Frank London wants to take you to the ghetto. As a co-founder of the Klezmatics, the Grammy Award–winning band known for boldly extending the creative purview of Eastern European Jewry’s celebratory secular music, the trumpeter has a long track record of bringing Jewish music into unexpected territory (see the group’s 2006 album “Woody Guthrie’s Happy…
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Music
Music
Jewish musicians roll out a year’s worth of spiritual ‘healing songs’
It was only about a week into lockdown last spring when Elana Brody took out her keyboard piano for a jam session. It was late at night, so it made sense…
Music
East Bay family’s ‘Fiddler’ Covid parody gets a sequel
Last year, we brought you word of “A Seder on the Zoom,” a Berkeley family’s hilarious pandemic parody music video to the tune of “Tradition” from…
Celebrity Jews
Netta joins Israeli 'X Factor'; Spielberg tells his own story; etc.
Get the shot, celebs say Celebs posting their “vaxxies,” or post-vaccine selfies, is a thing. Gloria Steinem, Jeff Goldblum, Mandy Patinkin and English…
Music
In memoriam: Musician Jewlia Eisenberg, 50
Whoever preserves a single life, the Talmud tells us, is said to have saved the whole world. With the death of Jewlia Eisenberg last week at the age of…
History
LISTEN: Preserving North African Jewish music from a bygone era
The package from Estonia arrived the other day. More precious items, from Malta and Tel Aviv, are still in transit. As he waits for them in his apartment…
Culture
Our Pandemic Year: Artists faced a choice — pivot or perish
Part Three of OUR PANDEMIC YEAR, a week-long series examining how the Covid pandemic has changed our local Jewish world. Debra Schaffner has spent much of…
Music
The Jewish highlights of the 2021 Grammys
When the Jewish sister act Haim took the stage at the 2021 Grammy Awards on Sunday night, Americans began googling “hime.” That’s how host Trevor Noah…
Music
This guitarist makes new soundscapes from old Jewish records
Folk musician and record archivist Nathan Salsburg lives on a 40-acre former tree farm in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, with fellow songwriter…