This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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The Schmooze Cantor by Day, Moroccan Pop Star by Night
Samy Elmaghribi was a hugely popular Moroccan-music star. Salomon Amzallag was a beloved Sephardic cantor in Montreal. That the pop star and the liturgical giant were the same person has inspired a new exhibition that opened in Montreal February 25. “Sacre Profane: Samy Elmaghribi” explores the “seemingly opposite” notions of sacred and secular in Elmaghribi’s…
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The Schmooze The Sway Machinery’s Expanding Cantorial Epic
The Sway Machinery promises that its 3rd LP, “Purity and Danger,” is its “most chiseled enunciation of its foundational concept” yet — and it delivers on this promise. In a return to Afro-pop infused cantorial traditionals and modern blues myth-making, The Sway Machinery comfortably resettles into its epic vision, though this time with even more…
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Fast Forward Gaza Music School Shines in ‘Arabs Got Talent’ Spotlight
On the hugely popular “Arabs Got Talent” TV show in Beirut last month, five young musicians in checkered black-and-white scarves brought the house down with a traditional Arabic song that left the judges weeping and earned a ticket straight to the finals. In the Gaza Strip there was much weeping and celebration too, especially at…
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Fast Forward Israeli Conductor Dies During Switzerland Concert
Israeli conductor Israel Yinon collapsed and died as he was conducting a concert in the Swiss city of Lucerne. The 59-year-old was in the middle of leading “An Alpine Symphony” by German composer Richard Strauss Thursday night when he slumped, falling headlong to the ground, the AFP news agency reported. The cause of death was…
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The Schmooze The Dean of Women Drummers
Photo: Gesi Schilling “What I’ve done with the magazine — through social media, through web and through print — is hype us to an extreme, to make up for lost time.” That’s Mindy Abovitz in a mini-documentary on “The Oral History of Female Drummers,” a 2013 performance at MoMA PS1, in Queens, during which seven…
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Culture 5 Albums To Pick Up in 2015
● Yiddish Art Trio BFR Music / Pattysounds /Michael Winograd, $15 ● Songs of Zebulon Jeremiah Lockwood, Frank London, and Friends Blue Thread, $18 ● Schizophonia Yoshie Fruchter Blue Thread, $18 ● Roadsides Ayelet Rose Gottlieb Arogole Music, $13.51 ● The Fallout of Dreams Dave Liebman and Steve Dalachinsky RogueArt, $15.95 As the temperatures begin…
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Opinion Why I Hate the Christmas Version of ‘Hallelujah’
Have you heard the Christmas version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” a recently released YouTube sensation by Kansas-based band Cloverton? Well, I have, and I hate it. But not for the reasons you might think. Am I pissed off — as many Jews appear to be — on Cohen’s behalf, because he’s Jewish and these musicians…
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The Schmooze 9 Jews Who Changed The Sound of Jazz
Willie Smith at his Manhattan apartment. Photo by William P. Gottlieb. Barney Josephson opened Cafe Society in 1938, but the music he featured (and is featured in the play “Cafe Society Swing”) has been around much longer. Jazz originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in African-American communities — most notably in New…
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