Blog: Tikun Olam: World Music

Tweet Way back in the dark ages when I first began writing this blog, I called it an mp3 blog and featured some of my favorite music from around the world. Those posts and songs are still here, though they've been subsumed under thousands of posts about the daily horrors of the Israeli Occupation. But in honor of the wonder, beauty and [...]

Kate & Anna McGarrigle From Folk & Blues: An Encyclopedia, St. Martin's Press , 2001 KATE AND ANNA McGARRIGLE Vocal duo, songwriters, guitarists, pianists, accordionists, banjoists. Anna, born Montreal, Quebec, Canada, December 4, 1944. Kate, born Montreal, Quebec, Canada, February 6, 1946. Kate and Anna McGarrigle have not achieved the level of popularity and record sales of contemporary performers such as Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, the Roches, Leonard Cohen, or Maria Muldaur, but they comprise one of the most musically and lyrically gifted sister folk duos originating [...]

Tribute to Kate McGarrigle with Emmylou Harris and Kate's family (Richard Termine) And now for something completely different. My I-P junkie friends ( I say that lovingly!) will hopefully bear with me as I delve into one of my passions, one which has been stilled over the past few years by all the murder and mayhem in the Middle East. I know friends and enemies sometimes remark on my intemperateness in the comment threads here. So I thought it might be the right time to divert from the usual political fare and delve [...]

• Emmylou Harris - Darlin' Kate

I read a wonderful review of a new album, Baghani , by the Palestinian performer Amal Murkus that made me want to go right out and buy it-or at least listen to it. Unfortunately, you can't-at least not easily, since no Israeli record company is yet distributing it (it figures). One of my Facebook Friends pointed me to this amazing YouTube video of the song, Memories of a Palestinian Wound, which is a song Murkus is well known for singing. But based on hearing her version of this song and how different it is stylistically, I'm guessing [...]

Lately J Street has made a few lame political decisions, one of them being joining with Stand With Us and the ADL in denouncing the Berkeley student divestment initiative. I've also been annoyed to discover that J Street is promoting Noa's national concert tour: STG Presents NOA with special guest MIRA AWAD The Moore Theatre, Thursday, April 29, 2010, 8:00pm Please join xxxxx in supporting the work of J Street: Welcome Israeli artist Noa (Achinoam Nini) and Palestinian artist Mira Awad to SeattleNoa and Mira will speak about their music and [...]

NPR featured a music review of an inspiring piece of music, Luminosity , by James Whitbourn . One of the songs is A Prayer of Desmond Tutu , which is a meditation narrated by him along with a powerful set of choral voices affirming his message: Goodness is stronger than evil Love is stronger than hate Light is stronger than darkness Life is stronger than death Victory is ours through Him who loves us. Lately, this message beats much [...]

Young musician from West Eastern Diwan Orchestra rehearsing on Ramallah rooftop (New Statesman) If there's a lyric to accompany this post it would be Elvis Costello's What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding? Except we'd have to adapt it a bit to today's news: "what's so dangerous about a classical music concert in Gaza?" Famed conductor and co-founder of the East-Western Diwan Orchestra , Daniel Barenboim asked the Israeli government for permission to bring his young musicians to Gaza for a concert. The answer: No. Not until Gilad [...]

Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake in 'Crazy Heart' I saw Crazy Heart recently and thought it was terrific. I haven't seen every picture Jeff Bridges has done but I've seen a lot of them and he's consistently tough, honest, yet vulnerable. Those are qualities you don't find in many leading actors. In Crazy Heart, he played a washed-up country singer a la Townes Van Zandt, who finds one last shot at redemption in the form of a beautiful young woman played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The character's name, Bad Blake, is perfection itself. [...]

Martha Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle and Rufus Wainwright (Mark Seliger) Kate McGarrigle died yesterday and I am heartbroken. She was one of the co-founders of the sublime McGarrigles, a two, and sometime three-sister folk traditional ensemble that composed some of the most gorgeous songs to have come out of North American folk revivial movement over the past forty years. Rather than recount their achievement here, I'll let an essay I wrote for the Encyclopedia of Folk and Blues speak for itself. Suffice to say, the McGarrigles were one of the most influential groups [...]

UPDATE : Jeffrey Goldberg would like all my readers to know that he knows hip-hop from borsht and is indeed a child of the Hood (in Hebrew that would be ben-Hood ). I withdraw this particular claim in my article. But his taste in music still leaves much to be desired. Ugh, why do they give me such good material? No sooner does a settler leader claim that Jews aren't popsicles then Jeffrey Goldberg cajoles a Mormon U.S. senator to write a dreadful Hanukah song , which Goldberg promptly (and erroneously) labels "hip hop." [...]

