Post tag: Harry Belafonte
What Is Jewish Music?

CantorMarlowsphere Blog (#144)

What is Jewish music? At its essence, Jewish music, like music of any identified culture, reflects Jewish values and experiences.

For example, an obvious, partial answer to the question “What is Jewish music?” is music of the synagogue, the schul: cantorial music, liturgical music, and cantillation. Melodies such as “Halleluyah,” “Heine Ma Tov,” “V’Taher Lebeinu,” “Yis Ma Chu,” “L’Cha Dodi,” “Avinu Malkeinu,” and “Kol Nidre.”

Then there are melodies sung and played at various Jewish celebrations—Chanukah, Passover, and Purim—in the synagogue and in Jewish homes, such as “Moaz Tsur,” “Chanukah, O, Chanukah,” “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” “Sevivon,” “Mishenichnas Adar Marbim Be-Simecha,” “Layehudim Haitah Orah Ve-Simechah, Ve-Sasson, Ve-Yakar,” “Adon Olam,” “Mah Nishtanah Halaylah Haze,” and “Eliyahu Hanavi.”

And there are countless folk melodies, for example “Ata Hu Hashem,” “Lahadam,” and “Erev Shel Shoshanim.” This catalog of Jewish music must also include Israel’s national anthem “Hatikva” and the most covered Jewish melody of all “Hava Nagila.”

There is also Klezmer: a musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim in ensembles known as kapelye, the Klezmer Musicgenre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations. In the United States the genre evolved considerably as Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, who arrived between 1880 and 1924, came into contact with American jazz.

And there is nigunim: A nigun (singular of nigunim) (Hebrew: meaning “tune” or “melody”) is a form of Jewish religious song or tune sung by groups. It is vocal music, often with repetitive sounds such as “Bim-Bim-Bam”, “Lai-Lai-Lai”, “Yai-Yai-Yai” or “” Ai-Ai-Ai” instead of formal lyrics. Nigunim are especially central to worship in Hasidic Judaism.

In the 20th and 21st centuries the advent of Jewish music and music based on Jewish culture and themes extended beyond the synagogue and Jewish home, as in Broadway musicals, such as:

Fiddler on the RoofAmerike—The Golden Land (1982), Cabaret (1966), Falsettos (1992), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), I Can Get It For You Wholesale (1962), Milk and Honey (1961), Ragtime (1998), The Immigrant (2004), The People in the Picture (2011), The Zulu and the Zayda (1965), and War Paint (2017).

Films with Jewish “sounding” music and Jewish culture and themes are just as numerous, and include most famously “The Jazz Singer” (1927), “The 10 Commandments” (1956), “Ben Hur” (1959),  “Exodus” (1960), “Funny Girl” (1968), “Oliver” (1968), “Fiddler on the Roof” (1968), “Yentl” (1983), “Schindler’s List” (1993), “Eight Crazy Nights” (2002), “Munich” (2005), and “Defiance” (2008).

In the genre of jazz, the inventory of “jazz Jews” inspired British author and radio show host Mike Gerber to pen a 656-page volume titled Jazz Jews (published in 2009). Some of these Jews wrote a treasure trove of Yiddish music that found its way into the popular culture, such as Sholem Secunda’s “Bay mir bistu sheyn”

The list of Jewish composers and performers who contributed to the “Great American Songbook” is very long and includes such notables as Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Neil Sedaka, Carole King, and Bob Dylan. Berlin, who wrote close to 2,000 Neil Sedakatunes, famously wrote the most popular Christmas song ever, “I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas.” And Neil Sedaka, who wrote, among many others songs, “Stairway to Heaven” and “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,” is aptly named. In Hebrew Sedaka means “righteousness” or more popularly “charity.”

Clearly, while Jewish music has its origins in religious observance in the schul and in the Jewish home and is a significant cultural glue that bounds the Jewish community in the diaspora, Jewish music as a reflection of Jewish culture and themes has spread globally thanks to information, communications, and transportation technologies in the 20th and 21st centuries..

So, what then is Jewish music in contemporaneous terms? Is it strictly the music of the synagogue, Jewish melodies sung in the home, or Israeli folksongs, et al? In the context of globalism these definitions, while correct, are too constrained. Can we not define Jewish music as music based on Jewish sounds, culture, and themes?

A.Z. Idelsohn We must now also define Jewish music in the current cultural context, which is: no culture is pure; all cultures are a mixture. And it has been this way for thousands of years. Cultures are influenced by other cultures. No less than the father of Jewish musicology A.Z. Idelsohn in his seminal work Jewish Music in Its Historical Development (1929) in the very first sentence of Chapter I “The Song of the Synagogue,” states: “In surveying the development of music in ancient Israel it is essential to consider the music of Israel’s ancient neighbors.” In other words, no culture, let alone musical culture stands alone. Outside influences have an impact.

