High Holiday liturgy is focus of new CDBy Mara Dresner

[dchevan <dchevan...>]

This just came out in yesterday's CT Jewish Ledger.

www.jewishledger.com

High Holiday liturgy is focus of new CD
By Mara Dresner

    Sept 10, 2003 The High Holiday season is filled with special liturgy. 
Sanctuaries everywhere are overflowing with the ancient words of ?Avinu 
Malkeinu,? ?Al Chet,? and ?Hineni.?

    Hamden musician David Chevan has put a new spin on these timeless prayers 
on his new CD, ?The Days of Awe: Meditations for Selichot, Rosh Hashanah and 
Yom Kippur.?

    ?I think the High Holy Day liturgy is some of the most profound and 
important in our current culture. So much of what we pray about during the High 
Holy Days is important to us year round. I find many of the messages of the 
prayers to be ones that we should be considering year round, yet only seem to 
come up during this period,? says Chevan, who is accompanied on the CD by his 
group The Afro-Semitic Experience.

    The centerpiece of the recording consists of six original arrangements of 
transcriptions from the recorded High Holy Day cantorial repertoire of Yossele 
Rosenblatt.

    ?In his day, Yossele Rosenblatt was the most famous and popular Jewish 
cantor in the world. He made hundreds of recordings and even briefly appeared 
singing Jewish music in vaudeville. His voice was the first voice that was ever 
heard in a motion picture--it was dubbed into one of the early scenes of Al 
Jolson's ?The Jazz Singer,?" Chevan explains.

    ?Rosenblatt later appears in the movie singing a Yiddish song. Unlike many 
other cantors of his time, Rosenblatt restricted his public performances to 
cantorial music and Jewish song. He never performed opera, despite that one of 
his biggest fans was Caruso.

    ?I came to Rosenblatt years ago when I became interested in Hazzanut, which 
is the art of Jewish cantorial singing.  Rosenblatt had an incredible voice and 
really understood this art form.  His krechts, or sobbing sounds, are 
profoundly emotional and his phrasing is equally moving. It occurred to me that 
I needed to learn more about him, so I began transcribing his recordings and 
learning more about the nuances of his singing style, especially his phrasing,? 
continued bassist Chevan, who teaches at Southern Connecticut State University.

    The idea for ?The Days of Awe? grew out of Chevan?s desire to make a 
recording that was solely devoted to Jewish music.

    Concerned that the art form of Hazzanut was disappearing, Chevan decided to 
take a look at the relationship between Hazzanut and jazz, later deciding to 
explore the High Holidays.

    ?The cantorial art of Hazzanut is a highly improvisatory process that 
reminds me of jazz improvisation. I hear and have found much more spontaneity 
in the singing of cantors than in most  Klezmer music (which, incidentally is 
often called  -- and I believe incorrectly so -- Jewish jazz),? he says, noting 
that he chose to transcribe Rosenblatt's renditions of High Holy Day prayers 
for several reasons.  

    ?First, because of his incredible sense of melody.  These pieces are 
infused with wonderful and emotionally powerful melodies. Second, because he 
was one of the greatest recorded masters of Hazzanut. His singing and 
improvisations are filled with nuances that are rivaled by only a few other 
cantors,? notes Chevan. ?Thirdly, his compositions are compelling. Each of the 
pieces I transcribed was like a miniature oratorio. In each of the pieces there 
were at least two or more complete music sections that might contain moments of 
operatic recitative, snippets of folk melodies, and large sections of 
improvised Hazzanut.  When I transcribed and then arranged these for my band to 
perform the music came alive in fresh new ways that got me excited. I could 
hear and feel the spirit of the High Holy Days, the Days of Awe, in a new and 
meaningful way.?

    The first-born son of a family of first-generation Jewish immigrants from 
Poland and Russia, Chevan has strong memories of attending services as a child. 
Musically active from an early age, he grew up in a Conservative-Egalitarian 
synagogue, where he remembers leading services from the age of 10.

    ?My earliest distinct memories of the High Holy Day liturgy come from when 
I was living in Israel in 1972 with my parents and we took a walk through the 
streets of Jerusalem and heard the different prayers coming from all of the 
many shuls there. My first memory of singing the liturgy comes later,? Chevan 
says. ?I remember attending a Rosh Hashanah service in college, at the 
University of Massachusetts, and singing ?Zochrenu L'Chayim? and trying to 
imagine what it might look like if I scored it on manuscript paper. That was 
not a particularly ?sacred? thought to be running through my head, but it was 
all I could imagine at that moment.  What meter would I use?  What would be a 
good key for it??

    ?Zochrenu L?Chayim? is one of the nine pieces that comprise ?Days of Awe,? 
which was recorded this past May at Tape Works in Hartford and at Horizon 
Studios in West Haven. The CD is released through Reckless DC Music.

    

    

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