A little more Jewish music (of sorts)

From Aurgasm comes Yael Naim, a French/Israeli singer-songwriter with a lovely voice, who works with a sparse jazz-ish accompaniment

From DJ Durutti comes The Harlem Experiment, who recreate the various textures and rhythms that have made Harlem, and through Harlem made American music itself. Obviously, this includes the sounds of African-American and Latino Harlem, but also less expected sounds, which has a certain resonance for me, as my grandfather was born in Harlem, before moving to Flatbush as a kid. As the press release says, ‘It makes sense that the Klezmer style of Don Byron's clarinet transcends the playful jazz on "Reefer Man" and the funkified Yiddish folk song "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen."’ For those that don’t know, Don Byron, from the Bronx, has made music deeply rooted in soul, funk and blaxploitation music, but has also – since his days with the key klezmer revivalists, Klezmer Conservatory Band – worked on a lot of “Jewish” projects, including with Uri Caine, Geduldig un Thimann and Daniel Barenboim, not to mention his own tribute to Mickey Katz. Byron's work is generally a little far-out for me (yes, even me), but he's a great musician.

Previous: Yiddish metal, JAP-hop, etc; Hebrew indie, Jewish exotica, etc; Hava Nagila with Harry Dean Stanton; Hybrid musics; Bagels and Bongos.