Singer-songwriters Ira and Julia Bordenaro Levin named their new CD “36,” after the talmudic legend about 36 righteous souls charged with saving the world. No one knows exactly who the 36 are, so the best bet, according to Ira, is to treat everyone as if he or she were one of them.
“If you treat everyone with that chesed [kindness], and by being kind ourselves, we contribute to the world’s balance,” says Ira. “We came to these tracks with that perspective.”
Based in El Cerrito, the Levins have become luminaries on the Bay Area Jewish music scene, he as a popular children’s entertainer (a.k.a. Uncle Eye) and a Shabbat song leader; she as a member of the esteemed female a cappella ensemble Vocolot.
Though Julia has sung on Ira’s previous children’s albums, “36” is the pair’s first full-on duo recording. Though not exactly a concept album like “Sgt. Pepper’s” or “Tommy,” it does weave distinctly Jewish threads throughout, with every song inspired by a verse from the Torah or other sacred text.
But there’s nothing liturgical about their music.
The Levins’ arrangements include Ira on guitar, Julia on keyboards, along with tabla, cello, mandolins and a host of unpronounceable Middle Eastern percussion instruments (played by bandmates T. Hallenbeck and Aharon Wheels Bolsta).
Above all, the Levins’ harmonies recall the best of classic pop vocals — not surprising considering both are lifelong fans of harmony kings like the Beatles, James Taylor and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
“I grew up in the era of albums,” Ira says. “We were thinking of this as a musical smile.”
Adds Julia, “We wanted our roots to be the center. Undeniably we’re branching out, but if we didn’t start there we would not be true to ourselves.”
Julia Levin’s roots go back to small-town Iowa where she grew up Catholic in an Italian American family. Beginning at an early age, she studied piano and voice. But the family religion never felt right to her.
Ira had grown up in a Conservative Jewish home in Miami, surrounded by a family of theater mavens. He performed in community theater, and by the time he graduated Florida State University, he had settled on a career in music. He studied music at Colorado’s Naropa Institute and moved to the Bay Area in 1989 to make it as a rock and roller.
Julia worked as a singer on a cruise ship, and after moving to the Bay Area in 1999, worked as a music teacher in public schools. She bumped into Ira at a 2002 songwriters showcase at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage. That was not only the start of a romance, but also a turn towards Judaism for both.
“When I was growing up I was into everything,” Ira recalls. “I was just turned on by anything that seemed to unite humanity. Looking back at the Judaic roots, I saw there’s a lot of cool stuff here.”
Adds Julia: “Judaism just snuck up on me. I was involved in Holocaust work, and learned the history and beauty [of Judaism], and seeing its true nature of kindness and acceptance.”
The couple married in 2002. Both have managed to do the increasingly impossible: make a living in the Bay Area as full-time musicians.
But rather than create “American Idol”-friendly pop pabulum, the Levins choose to aim for the spiritual in the music they make.
“Every day there’s a million things that tell you why you should be afraid or which person to hate,” says Ira. “There’s a few things you have, like music, that create a space, that tie back into what’s important.”
The Levins’ next project, due in early 2009, is a CD of songs based on the poetry of the 14th century Persian Sufi mystic Hafez. Why would two committed Jews be drawn to Islamic poetry?
“I’m not a fan of dogma,” says Ira. “We thought it would be a natural progression. We can all learn from each other. You don’t say, ‘Oh, I’m not English, so I can’t listen to the Beatles.'”
“36” is available through online retailers CDBaby, iTunes and Oysongs or at their Web site: thelevinsmusic.com.