If you're giving gifts for during the holiday season, I urge you to order them by visiting the Amazon website through the Tikun Olam store displayed in the sidebar below. For any Amazon item you buy, I'll receive a modest referral fee (5-1o%) which supports the important work on this blog. Don't just think books, CDs, mp3s, and DVDs, which are the standard items one thinks of when one thinks of Amazon. In addition, it offers electronics and all manner of consumer products. I gladly accept outright gifts as well through Paypal to support this blog [...]

It seems only too appropriate as we near Rosh Hashana tonight (Friday night) and contemplate the past and coming year, that we consider Leonard Cohen's version of the U'Netaneh Tokef prayer which he calls, Who by Fire? Considering last year's war on Gaza and the possibility of an Israel-Iran conflagration this year, "fire" seems an entirely apt element for us to consider: And who by fire, who by water, Who in the sunshine, who in the night time, Who by high ordeal, who by common trial, Who [...]

Wow. I'm actually taking a day off from writing about the Israeli-Arab conflict. And I'm going to write about something pleasant, peaceful and idyllic for a change. Don't tell anyone (in case they decide they should move here), but Seattle summers are simply glorious. And I'm going to tell you about one summer day (today). My son, Jonah has spent the last two weeks in a musical theater camp taught by his public school music teacher. The musical's theme was "outer space." The kids did everything: made costumes, sets, learned lines, songs, and even baked dessert [...]

Here and in Comment is Free I wrote , based on deep sources, about the Israeli 'perception management' campaign here in the U.S. to persuade us that war with Iran is both necessary, inevitable, and salutary for the world. This campaign takes many and varied forms. Even in some of its least unsavory forms, it involves monitoring perceived Congressional opponents of Israel's interests, providing assistance to Congressional advocates promoting harsh policy against Iran, and penning op-ed columns warning of the Iran danger, passing them on to willing editors and slapping a promient local Jewish leader's name on the resulting [...]

Steve Earle is one of America's great singer-songwriters. Townes Van Zandt was one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. In this week's N.Y. Times, I learned that for many years Van Zandt was Earle's mentor. For some reason, I'd never noticed the influence. Van Zandt's writing was intensely romantic and personal, shot through with melancholy. Every song was a ballad, sung slow and sparely. Earle's lyrics hit many of these notes, but he is an intensely political writer, where Van Zandt wasn't. Also, Earle's music style covers a lot more territory from up tempo rockers to slow, [...]

Sarajevo haggadah, 'Mah nishtanah' page (Talmud.de) For some reason, I haven't felt motivated to write a specifically peysadika post this year. But I've published some interesting material in years past to which I'll draw attention: Sholem Aleichem's story, Elijah the Prophet is a children's fable about a young boy faced with a seder dilemma: if he falls asleep after drinking the cups of wine Elijah will take him away and he'll never see his parents again. I'm proud to say that I translated this story and that it is [...]

(Clay Bennett/Chattanooga Times Free Press) The art of political cartooning is alive and well (though if the modern newspaper become extinct that could change).

Raising Sand has been out, and I've enjoyed it for so long it almost seems like old news to have the Grammy's honor this magnificent musical collaboration between Allison Krauss and Robert Plant. It pairs Plant's fierce dedication to old-fashioned American blues refracted through his British rocker lens, with Krauss' gorgeously refined voice and traditional musical sensibility. The collaboration works and offers musical choices both weird and wonderful. Its five Grammy awards are richly deserved. A hearty mazel tov to Pete Seeger for a Grammy possibly even more richly deserved, considering it comes [...]

I don't know what demon possessed Ahinoam Nini's brain when she wrote a long passionate letter to Palestinians during the Gaza war in which she railed against Hamas and called, in the most vehement terms, for the IDF to uproot it. First a word of background: Noa is one of Israel's premiere performers with a voice of honey. She is known for her pro-peace views and performs regularly with Israeli Arab performers and singers like Cheb Khaled (with whom she sang a breathtaking cover of Imagine featured here). She is to perform along with [...]

"We Shall Not Be a Party to Their Counsel!" As human beings, we are shocked and appalled at the mass destruction unleashed by the State of Israel against the people of Gaza in its military operation, following years of Israeli occupation, siege, and deprivation. As Americans, we protest the carte blanche given Israel by the US government to pursue a war of "national honor," "restoring deterrence," "destroying Hamas," and "searing Israel's military might into the consciousness of the Gazans." As progressives, we reject the same justifications for the carnage that [...]