Music for most tastes

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

From rock to Brazilian rhythms, Tchaikovsky to Bernstein, off-Broadway to off-the-bimah, the CDs reviewed by the Independent this Rosh Hashanah cover the gamut. There aren't any ground-breaking or phenomenal recordings, but there are many worth adding to your collection.

Rockin' with the Torah

With their second CD, 70 Faces, the rock band Blue Fringe again manages to make believing in God and Torah cool. Their first recording, called My Awakening, has sold some 13,000 copies to date and 70 Faces is a more even, better-sounding effort overall, so it should do at least as well.

Comprised of four friends who met at Yeshivah University – Dov Rosenblatt (singer, guitarist, songwriter), Avi Hoffman (lead guitarist, composer), Danny Zwilenberg (drummer) and Hayyim Danzig (bass) – Blue Fringe's acoustic sound is akin to that of Phish or John Mayer. Their lyrics, which are in both English and Hebrew, couldn't be more different, however.

In "Lo Irah" ("I Will Not Fear"), they sing plainly of God: "I mask the fear upon my face and put a smile in its place; a fragile smile holds my faith in you.... You are with me, I won't fear." In the title track, "70 Faces," the band is referring to the 70 faces of Torah.

In the cheeky "Shidduch Song," where shidduch means a fixed blind date with the intention of marriage, the chorus is hilarious: "I got set up on Monday. We went on the shidduch on Tuesday. We had the l'chaim by Wednesday. Only Simchas Thursday and Friday, and Shabbos. The wedding is on Sunday. Sheva brachos Monday ... [and throughout the week] ... move to Teaneck on Sunday." Not all listeners will know that the l'chaim is the engagement party, Only Simchas is a website featuring wedding and engagement announcements and sheva brachos (seven blessings) is a custom in which the newlyweds are joined by friends and family for seven nights following the wedding ceremony. But it won't matter, they'll still want to sing along.

For more information on Blue Fringe, visit www.bluefringe.com.

Brazil in Middle East

Elisete Retter, or simply, Elisete, is a singer-songwriter who was born in Brazil and has lived in Israel since 1991. According to a recent Jerusalem Post article on her, Elisete's roots are mixed: one of her grandmothers was Indian, her maternal family is Sephardi and her paternal relatives hail from Africa. So it's not surprising that her first CD, Luar e Café, reflects this diversity.

The lyrics are in Hebrew and Portuguese. The styles include Bossa-Nova, samba, forro, baiao and other Brazilian rhythms. The unifying factors are Elisette's wonderful, rich voice and the optimism that permeates all her songs.

She and her band of five musicians are currently working on a new CD, due out at the end of the year. Last month, Elisete's second single, "Shalom Dikaon" ("Goodbye Depression") was released. The new album is said to highlight her hopeful perspective of Israel.

More on Elisete can be found at www.elisete.com.

Arab-Israeli orchestra

In the 1990s, renowned Jewish pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim happened to meet the late Edward Said, professor, writer and Palestinian supporter. They met in a London hotel and hit it off, talking for hours and discovering that they had similar visions of Israeli and Palestinian co-operation. This dialogue led to Barenboim's first concert in the West Bank, a piano recital in February 1999, and to a workshop for young musicians (ages 14 to 25) from the Middle East that took place in Weimar, Germany, in August 1999.

The West-Eastern Divan Workshop took two years to organize and involved musicians from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Israel. The idea was that they would come together to make music on neutral ground, under the guidance of some of the world's best musicians. Since 1999, there have been subsequent workshops and they are now held every year in Seville, Spain.

Said died in 2003, but the West-Eastern Divan Workshop and Orchestra and the Barenboim-Said Foundation continue to promote music and co-operation through projects aimed at young Arabs and Israelis. One such project is the recently released CD with the orchestra, under Barenboim's direction, performing Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, as well as Verdi's overture for La Forza del Destino and Sibelius's Valse Triste, Op. 44, No. 1. If you are a fan of these compositions, then you will enjoy this recording, as the performances are excellent. To order the CD, visit www.warnermusic.ca/danielbarenboim-west-easterndivanorchestra.

Hear a Jewish legacy

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) is – in no particular order – a legendary performer, composer, conductor, teacher and philanthropist, among other accomplishments. He wrote music for ballets and musicals as easily as he did for symphonies. Now, the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music has released some of the compositions Bernstein was inspired to write because of his Jewish heritage.

Leonard Bernstein: A Jewish Legacy starts a little jarringly with "Israelite Chorus," a piece that features some brash horn blasts, but settles down and is very pleasant to listen to. Bernstein's genius is unmistakable in the piano scores and the range of his talent is evident in the selections that include opera, piano solos, Yiddish poems set to music and even a version of "Hashkiveinu," a prayer from the Sabbath evening liturgy.

Other than some unevenness in the sound quality, this CD is well worth adding to any collection. Frankly, if you can afford it, buying the entire Milken Archive collection would be worthwhile – they plan to release a total of 50 CDs by fall 2006. For more information, visit either www.milkenarchive.com or www.naxos.com.

A new immigrant tale

It is hard to rate a musical on the basis of a recording alone, without having seen it performed on stage. But the Independent received a copy of The Immigrant, an off-Broadway musical that apparently received rave reviews during its 2004/2005 run in New York, as well as for its out-of-city productions.

Based on the play of the same name by Mark Harelik, The Immigrant tells the story of a Jewish immigrant who flees the pogroms of czarist Russia in 1909 and arrives in the small Baptist community of Hamilton, Tex. Given shelter by a older couple, he eventually sends for his wife and child and they make this town their new home. The musical touches upon various aspects of the immigrant experience: the strangeness of a new land, the reaction of the community to new people in their midst, etc.

Many of the songs are spoken to the music, rather than sung. While they may progress the plotline, they are not lyrical and no one would leave the theatre humming any of them. There are a few catchy melodies, but none that seems particularly new and destined to become part of the popular culture, like many Cole Porter tunes have, for example. Perhaps seeing the musical would add to the appreciation of the music and lyrics, but the CD doesn't stand well on its own.

To purchase The Immigrant, visit www.sh-k-boom.com or www.ghostlightrecords.com.

Liturgy as performance

Another wonderful release from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music is Traditional Cantorial and Concert Favorites. While "favorites" might be a strange way to describe liturgical pieces, these arrangements are more performances than they are prayers – but that doesn't mean that they don't inspire. They do.

Cantor Simon Spiro has an impressive tenor voice (less nasal than the traditional cantorial sound) and he sings with accomplished choral groups Schola Hebraeica, Coro Hebraeico, New York Cantorial Choir and Ne'imah Singers and soprano Amy Goldstein. Neil Levin, who founded a couple of these groups, is artistic director of the Milken Archive and a professor of music at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, conducts.

Many people who grew up in the Conservative movement will recognize the arrangements of songs like "Ba'avur David" and "Haven Yakkir Li Efrai'im." All of the pieces will entice vocally inclined listeners to sing along.

Visit www.milkenarchive.com or www.naxos.com for more information and to purchase Traditional Cantorial and Concert Favorites or other Milken CDs.

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