Opening Night Concert with Marilyn Lerner & Frank London: Neshome!

Saturday, July 30

9:30 - 11:00 PM ET

Lerner & London’s Neshome takes as its source material original and traditional Yiddish mystical music – nigunim, khazones – as focused through the lens of the spiritual Jazz tradition. Neshoma = breath, soul, mind, spirit. Accompanied by the finest bass and drum players on the New York creative music scene, Lerner & London’s Neshome is dedicated to the infinite all-present neshomes that inspire us, from Cooper to Coltrane.

Marilyn Lerner and Frank London are mainstays of the Yiddish and klezmer music worlds, constantly straddling and negotiating the infinite terrain between traditional historical and creative original Jewish musics. Friends and colleagues for many decades, they have collaborated on numerous projects, from the 10 years of Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish concerts to the music-theater piece, Queer Wedding Sweet. Both of their works and lives are equally informed by Jewish, African-American and Afro-Cuban cultures and musics, and by psychological, intellectual, and feminist critical thinking.

Lerner expresses her soulful pianistic voice in Yiddish music using a vocabulary of classical music, jazz and improvisation. Her solo recording Romanian Fantasy embodies this language as does her recent duo project with Yoshi Fruchter.

London has explored the spiritual aspects of Yiddish music throughout his career, on recordings with the Klezmatics, Hasidic New Wave, Nigunim Trio, and his own interpretations of khazones – cantorial music – on Invocations, Hazonos.

Lerner and London will be joined by bassist Hill Greene and drummer Newman Taylor Baker.

Bassist Hill Greene is one of the the most in-demand artists in New York’s Jazz & improvising community. He performed and recorded with Jimmy Scott for 20+ years, serving as his Musical Director from 1995 to 2013. Greene was also Cecil Taylor’s Concert Master for his group “Phtongos”. Among others, he has worked with Rashied Ali, Barry Altschul, Billy Bang, Kenny Barron, Oscar Brown Jr., Uri Caine, Roy Campbell, James Carter, Akua Dixon, Dave Douglas, Charles Gayle, Jon Hendricks, John Hicks, Jason Kao Hwang, Leroy Jenkins, Howard Johnson, Frank Lacy, Jason Moran, Bern Nix, Greg Osby, Don Pullen, Warren Smith, Steve Swell, and Grady Tate.

Beyond having one of the most prolific resumes in modern jazz, drummer Newman Taylor Baker has developed two singular projects: Washboard XT and Singin’ Drums. In 2010, Newman met the washboard working with the Ebony Hillbillies and it changed his life, resulting in Washboard XT and his current pursuit of washboard music for the 21st century. He defines Washboard XT as the combination of the musical and artistic knowledge, skills and creativity accumulated over his 50-year career and the washboard, an instrument embedded with the 19th-century history and culture of his U.S. African heritage. He has performed internationally with Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Kenny Barron, Henry Grimes, John Hicks, Ahmad Jamal, James Moody, Lou Donaldson, Cecil Bridgewater, Stanley Cowell, Marilyn Crispell, Bobby Bradford, Leroy Jenkins, Myra Melford, Billy Harper Quintet, Henry Threadgill Sextett, Reggie Workman's Topshelf, Sam Rivers Quartet, Charlie Rouse, Bern Nix, Bobby Zankel, Abdullah Ibrahim and many more.

NOTE: This concert will start at 9:30 PM, after Havdole.

**After its initial broadcast, this concert will be viewable for one week until Sunday, August 7th at 9:30 PM ET**

More information: klezkanada.org