Before he was a cantorial student, Hazzan Jeremy Stein of Congregation Beth Israel made his living as a flutist who played music in many styles and genres — but particularly jazz.
And in cantorial school, “I was always curious to see if I could incorporate the jazz music I loved with the Jewish music I also loved,” he said in a Oct. 18 telephone conversation.
Some of the fruits of this creative curiosity will be displayed at the synagogue, 6880 N. Green Bay Ave., on Sunday, Nov. 20, 7:30 p.m.
Stein and two of his fellow students — Cantor Jen Cohen, now of Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill, N.J.; and Cantor Elana Rozenfeld, now of Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, Mass. — plus several instrumentalists will present “A Cantor’s Café: An Evening of Jewish Jazz.”
The program will include some of Stein’s own compositions born of his own Jewish-jazz synthesis. They will include, for example, a setting of a Friday evening Sabbath prayer “that is authentically in the prescribed nusach [mode and melodic pattern], but also contains jazz rhythms and harmonies,” he said.
But the program will include much more than Stein’s own work. It will present a wide range of music “capturing the intersecting worlds of jazz and Jewish culture,” he said. “There has been considerable crossover between the two.”
This means in part Jewish composers of jazz or of music that has inspired jazz or Jewish musicians. Such works from composers like George Gershwin, Kurt Weill, and Cantor Moishe Oysher will be included.
The program will also feature examples of Jewish music that have been arranged in a jazz way, such as jazz pianist/singer Nina Simone’s version of the classic Israeli pioneer song “Eretz Zavat Chalav u’Dvash” (“Land Flowing with Milk and Honey”).
For ticket information and purchase, please contact Anita Nagurka, 414-352-7310 or ani tan@cbimilwaukee.org.
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