The younger generation is amazing though. I've been teaching Jewish music for 30 years at NEC; this past fall I had absolutely the best group at the school that I've ever had. I had about 15 students, and they can definitely give the KCB a run for their money. Educationally, for me, the big priority is still cultural rescue. It's finding Holocaust survivors who have hundreds and hundreds of songs in their heads that no one's ever been interested in. You teach them to students because I'm in a department — the Contemporary Improvisation department — that's post-genre and all about sharing cultures. This stuff immediately becomes a point of departure that should have been there a long time ago. But it's fascinating to see what people do with it.
WHEN YOU SAY JEWISH MUSIC ARE YOU SPECIFICALLY TALKING ABOUT THE EASTERN EUROPEAN TRADITION? Yeah. I'm a big fan of Sephardic music and a lot of things in Jewish music — when I like it. But I have a PhD in ethnomusicology where the entire focus was Eastern European Jewish music. The Festival is not about that, it's a celebration of God knows what [laughs].
JOEY WAS TALKING TO ME ABOUT RANDY NEWMAN. There you go. In my mind I find the Jewishness of Randy Newman is kind of like the trace elements of peanuts you see in chocolate bars. Joey would say, "It's in his attitude." I say, "That's American." At some point you have to draw the line and say, "That's part of American culture." Jewish-American culture is sarcastic, ironic. Everything Randy Newman is you can probably find 10 Irish and Italian musicians from that background who also have irony and sarcasm.
But I'll tell you, a few years ago I had Michael Wex, who's a Yiddish writer, translate "Lonely at the Top" into Yiddish for one of my concerts. He made it about a has-been Yiddish singer — and it really sounded like a Jewish song. You can definitely find where Randy Newman can't help but project something that sounds kind of Jewish. But basically he's not that different from Tom Waits..
Related:
Ring in the new, Accidental purist, Scholarship gigs, More 
- Ring in the new
If 2009 lives up to the grace and power of some of the concerts that began it, we can look forward to a vintage year.
- Accidental purist
In one of Karlheinz Stockhausen's weirdest creations, the ensemble is instructed to "play a sound with the certainty that you have an infinite amount of time and space." Stephen Drury doesn't mind that so much. But fasting for four days? "No."
- Scholarship gigs
When in 1999 Björn Wennås moved from Sweden to Boston to study jazz guitar, he hardly imagined that he'd one day be playing in an ensemble that specializes in Italian folk music of the 12th to 19th centuries.
- Edan | Echo Party
There are two ways to get intimate with Berklee-schooled track surgeon Edan’s latest throwback symphony.
- Group hug
Things aren’t always what they’re called — we know that flying fish don’t fly and starfish aren’t even fish.
- Steampunk and Lima Beans
The hook for Darcy James Argue's Secret Society — who come to the Regattabar Thursday the 25th — is that they're a "steampunk big band."
- Review; Fred Hersch at Jordan Hall
Photos from Fred Hersch's set at Jordan Hall
- Greasing the skids
Things could have been different for Ben Maitland-Lewis.
- What's new
The timely highlight of Gil Rose’s latest BMOP (Boston Modern Orchestra Project) concert, “Strings Attached,” was a new/old piece (2004, revised 2009) for two string orchestras by Scott Wheeler now called Crazy Weather — the new title taken from a John Ashbery poem that begins, “It’s this crazy weather we’ve been having.”
- Covering Lacy
For Josh Sinton, Steve Lacy stood out almost from the beginning.
- Post-millennial swing
It's not the solos, though they're usually as inviting as they are bracing. And it's not the charts, though they're often as persuasive as they are unpredictable.
- Less
Topics:
Jazz
, Entertainment, Music, klezmer, More
, Entertainment, Music, klezmer, Brandon Seabrook, Arts, Entertainment, and Media, Judy Bressler, Frank London, Culture and Lifestyle, Religion, Tom Waits, Less
