Jewish Jazz shows coming to Asheville, Hendersonville

Press release:

AmiciMusic presents “JEWISH JAZZ” in Asheville and Hendersonville

The next AmiciMusic concert, called “JEWISH JAZZ,” will explore connections between Klezmer-style music and American Jazz, highlighting the symbiosis that occurred in the first decades of the 20th century as new waves of Jewish immigrants met up with the African-American migrants leaving the South to flock to New York City.  AmiciMusic will show how certain elements of the Jewish scale as well as the plaintive, more expressive, style of Jewish Klezmer playing became a part of American Jazz as it developed through the 1920’s and beyond.

Great Jewish jazz instrumentalists, most notably the clarinetists Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, often got their early training in Synagogues and then used their Klezmer technique to push the Jazz envelope in new and different directions.  As an example, the opening of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” with the clarinet sliding seductively to the top, is borrowed directly from Klezmer music. making it perhaps as American as matzoh ball soup!

Clarinetist Steve Loew and pianist Daniel Weiser have performed all around the world and will team up for this program, performing several Klezmer-style pieces as well as works by Joplin, Gershwin, Goodman, and more.  Loew is a former member of the U.S. Marine Band, who has played for five different Presidents, and has also performed with the New York Philharmonic and National Symphony.  Weiser, the founder and Artistic Director of AmiciMusic, is a former U.S. Artistic Ambassador of Music, who has performed in over 15 countries, including Israel, Egypt, Thailand, and Syria, as well as in great halls such as Carnegie Hall.

This program can be heard in four different venues in the region during the weekend of December 15-18.

1) Thursday, Dec. 15 at 7:30PM at the Cathedral of All Soul’s in Biltmore Village
2) Friday, Dec. 16 at 6:00PM at Agudas Israel Congregation at 505 Glasgow Lane in Hendersonville.
3) Saturday, Dec. 17 at 2:00PM at White Horse Black Mountain
4) Sunday, Dec. 18 at 2:00PM at Beth Israel Synagogue in Asheville

For complete information on venues and prices, please visit amicimusic.org. Or contact Artistic Director Daniel Weiser at 802-369-0856 or via email at daniel@amicimusic.org.