jazz
Jamie Saft’s New Zion Trio
The genre-bending musician channels the notion of ‘Zion’ through reggae-dub
A Jewish Christmas Soundtrack
The top 10 Christmas songs written by Jews, from ‘Silver Bells’ to ‘Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow’
Big Band Theory
Grammy-winning jazz pianist Alon Yavnai enlists the help of a robust ensemble to invoke Latin, African, and Middle Eastern rhythms on a new album
Spirited Holiday
With A Dreamers Christmas, subversive jazz musician John Zorn makes a straightforward holiday album that’s radical in its own way
Unforgiven
Yoshie Fruchter and his band, Pitom, delve into repentance on the new album Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes, a jazz-metal take on confession
Jazz Messengers
A handful of Jewish entrepreneurs are reinventing the jazz scene in New Orleans, a city with a tiny and aging Jewish population but a strong musical tradition in which different cultures have long mixed
Blues and Roots
Composer and bassist Omer Avital joins American jazz with Israeli and Arab styles, especially Yemeni and Moroccan, to create music with a new and vital connection to a shared Middle Eastern past
Jazz Standards
Israeli clarinetist Anat Cohen, a master of expressive improvisation, leads a talented wave of expatriate musicians flooding the New York jazz scene
The Napkin Artist
Remembering Yiddishist, linguistics scholar, Holocaust survivor, and painter Edward Stankiewicz, who died this year
When Berlin Meant Business
Berlin was once home to 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses. A historian is now obsessively reconstructing their demise.
In Praise of Dairy Restaurants
A visit to B&H Restaurant on Second Avenue brings back memories of milchig establishments of yore
Curse of the Survivor
Singer Vera Gran was haunted by allegations of Nazi collaboration. A new book asks if survival made her guilty.
