Kol B'Seder celebrates 36 years!

It’s 36 years since Dan and I started singing together, in the Spring of 1972 (the name Kol B’Seder didn’t come until a couple of years later.) So, here’s a Kol B’Seder birthday present from Danny and me: 20 minutes of highlights from our concert last week at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, NY.

This particular concert was a lot of fun, in spite of a very dicey flight situation from Boston. In addition to our golden oldies, we sang some of our silly Pesach songs (not on the MP3, sorry) and Dan generously allowed me to sing four of my Bob Dylan parodies (three of which are on the MP3, two of them - until now – never before released.) We also sang - for the first time - my new "Sim Shalom".

Amazingly, it had been a year since our last full-length concert. (I joked that now we know how Simon & Garfunkel felt when they did their reunion tour a few years ago.) Unlike the real Simon and Garfunkel, Dan and I never truly ‘broke up’ – we just had to ramp things down a bit. Dan got really busy as Vice President of the URJ, I moved to Boston, took a new congregation and battled some voice issues (all but resolved, thanks to an extraordinary voice teacher - but that’s another story for another time.)

B’chol zot (with all this), we’ve managed to sing at least a few times every year, including some really big shows. This past December we sang at the URJ Biennial in San Diego to honor Debbie Friedman. Back in 2004 we marked the 30th anniversary of “Shalom Rav” with a concert not far from where that song was composed in Boston. In 2005 we sang in Russia in support of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, and in 2006 we were named “Legends of CAJE” along with Debbie, Craig Taubman, Doug Cotler, Julie Silver, and Sam Glazer. In 2007 the Zamir Chorale of Boston built a concert around our music. A couple of songs from the concert are on YouTube, at least one of Josh Jacobson’s awesome arrangements for choir (Oseh Shalom) will soon be published, and we have some incredible film footage in the can for the future.  So, even if, like such great duos as Simon & Garfunkel, The Everly Brothers, and Nichols & May, we never actually ceased performing, this still seems like the right time for a Reunion Tour. Therefore I am announcing:

KOL B’SEDER’S 36th ANNIVERSARY “REUNION” TOUR

Kicking off Friday December 5, 2008 at Temple Sinai in Sharon, MA. 

The rest of the tour, however, depends on you. If you’d like to bring Kol B’seder to your community, just click this link, and talk to Moishe Rosenfeld at Golden Land Connections. (Special deals are yours for the asking if you are close to the New York or Boston metro areas.)

We hope you enjoy the music.  Songs on the MP3 include excerpts from: Yism’chu, In Every Generation, Modeh Ani, Or Zarua, Rollin Up the Torah, Haporeis Sukat Shalom, Oseh Shalom, Tangled Up in Jews, Like a Rollin Cohen, Eilu D’varim, Sim Shalom, Lo Alecha, and Cantillation Row.

We are grateful to Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld and cantorial soloist Penny Meyers for arranging the concert, held at Temple Beth Zion’s beautiful downtown sanctuary! Thanks to Enid Bloch for the lovely photos.