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N
E S H A M A H
Songs
from the Jewish Diaspora
This
project is the result of a unique opportunity presented to
me by John Zorn. Using Jewish music as a motif, I followed a
thread that runs through the Near-East, Middle-East,
Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, North Africa, Iberia
 and
the Americas. There have been some really nice surprises and
discoveries along the way. I can think of no other genre,
except maybe Gypsy music, that is found in such far-flung
regions while retaining a core harmonic vocabulary.
There is a convergence of many
styles of music, and many of my own musical experiences. I
found in these pieces a lyrical architecture, full of
possibilities for chord substitutions and harmonization. You
might say it's a marriage of high and low. There are ideas
that come from adapting Tchaikovsky and Bela Bartok to solo
guitar, as well as jazz harmony. I have wedded these to
strands of country blues, flamenco and melodic phrases that
come from the lexicon of the Middle-Eastern oud and saz.
Meditation on the Baal Shem Tov's Melody: There's a
story that a deaf man came upon a group of the Baal Shem
Tov's disciples who were singing and dancing. He concluded
from their expressions and gyrations that they were all
crazy, because unfortunately, he couldn't hear the music. I
came across this tune on a wonderful recording by Israeli
violinist Yehoshua Rochman.
Hamisha Asar: A song by Flory Jagoda, the Bosnian
Sephardic composer who grew up in a village near Sarajevo
and settled in America after WWII. Ms. Jagoda has a lovely
voice and has written many beautiful songs in Ladino. I also
think she is quite a guitar player. This track is written in
a Balkan dance meter of 3+2+2/8. It's a great rhythm to
improvise on, kind of like a lopsided waltz.
Odessa Mama (Odesa Mame): From a rendition by Aaron
Lebedeff (1873-1960), a famous Yiddish entertainer. It was
originally recorded in the 1920's with an orchestra led by
Sholom Secunda. Lebedeff was a larger than life figure and
is said to have been quite a lady's man. One thing that is
especially interesting in this rendition is an E-minor flat
five chord towards the end, a very early example of a sound
that would become a staple of jazz in the '40s and '50s.
Skrip, Klezmerl Skripe: Play: Klezmer, Play is
another Yiddish classic by Khaim Tauber and Sholom Secunda,
also recorded by Aaron Lebedeff. Like Odessa Mama, this song
has a wonderful extended intro and gives one a sense of the
well that composers like Harold Arlen and George Gershwin
were drinking from.
Los Caminos de Sirkeci: A love song from a Sephardic
neighborhood in Istanbul, written in a Balkan dance rhythm
of 3+2/8. The conception for this track and Hamisha Asar is
to keep the pulse going with my thumb, kind of like an
odd-meter Bossa Nova, while improvising a melody in an
Oriental oud/Bouzouki filigree.
Kad Jawajuni: I learned this off a recording made by
the Beth Hatefutsoth Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. Titled
Neve Midhar, it features a lovely Israeli singer named Lea
Avrahm. I hope I distill a little of the spirit of her
performance into my solo guitar version. The title
translates roughly as "They married me." This is a game song
typical of central and southern Yemen, sung and danced by
women at weddings or henna ceremonies, sometimes known as
"the song of the face and hands." The rhythmic architecture
of the guitar arrangement owes a lot to a dance from
Northeastern Brazil called Biao. It seems my improvisation
looks a little toward Africa and a little toward the Indian
Ocean.
A Hora Mit Tzibeles: A Hora with Onions, by
clarinet virtuoso Naftule Brandwein, a lengendary fgure of
Klezmer music in the early 20th Century. To my ears, he
seems to have been as important a voice in Klezmer as Jelly
Roll Morton or Louis Armstrong were in jazz. The
compositions of Naftule Brandwein are my personal favorites.
I knew nothing about this music until I started this
project, and I fell in love with this song.
Viva Orduena: A Sephardic folksong from Morocco. I
perform this song on the oud with Voices of Sephard, where
I've learned most of the Sephardic tunes heard on this CD.
My process of arriving at solo guitar arrangements of these
songs was simply experimentation, seeing what ideas were
suggested by playing the melody in question in this key or
that. This selection ended up as a wild melange of
Judeo-Spanish court music with African pentatonic string
bends!
Quando El Rey Nimrod: In this song, King Nimrod looks
out over his city one night and sees a brilliant star
shining above the house where Abraham is born. I try to
conjure up the quiet evening, the slumbering town, and the
starry sky before launching the melody of this old Sephardic
traditional.
A Leybedike Honga: A Lively Honga, from a 1925
recording by Harry Kandel's Orchestra. Clarinetist Harry
Kandel led a brass band in the Czarist military before
coming to Philadelphia. It's a lovely little tune but quite
a handful to play.
Rabbi Yochanan The Shoemaker's Melody: From a
rendition by Yehoshua Rochman, this tune is traditionally
changed after midnight on Lag B'omer, in a torchlight
procession on Mount Meron.
Freylich: This tune seemed to want to be played as a
rhumba. I used the key of F sharp which is a favorite key of
flamenco guitarists when using this scale. F sharp serves as
a pivot between E minor and G major for improvisations.
Sholem Aleichem: this popular tune is usually played
in a bright tempo. Here I wanted to explore some of the
nuances and feelings implied by the melody, so it came out
as a kind of dreamy ballad.
Naftule Spielt Far Dem Rebin: Naftule Plays for the
Rabbi. Naftule's performances have an edgy energy. As on all
78's, there was a need to get a version down in just a few
minutes playing time. I slowed it down for the beginning,
while trying to preserve its stately gait. There is a lot
going on in this tune of only two and a half minutes!
Addio Querida: Goodbye Precious. I've been
told that when an evacuation of part of the Jewish community
was arranged during the seige of Sarajevo, the departees and
those staying behind sang this song as the buses were
leaving. This version is inspired in equal measure by
renditions of Flory Jagoda and the Bulgarian Women's
choir.
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