SIORA: Dry Bones

Traditional Yemenite song by Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, who lived in 16th century Yemen, and was the primary poet of the Yemenite Diwan (collection of devotional poetry set to music). Translation of the first line: “If there be no mercy left in the world, the doors of heaven will never be barred…” Heaven for us was a dry bone rattling frolic with drummer extraordinaire Dane Richeson and fiery violinist Alex DePue.

Yiddish song about a destitute orphan boy wandering the streets of the ghetto selling cigarettes. It is a devastatingly anguished song—but the melody is lovely and we decided to try to give it a pulse, a heartbeat that was more positive—soulful rather than painful. We end the piece with an international Jewish journey—a medley of tunes representing parts of the Jewish Diaspora: Uskudara (Ladino, Turkish), Moscow Evenings (Russian), Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen (Yiddish), removed from that context but inspired by the meaning of the song we inserted Motherless Child (African-American spiritual), and finally the song for peace, Bashana Haba'a (Hebrew).

Israeli wedding song. Inspired by Bill Frisell, we fused Appalachian dobro and fiddle music (courtesy of Gefilte-fishing fiddle phenom Randy Sabien) into this piece simply because we felt and heard a mysterious connection between American gumbo and borscht.

Widowed mother sings a Yiddish lullabye to her infant son. “See the little kid goat that we will take to market to bring you back wonderful treats. Someday that will be your calling, you will trade in raisins and almonds” (traditional Jewish symbols of joy and plenty). We decided to give this plaintive melody the simplest treatment possible, but since we have no self-control, we couldn't resist adding some percussion. We knew we were on to something. Grandmom was furious!

Israeli song with text taken from Deuteronomy. The Children of Israel wandering in the desert, struggling to survive, sought divine assistance. “And He made them to suck honey from the rocks…” Divinely inspired harmonica virtuoso Howard Levy put down his heavenly harp in favor of a wood flute, enabling him to suck honey from the rocks.

Israeli song with text taken from Isaiah, loose translation “Blessed are those who bring the message of peace and salvation over the mountains”…ending with the words for peace in Hebrew, Arabic, Indian SubContinent (Hindi, Bengali, etc.), Chinese (Sichuan Yi), Spanish/Portuguese, Russian (Slavic), Zulu, Hopi, and Korean. We turned an Israeli ballad into a samba, and we brought in “Kokopelli Ken” Ulansey on his pennywhistle (we call it the “Kennywhistle”). Wikipedia defines Kokopelli as a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player with a huge phallus and feathers.

Israeli folk song from the 1940’s, when Jewish composers in Palestine (before the State of Israel) began to seek new rhythmic and melodic modes that would distinguish their songs from the traditional European music they had been brought up on. This song was written by Mordechai Zeira, who was definitely of the East European influence. Zeira even lamented not being able to write in the new style—he called it the Russian disease. But there’s nothing pathological about it! We loved the melody and the poetry: “2 roses, 1 white the other red…a hand came that picked 1 rose…and all that's known is that the remaining one’s heart is broken.” We gave it more of a Middle Eastern touch with the addition of libidinous Lebanese dumbek player Joseph Tayoun.

Shepherd Song of Israel. Composer Matetyahu Shelem wrote in the new Israeli style. These new composers sought to imitate the sounds of Arabic and other Middle Eastern music, using simple harmonies and preferred the natural minor to melodic or harmonic minors used by European music, which they viewed as depressing and sentimental. They were part of the newly emerging Israeli culture. This song was grafted from a tri-cultural on our 2004 multi-cultural release Vis-a-Vis.

“I love you much too much.” We flavored this Yiddish theater piece with South-African and South Bronx spices as well as Portuguese, Spanish and English lyrics. It reminds Dan of his Oriental rug. As the Coen Brothers character Lebowski would say, “It really ties the room together” (Book of “Dude-eronomy”).