[HANASHIR:9586] Mah Gadlu

[LPKAROL <LPKAROL...>]

Dear all,
     To add to Jeff Klepper's history - I was at NFTY Torah Corps in 1970 at 
Kutz when Dov Taylor was still directing it, and Rabbi (student rabbi then) 
Jerry Brieger was the songleader.  About mid-summer,  Jerry taught the Torah 
Corps choir (in which I sang as a bari-tenor) a somewhat fast-but-not-rowdy 
version of Mah Gadlu.  We sang it at an all-camp Kabbalat Shabbat service, 
and I think that moment changed the American Jewish music scene. There were 
no "ba-da-da-da-da-das" in the song at the time!!!!  I just remember loving 
the beat most, and the melody too.  I could still play it right now just as 
we sang it for what I think was its "premiere performance."   I also remember 
working with Jerry Brieger and Michael Isaacson on a 2 part Isaacson Shalom 
Alaychem that has a melody and countermelody.  I think I have seen it in 
music books.  I don't think any of the rest of the music in that first NFTY 
service was completed then.  But I also remember late one August night, just 
before the end of Torah Corps, when Michael Isaacson sat down at the piano 
and was playing a slower version of Mah Gadlu that was at the same tempo as 
the first NFTY album recording.  So I realized, when I heard the album for 
the first time, that the softer version was probably preferred by the 
composer.    
      I didn't realize until later that Debbie Friedman was one of the Kutz 
songleaders that summer (we figured that out that we were both there in 1970 
when she visited Univ of Illinois in 1975).  I do remember the MoVFTY 
songleader coming back to MoVFTY Institute 1971 (held at beautiful Camp 
Shwayder in Colorado near Mt. Evans) from Kutz with this new melody for "Thou 
Shalt Love."  As we sang "Thou Shalt Love" at a Shabbat morning service at 
the 2001 CAJE pre-conference almost two weeks ago (in Ft. Collins, CO), I 
flashed back to the first time l had learned it - in Colorado - 30 years ago. 
 
      And the rest, as they say, is history - as I and many other people 
looked forward to the release of those new Debbie Friedman and NFTY albums in 
the years that followed.   
      It is great to see the talent that has lasted all of these last 35 
years that has created new Jewish music, and the talent that is new and 
up-and-coming.  Jeff, thanks for your part - and to everyone else on the list 
who has been a part of creating and teaching the music, also to you, TODAH 
RABBAH!
     And - Shabbat Shalom!
L'shalom,
Rabbi Larry Karol
Temple Beth Sholom
Topeka, Kansas

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