Jew note

Published Feb. 25, 2010 at 12:16 p.m.
First Annual Boston Jewish Music Festival, plus the Klezmatics
Defining "Jewish" music is pretty much a fool's task — not much easier than defining jazz.

THEY’RE AN AMERICAN BAND: Encounters with Jewish African-American gospel singer Joshua Nelson and Woody Guthrie have changed how the Klezmatics see themselves.

READ: "Netsky notes: The KCB’s main man talks Klezmer," by Jon Garelick

Defining "Jewish" music is pretty much a fool's task — not much easier than defining jazz. You can narrow it down to a particular strain of Jewish culture — as klezmer musicians do, or followers of liturgical cantorial singing. Or you can go the John Zorn route with his "Radical Jewish Culture" series on his Tzadik label, in which any music performed and/or composed by Jews seems to qualify, from avant-klezmer to Burt Bacharach and Steve Lacy.

The organizers of the first annual Boston Jewish Music Festival (March 6-14) are taking in the "broadest possible definition," says executive director Joey Baron (not to be confused with the jazz drummer of the same name). "To us, it's any musical expression of Jewish experience and values." Uh, so what's that? "In my mind, Randy Newman writing songs about God is...you know, the original Jews questioned God, why can't Randy Newman? It's so part of our tradition. When you hear it, if you're not Jewish, does it strike you as a Jewish song? Probably not. But an argument can be made that it's part of a centuries-old tradition."

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