There was no dry ice, no pyro, and the band probably could have used more cowbell, but when the rabbi played jazz, the crowd went wild.
The rabbi was Stuart Kelman, with the band in question being the Netivot Shalom jazz and klezmer ensemble, which performed at the Berkeley synagogue Sunday, May 7.
While Kelman’s talents as a pulpit rabbi are widely known, his skills with the licorice stick are less renowned, though that may change after Sunday’s concert.
About 50 people came out to see the band play in the sanctuary of the newly built synagogue structure. Wailing away on clarinet and bass clarinet, Kelman joined eight other Netivot Shalom members for a set that included songs such as “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” “Star Eyes” and “Tzena, Tzena.”
“I’ve been playing since I was seven or eight,” said Kelman. “I’ve always been interested in jazz.”
His colleagues in the Netivot Shalom band span the generations, with some members, like clarinetist Sam Priven, still pre-bar mitzvah age, and others just north of AARP membership.
“I knew there was talent out there,” said Dan Siegel, a temple member and trombonist who founded the band last September. “I was inspired by the new building and got interested in building community.”
The band has been rehearsing once a month, and not long ago played a warm-up gig at the Strawberry Creek Lodge, a Berkeley assisted living center.
Traci Siegel, Dan’s wife, helped plan the May 7 event. “This is bringing people together with music,” she said. “It’s a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.”
It got even nicer when her husband introduced the song “Sweet Love” (made famous by Anita Baker), which happened to be the Siegels’ favorite song when the two were young lovebirds at the University of Pennsylvania. Traci dropped what she was doing to give the band her undivided attention.
Later in the set, Siegel picked up a ram’s horn for a short piano/shofar duet, stating in his intro that it was probably the first time in history anyone ever played “jazz shofar.”
Kelman, who is set to retire next year, has already said he looks forward to playing more music. And if he has his way, he’ll be back for an encore at Netivot Shalom.
“This building lets us do things we couldn’t do before,” he says of the year-old temple facility on University Avenue. “It would be wonderful to develop this into a performance space.”