Re: Recent Recordings Article

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>I'm looking for suggestions of recordings issued during the last 4 months or
>so from across the spectrum of Jewish music.  Any information on these
>recordings would be greatly appreciated.

The New Naftule's Dream, which arrived while I was traveling,
and to which I haven't had a lot of time to listen (titled something
like "shhh boom"), is very, very nice. It's progressive music, not
always so particularly Jewish, but the connections to klez and other
Jewish music sources, when they happen, are much more plentiful than
in the first album (Search for the Golden Dreidel?). I loved the
first album, but really, really love this one.

Yid Vicious' CD--they're a klezmer band from Madison, WI, is suprisingly
non-punk, but very good, delicious, brass-heavy traditional American
klezmer of a sort one doesn't hear often, and certainly doesn't hear
often played this well. It's what I listened to most on my recent
cross-country drive.

This past week I received the new "Di Naye Kapelye" from Budapest
(which Simon at Hatikva, klezcorner (at) aol(dot)com, has imported). It's
killer, Eastern European, klez roots that is so danceable, and so
true to the genre and yet, so damn good, that it really doesn't
matter what the genre is. Disclaimer: I wrote the introduction to
the liner notes. I met the band in Budapest a couple of years ago
and already fell in love with them. But this new CD, well, it's
even better.

The other new CD is the Klezmatics/Chava Alberstein album, The Well,
that came out in September. This is another very special album. It's
the rare Yiddish album that sounds like it belongs in 1998 (as opposed
to 1938 or 1898). Chava is a well-known Israeli folksinger, and she
brings stuff out of the Klezmatics, and vice versa, that is familiar,
yet very different form what either normally sound like. And it's
really, really nice.

I haven't been this excited about a pile of albums in a long time.
Hope this gets things started. There are lots of genres I'm not
even touching.

ari