Thursday, December 30, 2010
The a cappella beat goes on
Jewish life is about bridging ancient tradition with contemporary culture, something Jewish a cappella groups have done playfully yet masterfully with the rise of their genre. The bum-bums and shh-shhs fill out the sound behind vocals of Israeli Billboard hits, American pop artists and remixed liturgical songs once sung by cantors .
The Jewish Community Center of Houston formed its first a cappella group, the jTunes, over the summer. They'll perform their biggest public concert on Wednesday, opening for the Shabbatones, an all-Jewish a cappella group visiting from the University of Pennsylvania.
"A cappella has been absolutely exploding. There's The Sing-Off (on NBC), and YouTube videos are going viral," said Alex Haber, a sophomore in the Penn Shabbatones, one of the country's first Jewish vocal groups. "There's a vibrant community of Jewish a cappella groups out there. A testament to how popular it is is the ability for us to score gigs on tour."
The growing number of collegiate Jewish a cappella groups and local groups such as the JCC's jTunes drew national exposure for their relatively obscure genre when a Hanukkah video went viral earlier this month.
Yeshiva University's Maccabeats rewrote the lyrics to Tai Cruz's Dynamite to tell the story of the Festival of Lights, singing "I flip my latkes in the air sometimes." The video has made the all-male singing group superstars, with nearly 4 million YouTube views.
"It definitely went viral by traditional standards. It's even bigger by Jewish standards. It's the biggest thing to ever happen in Jewish orthodox music for sure," said Houston native Noah Jacobson, a tenor in the group.
The Maccabeats are all Yeshiva students or graduates, all Modern Orthodox Jews. Their tradition does not permit Jews to play musical instruments on the Sabbath, so the group has become popular entertainment at bar and bat mitzvahs and other synagogue events around New York. The Hanukkah video has expanded the Maccabeats' popularity beyond their Modern Orthodox community.
"We heard from Jews that are not so in touch with their Judaism who are more so because of it and non-Jews who think we're really getting into the spirit of the season and doing something positive," said Jacobson, 20. "I think in some way we were given an opportunity to do something and affect people in a deeply spiritual way."
The Maccabeats' repertoire also includes an a cappella version of One Day by Jewish reggae-rapper Matisyahu and L'cha Dodi, a part of the traditional Sabbath liturgy, sung to the tune of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
"We believe in this fusion between modern and ancient tradition," said Jacobson. "This medium is a perfect way of doing that."
The JCC's jTunes group has spent hours each week rehearsing and studying to balance the sound of the newly formed group, working under the direction of Jaemi Blair Loeb, a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston's Moores School of Music.
The coed cross-generational group has reconnected some with their Jewish identity and brought new faces into the JCC — two of its members aren't Jewish.
For Barbara Winthrop Rose, one of the jTunes creators and the chair of the JCC Arts & Culture Steering Committee, singing in the group reminds her of the feeling she got when she took the bimah to become a bat mitzvah as an adult, reading from the Torah in the traditional style of song-chant.
"The rabbi told me, 'You're putting a very intimate part of yourself in front of the congregation and God, and God shines on you a little more,'" she said. "It's just a whole 'nother level within the Jewish community. You feel like you're really doing something special."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/7360239.html
The Jewish Community Center of Houston formed its first a cappella group, the jTunes, over the summer. They'll perform their biggest public concert on Wednesday, opening for the Shabbatones, an all-Jewish a cappella group visiting from the University of Pennsylvania.
"A cappella has been absolutely exploding. There's The Sing-Off (on NBC), and YouTube videos are going viral," said Alex Haber, a sophomore in the Penn Shabbatones, one of the country's first Jewish vocal groups. "There's a vibrant community of Jewish a cappella groups out there. A testament to how popular it is is the ability for us to score gigs on tour."
The growing number of collegiate Jewish a cappella groups and local groups such as the JCC's jTunes drew national exposure for their relatively obscure genre when a Hanukkah video went viral earlier this month.
Yeshiva University's Maccabeats rewrote the lyrics to Tai Cruz's Dynamite to tell the story of the Festival of Lights, singing "I flip my latkes in the air sometimes." The video has made the all-male singing group superstars, with nearly 4 million YouTube views.
"It definitely went viral by traditional standards. It's even bigger by Jewish standards. It's the biggest thing to ever happen in Jewish orthodox music for sure," said Houston native Noah Jacobson, a tenor in the group.
The Maccabeats are all Yeshiva students or graduates, all Modern Orthodox Jews. Their tradition does not permit Jews to play musical instruments on the Sabbath, so the group has become popular entertainment at bar and bat mitzvahs and other synagogue events around New York. The Hanukkah video has expanded the Maccabeats' popularity beyond their Modern Orthodox community.
"We heard from Jews that are not so in touch with their Judaism who are more so because of it and non-Jews who think we're really getting into the spirit of the season and doing something positive," said Jacobson, 20. "I think in some way we were given an opportunity to do something and affect people in a deeply spiritual way."
The Maccabeats' repertoire also includes an a cappella version of One Day by Jewish reggae-rapper Matisyahu and L'cha Dodi, a part of the traditional Sabbath liturgy, sung to the tune of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
"We believe in this fusion between modern and ancient tradition," said Jacobson. "This medium is a perfect way of doing that."
The JCC's jTunes group has spent hours each week rehearsing and studying to balance the sound of the newly formed group, working under the direction of Jaemi Blair Loeb, a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston's Moores School of Music.
The coed cross-generational group has reconnected some with their Jewish identity and brought new faces into the JCC — two of its members aren't Jewish.
For Barbara Winthrop Rose, one of the jTunes creators and the chair of the JCC Arts & Culture Steering Committee, singing in the group reminds her of the feeling she got when she took the bimah to become a bat mitzvah as an adult, reading from the Torah in the traditional style of song-chant.
"The rabbi told me, 'You're putting a very intimate part of yourself in front of the congregation and God, and God shines on you a little more,'" she said. "It's just a whole 'nother level within the Jewish community. You feel like you're really doing something special."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/7360239.html
Comments:
Post a Comment
