|
 |
|
| Tuesday, November 13, 2007 |
Musical Notes: Ari Gold and the AJL CD Reviews
This is part of our Nov/Dec 2007 issue.
Entourage's Ari Gold may be a big shot Hollywood agent, but Ari Gold from the Bronx is something even rarer: A gay Jewish R&B artist. Gold, who has been professionally singing since he was six years old (he was "discovered" while singing at his brother's bar mitzvah), specializes in sexy, sensuous rhythm and blues that only happens to be directed to another man. Which is to say, there's nothing shticky about his music.
Mainstream R&B artists seem to notice Gold's commitment to the music. On his latest album, Transport Systems, he collaborates with Sasha Allen (a winner of VH1's Born to Diva) on his single "Where the Music Takes You," and rapper Mr. Man on "Human." "I don't believe the entire hip-hop community is homophobic, and certainly not the whole R&B community," Gold explains. "Two artists can come together to make music, it doesn't matter."
Unfortunately, that open-mindedness hasn't translated to a record label signing him. Gold says that labels have shied away from hiring a Jewish homosexual R&B artist. Some of those label heads, Gold says, were gay themselves. "They said they'd make me a star if I went into the closet. I fought with a lot of them and ultimately decided that I couldn't work with them," Gold explains. "I have to be who I am."
The AJL CD Reviews:
Dan Kaufman: Force of Light
Tova Reich's My Holocaust book is an announcement of sorts for Holocaust studies — it's the moment that satire and concentration camps can come together and be considered serious writing. It's also a bit crude, especially when compared to Kaufman's Force of Light — a series of compositions of poet Paul Celan's work. Celan's poetry remains potent, powerful, feverish writing about the Shoah, and Kaufman's compositions do justice to the work. He gives them a musical echo appropriate to the poetry's style — dark, brooding, and disconnected. Listening to Kaufman is enough to make one weep.
Kosha Dillz: Israeli Independence Week
Once upon a time, Jewish artists attempting to do rap music would steal beats, borrow rhythms, and deepen their voices in humiliating attempts to copy real hip-hop artists. But now there is a new breed of Jewish hip-hop artists. Kosha Dillz, along with Y-Love, DJ Balagan, and others, are firmly committed to the spirit of hip-hop. They release mix tapes long before albums hit the street, they tour to the middle of nowhere, and they plan crunk tours into the deep South. Israeli Independence Week, complete with Photoshop quality cover art, has D.I.Y. written all over it. And hey, the music ain’t bad either.
New Found Glory: From The Screen To Your Stereo Part 2
4/6th of New Found Glory are Jewish boys from Florida, which apparently justified their nomination for Best Jewish Punk in the First Annual Jewish Music Awards. It's likely, though, that the most Jewish thing about the band is their hyper-kinetic, fast-talking pop-punk. Shame that FTSTYSP2 (don’t make me type the whole title out again) eschews punk themes for cinematic ones — the songs are all covers of 80s and 90s movie theme songs. It's a bit of a sell-out, which might make the band that most hackneyed of Jewish stereotypes: Capitalists.
Out of Babylon: The Music of Baghdadi-Jewish Migrations into Asia and Beyond
Against the backdrop of the Iraq war, an album chronicling the liturgy and psalms of the Iraqi Jewish Diaspora seems very contemporary. It’s a credit to the label, Celestial Harmonies, that it never devolves into a political statement, or a social protest. It remains a document of history: 43 tracks, recorded roughly in a way that submits authenticity. Low-key and understated, the album’s most potent statement is the one it never announces outright. The title comes from the 137th psalm, "By the Rivers of Babylon," only in variation. It’s a classic Diaspora tale — abandonment of years of history. Exile in the face of war.
Rooftop Roots: A JDub Mixtape Volume III
Despite their firm commitment not to provide this reviewer with review copies (ahem), JDub remains a player worth paying attention to in the ever-expanding field of Jewish music. Rooftop Roots is a compilation that features older JDub artists (Golem, Balkan Beat Box) next to brand new properties (Soulico), next to what can only be described as MySpace babies. The best of this last group is For My Baby Brother's "The Wailing Wall," which sounds like a religious Jeffrey Lewis. Alicia Jo Rabin's "Bat Yiftach" treads a bit too close to Joanna Newsom for comfort, and Sagol 59 hip--hop "Lech Kadima" has a beat too simple to recommend, and a flow that shows signs for growth, but lacks distinction at the moment. JDub's Jewish scene is one composed of New York Jewish hipsters, one well--represented on this mixtape. Too bad it never really leaves Williamsburg.
Shawn Fogel: One Day In The Desert
Is Shawn Fogel the Jewish Conor Oberst? His EP, One Day in the Desert, certainly makes a case for that conclusion. Over a folk-country beat, he sings lyrics swiped from the Bob Dylan songbook, on opener "The Season I Love Best": "My lungs don't breath the air, they whisper stories never told / The cracking of my knuckles are the marching drums of war." Articulate folk-rock Jew? Gasp. Who's ever heard of such a thing?
-- Text by Mordechai Shinefield
This is part of our Nov/Dec 2007 issue.
|
|
|
|
