"Shalom aleichem and buenas noches." So began one of the most memorable nights in the history of the Idelsohn Society.
(The Antibalas Horns)
After months of planning and rehearsal, the Idelsohn Society brought the 1961 album Mazel Tov Mis Amigos-- a collection of Yiddish theater tunes gone Latin-- back to vibrant life on the esteemed stage of Lincoln Center. The historic concert closed out Lincoln Center's summer outdoors series and was the smash grand finale of the "26th Annual Roots of American Music" day, filling the courtyard with a packed house of nearly 5,000 people who braved the rain to witness the live mash-up of Latin, Jewish, and African-American song styles.
With leading Latin jazz bandleader Arturo O'Farrill and his skilled Afro-Cuban Sextet at the helm, Mazel Tov MIs Amigos was re-invented from start to finish, following the album's exact song order but taking creative liberties in re-introducing the songs to new generations of listeners. The night was full of special guests who all brought the house down: salsa legend Larry "El Judio Maravilloso" Harlow jammed on electric piano to turn "Papirossen" (Herman Yablokoff's lament about an orphaned cigarette peddler) into a blistering mambo; Latin jazz giant Andy Gonzalez sat in on bass for a joyous pachanga version of "Bublichki-Baigelach;" the young blues picker and intense cantorial experimentalist Jeremiah Lockwood made "Die Greene Koseene" into a gnarled rock blitz; the Antibalas Afrobeat horns took "Oy Momme" on a trip into Nigerian funk; 94 year old Irving Fields seduced the crowd with a 10 minute medley of Jewish classics (that ended with a rollicking version of "Hava Nagila"); and the young Mexican-American singer Sandra Velazquez introduced "Yossel Yossel" to "Jose Jose," leading the band in something we could only describe as a ranchera-cha- cha-cha.
At the start of the night, one side of the audience was full of couples dancing the mambo and the cha cha, and the other was peppered with spinning circles of hora dancers. By the night's end, though, the two sides became one and when the band closed with a sing-a-long of "Bei Mir Bist du Schoen," Orthodox Jews were dancing with Latino hipsters, and veterans of the Catskills and Palladium days were dancing arm in arm with New York City's Finest. The lines between generations and cultures blurred, and at least for one night, the music of memory became the music of an exciting future that is still unfolding.
The legendary Larry Harlow
Andy Gonzalez
Sandra Velasquez
Jeremiah Lockwood
Irving Fields
Michael Alpert
Our incredible band leader, Arturo O'Farrill
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New York Times preview here
But for our review... read on:
On December 11th, The Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation rocked New York with the sounds that once reverberated everywhere across the city. Many of the artists we have met over the past eight years took the stage one more time at Joe's Pub, playing for a sold out crowd who packed the club even as the heavens opened outside. By the line to get in, you would have thought the Beatles had reformed. Sodden masses clad in North Face, braving the elements to hear Irving Fields, El Avram, Gershon Kingsley and Sol Zim hit it hard. The gig itself was an eighty-five minute roller coaster through time. 93-year old Irving Fields kicking things off with an animated version of Miami Beach Rhumba segueing into his Hava Nagila, replete with signature finger pyrotechnics which bought the audience to their feet. We could have closed the show right there. Irving felt the love and told the audience that they "could not understand how fulfilling it was to hear the applause of a crowd at his age."
 Irving had set the bar high, but Avram Grobard, the mighty El Avram, had no fear, unleashing his ridiculously addictive "El Avram's Theme" on the audience who surely left the show with the chorus rebounding through their minds. A remarkable performance from a master of stagecraft.
 Moog pioneer Gershon Kingsley took the audience on a journey into the Hebraic origins of his anthem, "Popcorn" leaving the stage to a flute driven tribute laid down by band leader, Paul Shapiro who was a giant throughout.
 The show was closed by Sol Zim, the last in a royal lineage of five generations of Cantors whose career was inextricably changed when he attended a KISS concert at Madison Square Garden in the seventies. Sol toyed with the audience with his thumping rendition of Am Yisrael Chai, gyrating his crotch through the chorus, dragging the audience through the chorus, and yes, knickers were thrown...
 The gig was a blast. For the audience, and most importantly, for the performers who rocked so hard, killing in their own way, and challenging the audience to consider both their individual pasts and their sense of collective history. Thanks also to Jessi Klein, Jody Rosen, and Kandia Crazy Horse, who toasted Streisand/Diamond duets, Jewface sheet music, and The Temptations doing Fiddler in that order... Nextbook and Alana Newhouse for hosting the afterparty, and Jackie Hoffman who channeled the spirits of Belle Barth and Ruth Wallis in inimitable fashion. We are planning a much bigger show in New York in Summer '09. But next up, a west coast gig... San Francisco, February 5th....
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