For the Jews in the diaspora and even now in Israel, outside musical cultures must be taken into account. And the cultural flow goes both ways. Earlier I referenced “Hava Nagila,” the most covered Jewish melody ever. Quite apart from Harry Belafonte’s rendition, Machito, one of the progenitors of Latin-jazz in New York City, also covered this same melody. On a 1951 recording he called the tune “Mambo Holiday.” My own Heritage Ensemble Quintet has taken two dozen Hebraic melodies and morphed them into arrangements using various jazz, Afro-Caribbean, Brazilian, and classical genres.

All in all, Jewish music—while born in religious observance—has clearly evolved and incorporated the cultural diaspora into its musical catalog.

© Eugene Marlow 2019

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“Obrigado Brasil!” Latest Heritage Ensemble CD Released 9-21-16

"Obrigado Brasil!" Eugene Marlow's Heritage Ensemble

Swinging Brazilian-based works are on the original order of the day here. Solid work that highlights the musical trail from New York to the tropics, the gang really tears it up here on a smoking set that gets any party started in fine style. With a real feel for the mode at hand, Marlow and the gang are in touch with their inner tropicalistas and make you believe. Well done.

Chris Spector
Midwest Record
10/04/2016 

 

September 7, 2016: Indie label MEII Enterprises announces the forthcoming 7th album from Eugene Marlow’s Heritage Ensemble: “Obrigado Brasil!”

“Obrigado Brasil!”—a nine track album of original sambas and bossa novas by award-winning Heritage Ensemble leader/pianist/composer Eugene Marlow—celebrates and pays homage to Brazilian musical culture that gave birth to the driving rhythms of the samba and the romantic feel of the bossa nova.

The album’s release follows the conclusion of the Summer 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and the anniversary of Brazil’s independence from Portugal on September 7, 1822.

Some highlights:

This album introduces young virtuoso pianist ArcoIris Sandoval who performs on “Arco’s Arc (which she co-wrote with composer Eugene Marlow). She also performs on “Novo Bossa” (on the Rhodes keyboard), “Flight II” and “Longing.”

Mixing things up is a hybrid piece: “Enigma” which begins and ends in a classical vein with Virginia Chang Chien performing two coincident oboe lines. The bulk of the track is an improvisation on the chords by saxophonist Michael Hashim in a bossa nova style.

The album’s final track—“Carnaval a Sanabria”—is a multi-layer drum and percussion celebration of the samba improvised by multi-Grammy nominee Heritage Ensemble drummer Bobby Sanabria.

"Obrigado Brasil!" Eugene Marlow's Heritage Ensemble Back Cover“Obrigado Brasil” is an album with a long pedigree. According to Marlow, “My journey with Latin-jazz begins in England (where I was born) with my listening to the Edmundo Ros Sextet perform—probably on early British television. As a member of the Hunter College Choir (tenor) I was influenced by choir director Ralph Hunter, former Harry Belafonte music director. When we performed Hunter’s Belafonte calypso arrangements I played the bongos. While in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam era off-duty I formed a trio with Chicano-born drummer Rudy Merino who played bossa novas with brushes as if the rhythms were in his DNA, and virtuoso bass player Sonny Jay who had performed and recorded with Louis Jordan of “Caldonia” famous. This was also the era of the bossa nova made popular by guitarist/composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and “The Girl from Ipanema.” There were many bossa novas in our repertoire.

“Obrigado Brasil!” will be available on at cdbaby.com/artist/eugenemarlow starting September 21, 2016.

Album Performers: Eugene Marlow, leader/piano; Bobby Sanabria, 7X Grammy-nominee drums/percussion/vocals; Michael Hashim, saxophones; Frank Wagner, bass; ArcoIris Sandoval, guest pianist; Virginia Chang Chien guest oboist.

“Obrigado Brasil!” is Eugene Marlow’s 18th album since 2005. Check them out here cdbaby.com/artist/eugenemarlow.

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Under the Influence of. . . Ralph Hunter

Ralph Hunter, pianist, arranger and choir directorThe Marlowsphere Blog (#113)

The last blog described my relationship with Maestro Maurice Peress with whom I studied “performance practice” for a semester in a doctoral level course at the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2001. In the blog I also referred to several other musicians who have over a course of several decades influenced my composing, arranging, and playing.

There are many others, but one of those who remains to be mentioned is Ralph Hunter. Hunter was an outstanding musician: as a pianist, arranger, and especially a choir director. He died on June 3, 2002 at age 81 in Grinnell, Iowa, where he lived in retirement. I knew him as the director of the Hunter College Choir between 1963-1965.

The New York Times obituary reads as follows:

Known for his passionate conducting of polychoral and spatially stereophonic music, Mr. Hunter also worked in radio and television and recorded five albums with the Ralph Hunter Choir.

In 1954 Mr. Hunter became head of the Collegiate ChoraleCollegiate Chorale, an amateur choir in New York. From an ensemble of eight women and 10 men the group swelled to a 100-member chorus known for performing polychoral works by composers like Thomas Tallis and Henry Brant.

