These days, you might expect a collaboration between exponents of arty contemporary
Jewish music and Muslim drummers from Senegal to be heralded by a world-affairs-minded
marketing blitz: Look! Over here! Jews and Muslims sharing music! An example
for all!
But the members of Hasidic New Wave - a New York quintet that has been instrumental
in the flowering of post-klezmer Jewish music - were not interested in that
type of feel-good sell for From the Belly of Abraham: Adventures of the Afro-Semitic
Diaspora (Knitting Factory ***1/2), their improbable collaboration with the
drum troupe known as Yakar Rhythms.
"We wanted to get off that 'exotic worlds coming together' thing,"
groans Frank London, the trumpeter and composer. "We're curious people,
making human music. . . . It's just another way of making music in New York."
It is definitely another way of making music, one guided by a profound "what
if?" impulse and a willingness to not just glance at, but thoroughly investigate
exotic musical languages. Hasidic New Wave's influences include the ethnic-jazz
explorations of the 1960s (the Afro-jazz of Art Blakey, Randy Weston, John Coltrane
and others) and the funk-based world music of the '80s. Its previous recordings
have recast traditional Hasidic spiritual melodies called nigns as fire-breathing
fusions or tortured blue moans.
The Senegalese drummers, meanwhile, have experience playing African pop - leader
Aliounne Faye has worked with Youssou N'Dour, Cheikh Lo and others - but are
focused on the specific traditions of Senegalese sabar drumming, which are handed
down, griot-style, from one generation to the next.
When these two worlds meet, as they did during several sessions for Belly in
late 2000 and early 2001, the result is an extraordinary combustion. The infectious
pulse, devout all by itself, becomes positively reverent supporting the simple,
incantatory themes written by London, saxophonist Greg Wall, and others. The
primarily instrumental compositions, most of them originals, juxtapose typical
Hasidic melodies against the polyrhythmic, unmistakably African sound of hand
drums.
Even when the beats threaten to overtake everything else, there's an atmospheric
quality to tunes such as "Waaw-Waaw," the hint of some idealized realm
where people from divergent cultures can interact long enough to find commonality.
The material might be funk-band simple, but the noodling little Middle Eastern
phrases and jazz elaborations transform the assertive drumming into something
more than just dance music, something zealous and deep and saturated with spirit.
It took the members of Hasidic New Wave lots of study to make Belly work, London
says. When the eight-year-old collective began talking more than a year ago
about its next project, the consensus was it needed to be anchored by big percussion.
Drummer Aaron Alexander "had been hanging out with these drummers in an
African dance studio, whose approach is very different from any other African
drumming tradition. It's very particular, in terms of the roles of each musician
and the accents and stuff. He made us tapes of lots of examples of it, and each
of us composed new music based on the rhythms. . . . On the first day at rehearsal,
we'd put on the tape and say, 'This is the rhythm we need here,' and then we'd
start playing the tune. It worked right away, very fluidly."
It was important, London adds, that the compositions adhere to the exacting
specifications of sabar drumming. "When most [Westerners] approach African
music, they try to subsume it into a European pop sensibility. We had no interest
in that. We took one very distinct tradition and composed within it."
As careful as the members of Hasidic New Wave were with the sabar pulse, they
didn't limit themselves stylistically: There are shadowy cops-and-robbers chases,
exuberant dances, and moments when guitarist David Fiuczynski rips out delirious,
Hendrix-inspired improvisations. One tune, "Spirit of Jew-Jew," sounds
as if it might have originated in a prayer service - until the middle section,
which erupts into a euphoric celebration reminiscent of peak Art Blakey and
the Jazz Messengers.
Another tune, "Yemin HaShem," is drawn from a 19th-century Lubavitcher
nign, with lyrics that are part of the praise service recited on Jewish holidays.
It begins solemnly, with a simple statement of melody, but after a percussion
break erupts into a snapping, syncopated pulse that connects African rhythm
with taut, James Brown stutter-step rhythm and blues, and yields some of the
most inspired soloing on the disc.
Throughout, it's possible to hear the musicians and drummers engaged in an
ongoing, many-voiced conversation - Faye, the lead sabar drummer, is perpetually
engaged in call-and-response with his followers, and Hasidic New Wave members,
clearly inspired by the drum language, contribute squabbling phrases of their
own.
It can sound like a party, or the multiple-languages cross talk you hear on
a Lower Manhattan street corner, or the great gales of jazz argumentation from
days gone by. And that, London says, is the whole idea.
"This could not have happened anywhere else but New York, right now. It
comes from us being neighbors, and being curious, wanting to make sense of things
that have no obvious connection. It's respecting tradition, but knowing that
this, this blending, is what the world is like now."
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Tom Moon's e-mail address is tmoon@phillynews.com.
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