Having fun at NewCAJE!!!!

Hey everybody....I'm here at NewCaje, leading a music seminar with Ellen and Peter Allard, David Paskin and oodles of cool Jewish people! We are learning "Blogging for Musicians." Doesn't that sound like fun? This is me having fun. Tonight will be a rockin concert with Julie Silver, Yom Hadash and Kol B'seder (hm...never heard of them)... If you are anywhere near Boston look us up and drop by for one of our evening concerts!

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.

Songs for your seder from Kol B'seder

Maybe you already have these on CD, perhaps on cassette tape, or maybe you don't, but here's some Pesach music to sing at your seder from Kol B'seder.

In Every Generation - mp3 - lyrics - music: page1 - page2 - page3  Here is "B'chol dor vador" from the Haggadah (just after Dayeinu), that we must see ourselves as personally delivered from Egypt.  We sing the Hebrew with the traditional wording, and also in a gender-neutral Hebrew version. The English is a reminder that just as we must "look upon ourselves as if from slavery we were freed," we must also, "look around and help all the ones who are in need." (By the way, that's the incredible Howard Levy on harmonica.)

The Ten Plagues - mp3 - lyrics - music: page1 - page2  This song is not just a handy way to remember the order of the plagues. It reminds us of a midrash that the Eternal rebuked the angels for rejoicing at the destruction of Pharoah's army saying, "My children are drowning in the sea..."  The drops of wine we spill from our cups are thus, in a way, like tears.

If you'd like to sing and play more of our music, here's a special offer on our Songbook.