An interesting article about a local film festival that is showing a series of films on the connections between Jewish and African-American musicians.
article
+ + + + + +
Mix gave birth to American music
Rhythm and Jews explores musical links
More than 100 movies at 14th annual film fest
May 5, 2006. 01:00 AM
BRUCE DEMARA
ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
At first blush, it may seem an unlikely premise; that Jews and blacks share a common musical heritage, one that strongly influenced modern music.
That's the theme of "Rhythm and Jews," a collection of 12 films exploring that connection as part of the 14th annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival, which runs from tomorrow through May 14.
Still skeptical? Did you know that one of blues singer Billie Holliday's most haunting songs, Strange Fruit — about the lynching of blacks in the U.S. South — was written in 1937 by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from New York, in response to his horror at graphic photos he'd seen?
There's also the prominent role played by Al Jolson and other Jewish entertainers in the blackface minstrel tradition.
Musicologists have unearthed many more examples and plenty of evidence to establish clear links between the distinctively soulful sound of krecht (the wailing, sobbing notes common in klezmer music) and Jewish cantorial music and the black sounds of rhythm and blues and jazz, said Ellie Skrow, who is special programs curator for the festival.
The result of that blending and borrowing of respective musical traditions is, "actually the story of American popular music," Skrow said.
As blacks headed north away from the racist, segregated South for jobs and greater freedom after the Civil War, Jewish immigrants were leaving behind the pogroms and persecution of Eastern Europe and Russia. Both groups settled in significant numbers in large northern U.S. cities, often in the same poor neighbourhoods like New York's Lower East Side and the Chicago's South Side.
"There's a mutual history of oppression ... and there's a musical connection," Skrow said.
"Because the two cultures were on the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy, they weren't part of America. It was the Jews that really recognized the talents of African-Americans and had an incredible affinity," she said.
Composers like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin "borrowed from the rhythms and cadences of the street they heard," Skrow said.
Moreover, Big Band-era leaders like Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman were the first to integrate black musicians into their orchestras, she added.
A free panel discussion, to be held on Tues., May 9 at the Bloor Cinema, will explore the subject in more detail. Members of the Connecticut-based Afro-Semitic Experience — David Shevan and Warren Byrd — will sit on the panel and perform live.
In all, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival will offer more than 100 films, including shorts, over its 10-day run.
Festival executive director Helen Zukerman said it has grown dramatically since 1993, doubling in length and quadrupling in attendance, with 30,000 expected to attend this year.
A cheeky marketing strategy, called Discover Your Inner Jew, has also persuaded a broader range of movie lovers to attend, Zukerman added.
"It's not a film festival for the Jews, it's a Jewish film festival. What we're about is good film. The fact that it happens to be Jewish content is secondary to the fact that it is good film," Zukerman said.
Other highlights include the opening night film tomorrow, stand-up comedian Sarah Silverman's film, Jesus Is Magic, something Zukerman predicted some Jewish audience members might find "a little offensive, a little out there.
"We call it Jewish blue-ish," she said.
