Laura Wetzler CD review

[Seth Rogovoy <rogovoy...>]

[in re: the recent back and forth about Laura Wetzler's terrific new CD,
here's an excerpt from my column, "Texts and Tunes," that ran in the
Berkshire Jewish Voice in August:]

        The field of Jewish music is enormous – as big as the globe and as old 
as
civilization – and thus it’s nearly impossible to get a handle on it. But on
“Kabbalah Music: Songs of the Jewish Mystics” (Nervy Girl),
singer-songwriter Laura Wetzler does a terrific job of presenting a focused
and coherent overview of Jewish music’s span and scope through the unifying
device of mysticism – the desire for an intimate relationship with G-d.
        Music, of course, can be all about this mystical, spiritual 
relationship,
both functionally and textually. And Wetzler combines the two elements in a
selection of 15 songs, a journey through Jewish mysticism in song based on
mostly obscure, traditional mystical texts put to music that represents
Judaism’s global reach – from the Yemenite chanting and Arabic percussion of
“Im Ninalu” to the Sephardi dance of “Bar Yochai,” which takes a listener on
a journey through the sefirot, or 10 emanations of Hashem, and “Klezmer
Hechalot,” a poem that was chanted to induce an ecstatic, visionary journey
through the heavenly chambers, set to an original, Ashkenazi-style melody,
featuring instrumental contributions by members of three of New York’s top
klezmer bands, the Klezmatics, Mikveh, and Metropolitan Klezmer.
        Wetzler also contributes an original, folk-rock based melody on “Jacob
Wakes Up,” which draws on a pasuk from Genesis, and an Afro-pop version of
the popular Kabbalat Shabbat hymn, “L’cha Dodi,” with vocal contributions by
composer J.J. Keki and guitarist Gershom Sizomu, Abayudaya Jews of Uganda.
Other numbers on this carefully annotated recording by Wetzler are drawn
from Italian, Indian, Greek, Moroccan and contemporary influences, including
“Tkhine of Sarah bas Toivim,” an original Ashkenazi-based chant drawn from a
17th-century women’s prayerbook, “Ya Ribon Alam,” a 16th-century poem sung
in Aramaic, and “Narrow Bridge,” an English translation of a meditation by
the Hasidic mystic, Nachman of Bratzlav.
        Wetzler is a versatile, affecting vocalist who is up to the linguistic
challenge of singing in English, Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, Ladino and the
Lugandan-Hebrew dialect, as well as the challenge of tackling the different
styles of singing, from Arabic-style chanting to American folk to the more
cantorial-based Ashkenazic modes. A masterful work of folklore and
scholarship as well as a beautifully performed work of original,
traditional-based music, “Kabbalah Music” is one of the best albums of new
Jewish music in the past decade, and establishes Wetzler in the forefront of
the rich, exciting renaissance of contemporary Jewish music.

by Seth Rogovoy
www.rogovoy.com
author of "The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's Guide to Jewish Roots and
Soul"
http://www.algonquin.com/catalog/pagemaker.cgi?1-56512-244-5
"invaluable" -- New York Times
"indispensable" -- George Robinson, Jewish Week

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