This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
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The Schmooze Radical Jewish Culture Behind Glass
The Jewish museum (Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme) in Paris greets its visitors with massive tombstones dating back to 11th century. There are also frail parchments, medieval megillot, newspaper clips of the Dreyfus trial, and dim brass ritual objects. Imagine then, the shock and delight inspired by the exhibit that landed there this spring,…
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The Schmooze Are You Listening Now?: Charming Hostess’s ‘The Bowls Project’
There’s something special about enjoying a brilliant album alone, but there’s joy in sharing it with others. Since 2001, when Jewlia Eisenberg released “Trilectic,” I have had the former joy, but not the latter. “Trilectic” was a brilliant concept album that set the writings of Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis to eclectic vocal compositions that…
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The Schmooze Mostly Marvelous Music in Boro Park
I was pleased to see a profile in the New York Times on July 20 of the unusual cantorial-music-aficionado-turned-audiophile-sound-engineer Mendel Werdyger. Werdyger is the proprietor of Mostly Music, one of the last bastions of old school Jewish culture in New York City. While you can certainly buy the standard schlock recordings of Hasidic boys choirs…
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The Schmooze El Judio Maravilloso on Stage With Grupo Fantasma
In the salsa world, they call him El Judio Maravilloso, the Amazing Jew. And when the legendary pianist Larry Harlow — born Lawrence Ira Kahn — joined the funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma on stage last night at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, he delivered on his nickname. It was a moment of generational fusion. Harlow,…
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The Schmooze ‘What The Hell Was That?’: Remembering Tuli Kupferberg
Poet, singer-songwriter, revolutionary, publisher, street vendor, historian, mentor, sage, wise man and wise guy, forward-thinking artist, activist, intellectual, pacifist, anarchist, teacher, dreamer and dear friend Tuli Kupferberg has gone on to wherever one goes. Born Norman (or in Hebrew, Naphtali, hence his nickname), on September 28, 1923, Tuli passed away on Monday at New York…
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The Schmooze Garry Beitel’s Adventures in Cinematic Ghetto Blasting
Thirty years ago, Montreal-based documentary maker Garry Beitel produced his first film, the exquisitely titled “You Might Think You’re Superior, But I Think We’re Equal,” a profile of racism in Montreal high schools. Since then, the Gemini Award-winner has directed a number of acclaimed films, from a real-life love story set in World War II-era…
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The Schmooze Off in Yonder Klezmer Mountains
It may be stretching a humorous point to call the band behind original Klezmatics member Margot Leverett “boys,” whether or not they are from the Klezmer Mountains. Nevertheless, the Klezmer Mountain Boys of the band were at least a decade younger than most of the audience members who’d snapped up the tickets so early that…
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The Schmooze For Malian Musicians, ‘Simplicity is Freedom’
Eclecticism is a virtue too often touted by musicians and critics. Reviews and press releases formulaically repeat the cliché that “artist x blends elements of genre y with style z.” While this may be relevant to the archivists amongst us, such statements really say very little about the quality or authenticity of the music in…
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