{"id":695,"date":"2008-01-11T20:11:03","date_gmt":"2008-01-11T18:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/?p=695"},"modified":"2009-12-28T20:13:26","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T18:13:26","slug":"reinventing-zemirot-with-pharaoh%e2%80%99s-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/2008\/01\/reinventing-zemirot-with-pharaoh%e2%80%99s-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Reinventing Zemirot with Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lunch was very nice, but I was hoping we could sing a few zemirot,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d commented one of our guests this past Shabbat. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean it in a critical way; he was just expressing his hope that would sing a bit around the table before tidying up the dessert and heading for a Shabbat afternoon nap.<\/p>\n

The thing is, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been down on zemirot for a while now. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is a real change from how our family used to be. When Jody and I were studying in Israel in the mid-1980s, singing songs around the Shabbat table was an integral part of our communal experience. We learned zemirot from our teachers at Pardes<\/a>, we introduced new tunes to our friends, we even took to occasionally penning a melody ourselves.<\/p>\n

But after years of the same tunes, I got tired of our repertoire. All the traditional songs had become intolerable dirges or sounded like British marching ditties. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yom ze meCHUbad, mikol YAmim ki vo SHAbat TZUR olaMIM (toot toot)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d belt out, swinging our arms like we were in an Irish pub carousing after a football match.<\/p>\n

When we started going to a Shlomo Carlebach<\/a> minyan several years ago, we tried applying some of the melodies we heard there to the words of the zemirot, but it never quite fit right. My friend Eliezer succeeded in updating some of Birkat HaMazon, the grace after meals, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about as far as it went. We hummed a few wordless nigunim with the incumbent lalas and yayas, but it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the same.<\/p>\n

We always have a great time at the Shabbat table. Lots of yummy food, good conversation and laughs. But zemirot had dropped off the radar.<\/p>\n

That was until Saturday night when we went to hear the New York ethno-Hassidic world beat rock band Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter<\/a> making its first appearance in Jerusalem. Led by the charismatic Brooklyn-born Basya Schechter<\/a>, the seven-piece band, which is among the darlings of the new Jewish music scene in New York, is hard to categorize. With Schechter on lead vocals, oud and guitar, and featuring Daphna Mor on back up vocals and woodwinds, Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter performs in four languages \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Hebrew, Arabic, Ladino and Yiddish and have a play list that ranges from neo-Klezmer to Egyptian-tinged Middle Eastern rhythms.<\/p>\n

National Geographic described the band on its World Music Podcast as fusing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Middle Eastern and Jewish sounds with a dark, indie pop sensibility, making music that has traditional roots, and a hip, modern edge.”<\/p>\n

NewYorkCool.com referred to the band this way<\/a>: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Have you ever wondered what would happen if Pink Floyd<\/a> and PJ Harvey<\/a> crossed paths in a cafe in Israel and subsequently took a road trip to South Africa? What if they met up with Radiohead<\/a> in Morocco along the way?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sold out Motzei Shabbat show was held in Jerusalem\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Beit Avichai<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new auditorium which sports some of the best acoustics I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard at any concert here or abroad. The audience was a classic Jerusalem mix of religious and secular, young and old, proving the band has legs that extend beyond the trendy twentysomething Jewcy<\/a> and Heeb<\/a> scene in New York.<\/p>\n

But the highlight of the show for me was Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s re-conceptualization of the traditional zemirot. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be hard pressed to repeat them at the Shabbat table \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the instrumentation and harmonies were too complex for the average Shabbat meal \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but it was a treat to hear how far a field a multi-talented musician like Shechter can take the classic lyrics of these Talmudic and Kabbalistic songs. From the lilting guitars of the show opener Lev Tahor<\/a> through an audience participation sing along version of Yona Matzah and into the closing number HaShomer, Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter returned a sense of swirling spirituality that has gotten lost in our own Shabbats.<\/p>\n

Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter is about much more than new fangled zemirot of course. A highlight of the show was a guitar duet between Schechter and Avi Fox-Rosen setting the early Yiddish poetry of Jewish philosopher A.J. Heschel<\/a> to music<\/a>. Another high point was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153performance art piece,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as Schechter called it, recreating a traditional Yeshiva \u00e2\u20ac\u0153taitch\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (from the band\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2000 release \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Out of the Reeds<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) where Hebrew is translated into Yiddish in a chanting sing-song. It helps that Shechter grew up speaking Yiddish as well as English.<\/p>\n

Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fourth CD is Haran and is available here on Amazon.com<\/a>. The band, described on its own website as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153blending a psychedelic sensibility and a pan-Mediterranean sensuality with Doors-like improvisations, liturgical chants with Middle Eastern, and spiritual stylings\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has toured the Middle East, Africa, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Kurdistan and Greece. Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter has played the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and debuted at New York Central Park\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Summer Stage series in 2004.<\/p>\n

Schechter grew up in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of New York\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Boro Park<\/a> and, in an interview on PRI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s “The World<\/a>” radio program, explains that until the age of 15 she went to all girls schools and was only exposed to boys and music when she participated in a teen trip to Israel where she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153had a boyfriend who played me Led Zeppelin and introduced me to all this music I had never heard before. I would learn the melodies note by note,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Schechter says.<\/p>\n

Schechter later left New York and her religious community to hitchhike around Turkey and Africa.\u00c2\u00a0 She learned to play the oud in Morocco and the saz in Turkey. Today, she and Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter flautist Daphna Mor both play in the musical ensemble that accompanies Friday night services at Manhattan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conservative B\u00e2\u20ac\u2122nei Jeshrun synagogue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The band\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s performance in Jerusalem was a delight \u00e2\u20ac\u201c pushing the boundaries of Jewish music while inspiring our Shabbat table beyond the dirges of yesteryear. Go for the music, go for inspiration on new age zemirot, just go. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss Pharaoh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Daughter if they come to a town near you.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lunch was very nice, but I was hoping we could sing a few zemirot,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d commented one of our guests this past Shabbat. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean it in a critical way; he was just expressing his hope that would sing a bit around the table before tidying up the dessert and heading for a Shabbat afternoon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}