Rock and hip hop success

New year begins with excitingly diverse new Jewish CD releases.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Among this Rosh Hashanah's new CD releases are the Moshav Band, who are becoming more comfortable in the mainstream, and the Chassidic hip hop group Ta'Shma, who show that they will eventually be joining the ranks of the massively popular Chassidic reggae artist Matisyahu. For less venturesome listeners, however, there's a collection of instrumental versions of traditional or well-known Jewish melodies and a somewhat disappointing remake of over-played Jewish melodies into lullabies. For Zionists with classical preferences, there's another high-quality recording from the Milken Archive.

Finding a place

The most recent CD from the Moshav Band features a cover version of Tom Waits' well-known "Jockey Full of Bourbon" and one of the ballads, "Streets Of Jerusalem," was co-written by singer-songwriter-guitarist Larry John McNally. Yes, the boys of Moshav have "made it."

Other than a smattering of Hebrew and the Yeminite song "Abba Shimon," Misplaced (www.jewishmusicgroup.com) is all in English. However, despite its alternative rock and – as paradoxical as it may seem – folky sound, the music is still infused with a Middle Eastern flavor and, importantly, is still steeped in the Jewish faith.

The recording's first single, "The Only One," has a Pearl Jam ring to it, but praises God: "Echad, Echad, Ushmo Echad / The Only One, the Only One." The eclectic "Closer" – which will be a favorite, as you can't help but move to it – talks of a place you can go "in the prayer in the song," when "the weight of the world starts bringing you down." And the reggae-inspired "Lift Up Your Head" encourages us to keep our heads up; there are angels, there is Hashem.

The Moshav Band has certainly reached the sky with Misplaced. There are no bad songs on this CD – it's a pleasure from start to finish.

Mideast hip hop

More odd than peanut butter and chocolate may have seemed when first mixed are Chassidic and hip hop together, yet they, too, seem to work well.

Ta'Shma is a Brooklyn-based duo comprised of Chuna Silverman and Menachem Shapiro. They combine Chassidic niggunim, Middle Eastern sounds and rap in their new eponymous CD, Ta'Shma, or Come, Listen (jewishmusicgroup.com).

It's hard to imagine that young Jewish teens will be singing along at the top of their lungs to Ta'Shma's lyrics about Hashem, the Torah and other Judaic themes, but it's just as hard to picture them singing along to the sexually suggestive lyrics that pervade most of the chart-topping hip hop these days. If it's mainly the music and the beat that draw them in, then there's a chance that Ta'Shma can attract young (and older) followers and maybe even interest them in Judaism. The pair are well-suited to the task – as with Matisyahu, Silverman and Shapiro did not grow up in a religious environment, but became more observant in their late teens and are now spreading the word, so to speak, through their music.

Ta'Shma features a wide variety of instruments, including guitar, trumpet, clarinet and viola. It also features an impressive list of guest artists, from Matisyahu (on "Rachamana") to noted clarinetist and mandolinist Andy Statman (on "Women of Valor" and "Voice of My Beloved"). Despite some tuning problems – on "Shine," for example, the vocals are a bit flat – Ta'Shma is well worth introducing to your, or your children's, hip hop collection. Imagine a hit rap song with such lyrics as, "Every second is Avodah / It's 10 o'clock where's your Torah / I got my Tanya and my Gemara / Even got the Rebbe's niggun as the ring on my Motorola."

Sacred melodies

In New Shabbos Waltz (www.acousticdisc.com), Statman is part of a more conventional pairing. He and master mandolinist David Grisman collaborate once more, as they did on Songs of Our Fathers, to produce a CD of religious melodies that they describe as well known within Jewish circles, but unknown to most of the rest of the world. It's an instrumental recording of songs whose lyrics alternate between the themes of Shabbat and Jerusalem: "Jewish mystics state that what Shabbos is in time; Jerusalem is in space," read the liner notes. "Shabbos represents the fusion of the temporal and the eternal.... Jerusalem is the 'place' where the finite and the Infinite meet."

The recording begins with the liturgical "Avinu Malkenu" ("Our Father, Our King") and ends with "Ani Ma'amin" ("I Believe"), which, when vocalized, is sung to the words of one of Maimonides' 13 articles of faith. The collection includes versions of the late 19th-century Yiddish song "Oifen Pripitchik" ("On the Hearth") by Mark Markovitch Warshavksy and Naomi Shemer's "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" ("Jerusalem of Gold").

While there is no doubt that the musicianship and production value of New Shabbos Waltz are top-notch, there is some question as to how often such well-known songs need to be re-arranged. It is conceivable that this CD will intrigue some non-Jews who like klezmer and who aren't tired of these tunes, but, for a Jewish audience, more original melodies would have been appreciated.

Lame lullabies

For his new CD, instead of seeking out or writing original songs, producer Tor Hyam has targeted a young Jewish audience who've heard only a limited amount of Jewish music: babies.

Lilah Tov (Good Night) (jewishmusicgroup.com) is a compilation of songs including "Mi Yimalel," "Ma'oz Tsur" and other Chanukah repertoire, Passover's "Chad Gadya," "Eliyahu Hanavi" and "Ma Nishtana," as well as miscellaneous other Jewish songs and prayers, such as "My Yiddishe Mama" and "Oseh Shalom," respectively. Playing such spirited melodies on electronic keyboard and strings – and slowing their tempos, of course – seems to classify as transforming them into lullabies. It doesn't quite work ... although the CD did make this reviewer want to take a nap.

Celebrate Israel

Among the nine works on In Celebration of Israel (www.milkenarchive.org or www.naxos.com) are songs that embody the joy and hope of building the Jewish state, as well as those that reflect its multicultural character.

Appropriately, the CD opens with "Hatikva," Israel's official national anthem since 1948, but whose history and importance to the Zionist movement goes back much further. This orchestral version, written by Kurt Weill in 1947, is over before you know it and composer Julius Chajes' "Old Jerusalem," written in 1974, is next. In it, mezzo soprano Ana Maria Martinez captures various moods, from longing to almost agressive prayer, in this setting of Psalm 134. Other Chajes compositions on In Celebration of Israel include "Hebrew Suite," which moves from an eastern European flavor to a more lively Chassidic-influenced tune to an Israeli folk dance melody, as well as "Adarim," an interpretation of a Palestinian shepherd song – one that is performed wonderfully by Benzion Miller.

In Celebration of Israel also features composer and conductor Max Helfman's "Israel Suite" (1949) and Herbert Fromm's "Pioneers (Halutzim)" (1971) and "Yeminite Cycle" (1961). Rounding out the recording are "The Palestinian Suite" (1941) by Walter Scharf and "Yom b'Kibbutz" (1952) by Sholom Secunda.

In Celebration of Israel is the 43rd of 50 CDs to be issued by the Milken Archive on the Naxos American Classics label by the end of this year. If you can afford it and have the room on your music shelf, buy them all.

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