Some historians say that traditional Jewish music was part of the
genesis of American jazz. Louis Armstrong spent part of his childhood
working for a Russian-Jewish family who taught him Yiddish and helped
him buy his first cornet. Other early-20th-century big band leaders
were known for using klezmer influences, gleaned from the many Jewish
musicians who wound up in show business during that era. Those
influences got diluted over time, but klezmer remained relevant to the
lineage of American music. Today, Jewish music has bled into gospel,
hip-hop, and punk rock. Nowhere is that vast diaspora more apparent
than in the Jewish Music Festival put on every year by the
Jewish Community Center of the East Bay (1414 Walnut St.,
Berkeley). Now 23 years old, it’s the longest-running event of its kind
in the United States.
The 24th Jewish Music Festival will bring together a panoply of
forms and traditions. It kicks off Saturday, Mar. 21, with a gospel
performance at First Congregational Church (2501 Harrison St.,
Oakland), featuring singer Joshua Nelson and the Oakland Interfaith
Gospel Choir. A disciple of Mahalia Jackson, Nelson sings Jewish
prayers in a soulful style, using the same instrumentation you’d find
at any Southern Baptist church: piano, drums, bass, and a chorus of
big-voiced background singers. On Sunday, Mar. 22, the Young People’s
Symphony Orchestra performs music by local composer Ernest Bloch, who
directed the San Francisco Conservatory of Music during the 1920s.
Cellist Bonnie Hampton will play Bloch’s Schelomo, a rhapsody for solo
violin, while violinist Jeremy Cohen will perform a klezmer concerto by
local composer Arkadi Serper. Yiddish singer Flory Jagoda, who stars in
the Mar. 25 matinee, comes from a Ladino community in Sarajevo. Her
ancestors were expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and dispersed
to various parts of North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. Jagoda sings a
mix of traditional Sephardic music and original compositions that
reflect her Judeo-Spanish roots. Many of her songs are mistaken for
folk music, said festival director Eleanor Shapiro.
In fact, the protean quality of Jewish music is a major theme of
this year’s festival. Other highlights include Yiddish “folk punk”
outfit Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, who perform Mar. 26 at the
Rickshaw Stop with beatbox harmonica player Yuri Lane (who really can
vocalize a drum beat and play a harmonica at the same time), and a Mar.
28 concert at JCC East Bay starring two unusual groups, the Gypsy swing
band Gaucho and the Barry Sisters-inspired vocal quartet Sisters of
Synville. It closes with family day: a beatboxing workshop for teens,
an instrument “petting zoo” for kids, and a dance party for everyone
with klezmer brass band Brass Menazeri. For a full schedule, visit
JewishMusicFestival.org.
