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Published Works of Aaron
Howard
Aaron's Archives
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Search Results - - Music Reviews |
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Barry Manilow As Cultural Icon
| Move over Beatles, Santana, Isley Brothers and Rod Stewart. Give the record to Barry Manilow.
The music industry trade magazine Billboard reports that when Manilow’s latest release "The Greatest Songs of the Fifties" (Arista) d |
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Paul Simon and - In Houston on July 22
| Two decades ago, when Paul Simon came to Johannesburg to record the initial five tracks for his “Graceland” album, bassist Baghiti Kumalo had to sell newspapers on the streets on Soweto in order to supplement his meager living as a musician. Those ar |
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Catching Up With Craig Taubman
| It’s been a busy year for Jewish music composer, recording artist and “Friday Night Live” service creator Craig Taubman. There’s a new Taubman CD. A new Jew Age music CD “The Shabbat Lounge”. And the expansion of the Craig ‘n Co. Jewish music catalo |
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A Bob Wills Appreciation
| “When you cross that old Red River, Hoss, that just don’t mean a thing,” sang Waylon Jennings, “once you’re down in Texas, Bob Wills is still the king.”
Jennings released his self-penned tribute to Wills in 1975 at the height |
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'S Wonderful: A Definative Look At Gershwin
| In a December article, “The 100 Most Influential Americans Of All Time”, the Atlantic Monthly magazine named Aaron Copland and George Gershwin as two of the five most influential musicians. Is it coincidence that University of Houston John and Rebec |
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The Two Faces of Klezmer
| The klezmer revival in the late 1970s brought back a genre that was, in essence, an Old World Yiddish folk music. Yes, there was an American klezmer that included a significant number of recordings in the 1920s. But as Jewish migration from Europe ca |
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Klezmatics and Rumshinsky Are Big Winners
| The Klezmatics
“Wonder Wheel”
(Jewish Music Group)
The envelope, please. And the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music album goes to…The Klezmatics!
The contempo |
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Israeli Pianist Anat Fort Takes the Intuitive Road
| Speaking about the melodic substance of jazz, pianist John Lewis once said the goal is to find a graceful way to get from one place to another.
When it comes to beauty of form, composition and movement in contemporary jazz, Isr |
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On the Matisyahu Phenomenon
| Matisyahu
Youth
(Epic)
No Jewish music artist has ever peaked on Billboard’s Top Ten prior to Matisyahu in March 2006. But then, the young Hassidic roots reggae rapper is the most unlikely pop star in or outside J |
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Shalom Comrade
| Various Artists
Shalom Comrade: Yiddish Music in the Soviet Union 1928-1961
(Wergo)
Despite an emigration rate of some two million, in 1917 more Jews lived in the Soviet Union than anywhere else in the wor |
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Singing Past Idi Amin
| Before modern times, religion governed the details of daily behavior in all aspects of Jewish life. Religion was grounded in the awe of HaShem. Just as the ancient Israelites lived by an absolute faith in the Lord, so, too, did generations of Jews. |
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Peter Himmelman: Creating In An Imperfect World
| On stage at a typical rock concert, the band re-creates their hits and album favorites, note for note. Then, there’s a Peter Himmelman concert where you never know what will happen.
Himmelman pauses after a song to ask the audi |
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A Smokey Room and the Soft Sounds of Yiddish
| In Theresa Tova’s hands, Yiddish songs aren’t about maidens rocking their child’s cradle in a corner of the Temple while pure white goats stand nearby. When Tova sings “The Saxophone Player”, she purrs, “I heard your notes from out of the deep/they c |
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Encountering Jewish Music That's Been Written Off
| If you want to know about the world of modern American Jewish music, of course there are the 50 music CDs released by the Milken Archive. But do Milken’s Jewish tone poems and jazz psalms truly represent American culture “in all its diversity”? |
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Felix Mendelssohn: The Price of Assimilation
| Studies of Felix Mendelssohn the Man are as numerous as studies of Mendelssohn the Composer/Conductor. As a conductor, Mendelssohn was among the first? to adopt the baton and to develop systematic orchestral rehearsal techniques. He was responsible f |
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Jewish CDs - Dancing On the Temple Floor
| Lawrence Dermer
Third House Rising
(Musical Messages Inc.)
Get them dancing. The message will follow, as Lawrence Dermer exhorts on his CD of Jewish songs “Third House Rising”. Dancing as we climb.
