Editor’s Note: Michael Bloomfield would have turned 76 today. Here’s a look back at the life of the Jewish guitar legend. Back in 1977, Michael Bloomfield, the seminal white blues guitarist from Chicago who studied at the feet of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, took to the stage for a performance at the intimate McCabe’s…
George Wein, co-founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, once wrote, “If there was ever an average middle-class, Jewish-American kid… I was it.” But the life that followed Wein’s childhood in the Boston suburbs has been anything but commonplace. Consider a few facts: As a teenager who hungrily sought out live jazz, Wein sometimes brought musicians…
Back in 1977, Michael Bloomfield, the seminal white blues guitarist from Chicago who studied at the feet of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, took to the stage for a performance at the intimate McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California. Late in the show, letting his three accompanists sit out for the moment, he began…
Not many pop-rock artists are inspired by Franz Rosenzweig’s “Star of Redemption” or “Totality and Infinity” by Emmanuel Levinas, but then again, Ruth Gerson is not your usual singer-songwriter. “Most often, I start writing a song because of something I am reading,” Gerson said. Given her academic background (she studied Jewish existentialism at Princeton), she…
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