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Hear, O Israel: A Prayer Ceremony in Jazz
Trunk Records
Article
written by Ged M
May 5, 2008.
Jonny Trunk’s done some great things, like saving advertising jingles from destruction, re-releasing rare-as-hen’s-teeth records (the Wicker Man soundtrack), recording pervy letters sent to his model sister (Dirty Fan Male) and making music generally available that shouldn’t be consigned to some dusty mental shelf marked “kid’s stuff” or “nerdland”. But then there’s the jazz… I’ve always been on the side of the Commitments when it comes to jazz. When Joey ‘the Lips’ Fagan turns to his sax player in disgust and admonishes him “what you were playing is not soul. You were spiralling: that’s jazz” I applaud the sentiment, as I do Jimmy Rabitte’s more direct and angry statement seconds later: “jazz is musical wanking”. So what to say about this ultra rare, cult release that just happens to be in the genre of jazz?
I could tell you the history I suppose. How a jazz sextet including Herbie Hancock joined forces with a Rabbi in 1968 to record a Friday night prayer concert, mixing jazz and Judaism. How this was released on a private label and hasn’t seen a CD release until now (there are no masters so it’s been taken from vinyl, surface noise and all). That’s easy and factual enough. But the music? I haven’t really got the language. And the words? I haven’t got the religion. I don’t like jazz and I’m not Jewish but I’ll concede that you can feel the spiritual power and poetry in the language of Jewish ritual, even as young Herbie’s piano goes spiralling around Rabbi David Davis’s words from the Torah. I just wish they’d find some other way to express it. The jazz is just too bibbly-bop-squiggly-plop for me, and the contributions of the singers are a Fast Show caricature. This record might be a Holy Grail for jazz-fiends but when Psalm 96 commanded the faithful: “sing unto the Lord a new song”, I suspect that in 1968 jazz wouldn’t have qualified as new in God’s or anyone else’s book. It’s all gone horribly Jazz Club: not nice!
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