klezmatics Disc)
The concert documented on these two discs took place in 2006, an event that celebrated the Klezmatics’ 20th anniversary. It was the same year that the band released its Woody Guthrie projects, their last albums of original music. During the last five years, band members have engaged in numerous solo projects (for example, Frank London and Richie Barshay appeared on Roger Davidson’s CD and toured with him).

The Klezmatics are pitching this CD through an alternative marketing campaign “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.”

The result is that you can download the CD, or you can get the CD and the band to play an acoustic concert at your place, as long as the band doesn’t have to leave the metro New York area. (Details at kickstarter.com/projects/1964173057/the-klezmatics-20th-anniversary-cd.)

Since the Klezmatics are one of my favorite bands – Jewish or otherwise – and since I’ve been waiting for this recording since the original concert, I simply will say that this CD is an absolute MUST to acquire.

The Afro-Semitic Experience
“Further Definitions of the
Days of Awe”
(Reckless DC Music)
Since 1998, bassist David Chevan and keyboardist Warren Byrd have comprised the core of The Afro-Semitic Experience, a fusion of Jewish and soul jazz music. In recent years, the band increasingly has been taking songs from the Jewish sacred tradition, particularly cantorial songs, and setting the texts and the hazzanut style to soul music and other African-American rhythms.

The band previously collaborated with Hazzan Alberto Mizrachi. This latest CD, recorded largely at a Selichot service in the Temple Israel Center of White Plains (New York), features Cantor Jack Mendelson (familiar to audiences from the film, “A Cantor’s Tale”).

If you’re a band working with Mizrachi and Mendelson, the two best voices in American hazzanut, then you’d better have your act together! The band does. This isn’t some kind of neo-Hasidic music. It’s old-style nusach tefillah (traditional chanting) set to a funky groove, a fiery Cuban salsa call and response or deep Southern soul music.

“I can go crazy as long as I stay in the mode,” commented Cantor Mendelson. You can close your eyes and picture Cantor Mendelson fronting a row of swaying black Hasidim in black hats stepping out on the right foot with arms bent swinging down and forward in perfect choreography.

If that sounds improbable, remember that Ashkenazic, Mizrachic and Hasidic traditions often coupled religious texts with borrowed (or “redeemed”) secular melodies. If that sounds as if the marriage of a divine repertoire to “a coarse musical husk” cannot possibly be a musical manipulation that works, I strongly urge you to give this CD a listen.

There are times (for example, the “Viddui” and “Kaddish”) when the process doesn’t seem to work. At other times, the second part of a reworked “Ashrei” is awesome. Borrowing is the natural result of cultural interaction. When the musical practitioners have a profound feeling for the music, as both the members of the Afro-Semitic Experience and Cantor Jack Mendelson appear to have, then we’re both blessed and rewarded. That’s what I take from this CD.

Afro-Semitic Experience CDs are available through cdbaby.com and amazon.com.