Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish music, including klezmer and other traditions.
Music
The Latest
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The Schmooze Horas for Headbangers
Back in 1997, “Buena Vista Social Club” introduced American audiences to a style of Cuban music that was popular in Havana in the 1950s. The album charmed the critics, topped the charts, spawned a documentary film, and was championed by Starbucks when the coffee behemoth decided to become a curator of world music. Such a…
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The Schmooze Yinglish and Spanglish at the International Accordion Festival
Mark Rubin is a musician based out of Austin, Texas, who has played at the International Accordion Festival since 2001. His latest project is the Atomic Duo. The International Accordion Festival is not well known outside of Texas, and that’s a shame. For a decade, the people of San Antonio have been treated, at no…
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The Schmooze A Guitar God and his Musical Monsters
When I phoned Gary Lucas this week he was right in the middle of renewing his Forward subscription. “I’m a religious reader,” he punned effortlessly. He also had his cell phone pressed to his other ear, waiting to buy concert tickets. It comes as little shock that the prolific composer, songwriter, guitar legend and musical…
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The Schmooze Lenin, Stalin, and Jewish Musicians
On October 12, Paris’s Cité de la Musique opened a new exhibit, “Lenin, Stalin, and Music” which includes much fascinating material about the fate, and often the plight, of Russian Jewish musicians. With the benefit of hindsight it’s difficult to see why any Jews stayed in Soviet Russia. However, a brilliantly concise and well-illustrated exhibition…
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The Schmooze Praying Along With Avishai Cohen’s Latin Jewish Jazz
In the high-ceilinged atrium of the World Financial Center’s Winter Garden, Israeli bassist Avishai Cohen gave a free concert Saturday in a forest of palm trees. The show was part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days, an international network of concerts honoring the slain American journalist. For the project’s mission of reaffirming a commitment to…
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The Schmooze Ran Shabtay’s Focused Folk
Crossposted from Haaretz Talking to Ran Shabtay, lead singer of The Trees and the Bees, is a frenetic experience. He jumps from subject to subject. He starts with his love of folk music (“That’s how the real thing sounds; every time I hear Elliott Smith, my jaw drops”), continues with his attraction to art (“A…
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The Schmooze Symphonies for Space Cadets
For those familiar with One Ring Zero’s sound — a sometimes-kooky, sometimes-eerie blend of forsaken instruments like theremin, claviola, and glockenspiel — it will come as no surprise that the band’s latest album, “Planets,” is a musical tour through outer space. Given their fondness for far-out noises, it was only a matter of time before…
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The Schmooze From Stanford to Be’er Sheva, Musicians Honor Daniel Pearl
Just a few months after his son Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, Judea Pearl approached Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Senior Associate Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, about the possibility of organizing a concert in his son’s memory to take place around his birthday, October 10. “He wanted there…
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