Mr. Hunter led a choir giving a series of NBC television performances with the conductor Arturo Toscanini and later conducted a campaign choir called the Voices for Nixon. In 1970 he was named professor of music at Hunter College after serving as an associate professor for one year.

In addition to teaching choral literature, conducting and arranging, he led biannual choral concerts. He retired in 1987.

A native of East Orange, N.J., Mr. Hunter began his music career with a position as a church organist at the First Reform Church in Newark. After serving in World War II, he attended the Juilliard School.

He had lived in Grinnell for four years after moving there with his wife, Louise, from Cresskill, N.J. Besides his wife of 54 years, he is survived by two sons, Richard Hunter of St. Croix, V.I., and Christopher Hunter of Grinnell; four grandchildren; and a sister, Doris Dugan of Philadelphia.

My association with Professor Hunter was as a member of the Hunter College Choir. I auditioned for the bass section, but what they needed was tenors. I became a tenor. The experience actually stretched my voice.

The college choir course was only ½ a credit per semester, but it was one of the most enjoyable ½ credits in those two years. While I might have lumbered to some of my other courses, I raced to choir practice.

Herbert Lehman College, CUNYHere I must pause just for a moment to explain that at the time I was attending Hunter College (uptown). There was, of course, a downtown campus at 65th Street and Park Avenue. Hunter College (uptown) ultimately became Herbert Lehman College. Hunter College (downtown) ultimately became Hunter College.

Ralph Hunter must have possessed the patience of a saint. The reason: most of us in the uptown campus could read music on a scale ranging from “just barely” to “very well.” The “very well” singers were in the vast minority. In effect, Hunter taught each section of the choir—soprano, alto, tenor, bass—our specific musical lines note-by-note, or more accurately, phrase by phrase. At home I would attempt to read the lines in the score and sing it in preparation for the weekly practice sessions.

He was short of stature with a constant gleam in his eye. He could sit at the piano and sight-read each line of the score with great ease. I was envious of his skill. My own sight-reading skills at the time were almost non-existent. But my tenure as a tenor in the choir was, in part, the beginning of a more formal musical education. By the second year I had gained sufficient confidence in my singing, that I had become the de facto leader of the tenor section. There was also, on occasion, opportunities for me to take the lead of the entire 200+-voice choir. We were meeting in the large auditorium in the Hunter downtown campus. Hunter was late to the rehearsal. I stood in front of the somewhat disorganized choir members, called them to attention, and conducted the opening of one of the pieces we were to perform at our annual Christmas concert. I loved it. I had never led a musical group before.

Harry BelafonteAnother aspect of Hunter’s influence was the repertoire we performed. It ranged from the very classical to the popular—from Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart, to Gabrieli, Vivaldi, traditional Christmas songs and selections from the Harry Belafonte opus and other recordings. This is an aspect missing from Hunter’s obituary.

Among his recordings as composer and arranger were “The Wild, Wild West” (RCA 1959), “Living Voices Sing Moonglow and Other Great Standards” (RCA 1964), “Going Down Jordan” RCA 1975), and “All the Things You Are” (Pro Arte 1984).

The Many Voices of Miriam MekebaHe also served as a conductor and arranger for the likes of Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba in the early to mid-1960s: “Jump Up Calypso,” “Jump in The Line/Angelina,” and “The Many Voices of Miriam Makeba.”

Whenever we performed something from the Belafonte repertoire I brought a pair of bongos from home. How they came into my possession I have no recollection. It gave me great delight to perform on the bongos during these pieces. Whether I was playing the correct rhythmic pattern of not, I also have no recollection, but it must have sounded somewhat authentic. Hunter made no objections.

One last story about him. It was Tuesday, November 9, 1965. The Northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity affecting parts of Ontario in Canada; and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the United States. Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to 13 hours.

The uptown campus section of the choir—about 80 of us—was rehearsing on a stage in a below ground level auditorium. It was around 5:35 p.m. We saw lights flicker for a moment but didn’t think much of it. Then, a few minutes later the entire room went 1965 Blackoutcompletely dark. There could have been panic but Hunter kept us calm. Good thing too because it was at least a six foot drop to the floor of the auditorium from the stage. Anyone falling off the stage would have been hurt.

Hunter did the right thing. He led us in a rousing rendition of the “Halleluyah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.” It brought everyone together. Instead of panic, there was a high level of morale. After we got done singing, a few of us whose eyes had adapted to the darkness (including myself), led everyone, line by line, down the steps on each side of the stage, through the auditorium and onto the outside campus. Even though it was November and shorter days, there was also a full moon which helped light our way.

In retrospect, it was an extraordinary evening. People on the street volunteered to direct traffic. The level of cooperation was very high. The feeling all around contradicted the usual perception that New Yorkers are nasty, self-centered folk.

Ralph Hunter provided that musical spark of leadership that helped us deal with the unprecedented situation.

He was a person you wanted to spend time with and sing your heart out for.

If you have any questions or comments about this or any other of my blogs, please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
December 8, 2014

© Eugene Marlow 2014

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