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Who Misses the Words In These Songs?
| Take 26 passionate songs written by Spanish and Argentinean composers. Put Kim Kashkashian and Robert Levin to work transcribing them for viola and piano. Polish the transcriptions until each song’s inherent shape and fluorescence are flawless. Recor |
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Diaspora In Berkeley
| Imagine the period when Jews were restricted to living in cramped, dilapidated walled quarters, European ghettos or North African mellahs. Artistic, intellectual and social influences of the larger non-Jewish world were strictly controlled. Then imag |
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Carole King and Her Hebrew Daughters
| Prior to the release of Carole King’s “Tapestry” in March 1971, the musical genre “singer/songwriter” did not exist. True, there were a few women in rock: the “girl groups”--the Shirelles, Chiffons, Ronettes, Crystals and Supremes; and course, Aretha |
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In the Court of the Tudor King
| More was going on in the realm of King Henry VIII than serial marriages. Music was apparently an important part of the Tudor court. And of all the Tudor kings, Henry VIII was the most musical. He composed music and wanted only the best professional m |
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Post Modern Jewish Music
| English sociologist Anthony Giddens described “late modernity” or the “post-modern era” as a cultural phenomenon in which cultural systems are uncoupled, lifted out of local contexts and made accessible for use by people in other places, other times |
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Joshua Nelson: Jewish Music With Lots of Soul
| To hear Joshua Nelson tell it, kosher gospel started with Mahalia Jackson.
“It wouldn’t have been unheard of for Jews to have her recordings because she crossed over and opened herself to a wider audience,” says Nelson. “She |
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Take A Listen to These New Jewish CDs
| Veretski Pass
Trafik
(Golden Horn)
Look at a map of the old Jewish Pale of Settlement in Russia between 1835-1917. Veretski Pass is the trans-Carpathian artery that linked the communities of the Ukraine, Carpathia |
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A Love Song to Jerusalem
| A well-traveled friend of mine just returned here after visiting Israel for the first time. “Except possibly for the city of Varanasi (Benares), Jerusalem is the most God-intoxicated city I’ve ever been to,” he said.
Yes, Jerusalem is |
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Brio Brings Old School Sephardic Music to Houston
| Performing “authentic” Sephardic music is nearly impossible. That’s because one cannot pinpoint the Sephardic musical tradition to one time and place.
Is it the 14th century music of the Spanish Jews? Is it the music of the Jews living |
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A View of Klezmer Music Beyond
| In a 2001 interview with the Herald-Voice, the Klezmatics lead vocalist Lorin Sklamberg said, "As time goes on, music has less and less personality. People are afraid to be themselves, to be idiosyncratic, to have particular ways of playing that dist |
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Tim Sparks: Transposing Klezmer To the Guitar
| First, a compliment: Tim Sparks’ “Little Princess” is easily the best Jewish music of the year. Sparks takes the music of the great klezmer clarinetist Naftule Brandwein and re-arranges the repertoire for acoustic fingerstyle guitar trio. The result: |
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Standing Deep In the Tradition
| Frank London/Lorin Sklamberg
Tsuker-Zis
(Tzadik)
Greg Walls’s Later Prophets
Ha’Orot
(Tzadik)
What is tradition? Is it something passed on from one generation to the next without addit |
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Two Approaches To Yiddish
| The Nazis obliterated the Yiddish language at the height of its cultural flourishing. Although not extinct, Yiddish can hardly function as a linguistic basis for new song lyrics. Thus, for musicians and audiences, the major attitude towards Yiddish s |
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She's Got A Little List
| If your dad, the iconic Johnny Cash, hands you a list of the 100 most essential country songs, and tells you to learn them all, how does a daughter respond? In 1973, Rosanne Cash was 18 years old and contemplating a music career. Her dad was alarmed |
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Ella By Limelight
| Houston’s Steve Tyrell made himself into a star singing the American standards. Rod Stewart revived a sagging career with his American songbook series. Singers from Willie Nelson to Linda Ronstadt to Rufus Wainwright fashioned hit albums covering son |
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A Yankee Land Thanks to the Irish and the Jews
| Mick Moloney needs no introduction to fans of Irish music. His work as an academic in collecting and recounting the Irish-American experience through music is possibly peerless. And Moloney’s version of “There Were Roses” is one of the greatest Irish |
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