Jewish Soul Music
Jun. 17th, 2005 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidfcooperGospel according to Joshua Nelson
By Karen Campbell, Globe Correspondent | November 7, 2004
He has sung for presidents and prime ministers, in synagogues and churches, with Wynton Marsalis and Aretha Franklin, even on "Oprah." At his best, he sounds like he's channeling the legendary Mahalia Jackson, with whom he fell in love as an 8-year-old growing up in Newark. But at the heart of every song Joshua Nelson, 28, performs is the simple desire to bring people closer to God. A Jewish African-American (he calls himself "the KKK's worst nightmare"), the Grammy-nominated gospel singer brings his combination of African-American spiritual styles and Jewish liturgical music to the Coolidge Corner Theatre on Wednesday, part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.
Q: What was it like growing up Jewish and black?
A: To some, my existence was a dichotomy. Sometimes people would say, "Oh, wow, I've never seen Jews your color." Sometimes you'd share with them and sometimes not, because after a while, you get tired of explaining to people your existence, you know what I mean? But I didn't mind, 'cause I think it's always good to educate people.
Q: What inspired you to start blending gospel music and Jewish liturgical music?
A: When I was studying in college in Jerusalem, I went to the Great Synagogue, and they had this cantor and this male chorus behind a curtain. They sounded the closest thing resembling a gospel quartet I'd heard, but in Hebrew. I thought, "Why are they hidden over here in Jerusalem?" When I came back to the States, the first thing I did was start training a choir to sing Hebrew.
Q: Have you created something new?
A: In a way, yes, by giving a component of soul to liturgical music and making it more exciting. When you go to a synagogue and you hear wailing all the time -- I think the service should be happy. In Toronto we did a Soul Shabbat, a kind of Jewish revival. You need something innovative to bring young people back to the synagogue, and this music has been working. It's a form of spirituality they can identify with, and it's lively. People like that.
Q: As a religious Jew, how do you reconcile singing [some] songs that come from a Christian tradition?
A: I think of it as a soul tradition. That's the way I make the connection. Jews are no strangers to hatred, prejudice, ethnic cleansing, and the amazing thing is that some Jewish European music, when you hear the cantor wailing, sounds almost exactly like spirituals, same imagery, same type of feel, just a different tonality. But the amazing thing about gospel music is the component of soul, and that really has nothing to do with Christianity. That's what confuses a lot of people. When the slaves first came over from Africa, it was before they were introduced to Christianity. They had all these sounds, these grunts and chants and moans that developed into their work songs. At that time, the slaves spoke different languages, and their only communication was these chants and groans and moans. They took this element of soul and infused it into the Christianity the slave masters taught them. People who don't understand think I'm borrowing from the Christian tradition and putting it into Jewish music, but since there were Jews in Africa, I'm putting into Jewish music what I think should have been put there from the get-go.
Q: Do you feel a sense of mission in bringing your music to diverse audiences?
A: I think it's something I was meant to do. I've met so many people in different religions, different groups. What I started doing is reaching people through spirituality. We can't meet on a religious basis, but we can meet spiritually, and you'd have to be a dead duck not to feel the soul element in these spirituals. Sometimes we have black people, white, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and we all feel a connection with each other. We're doing our best to fix the world through spiritual music and by bringing the races and ethnic groups together.
I uploaded a Windows Movie file of Nelson's version of Adon Olam to our Yahoo briefcase:
http://f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/shoshndavid/lst?.dir=/Mail+Attachments
By Karen Campbell, Globe Correspondent | November 7, 2004
He has sung for presidents and prime ministers, in synagogues and churches, with Wynton Marsalis and Aretha Franklin, even on "Oprah." At his best, he sounds like he's channeling the legendary Mahalia Jackson, with whom he fell in love as an 8-year-old growing up in Newark. But at the heart of every song Joshua Nelson, 28, performs is the simple desire to bring people closer to God. A Jewish African-American (he calls himself "the KKK's worst nightmare"), the Grammy-nominated gospel singer brings his combination of African-American spiritual styles and Jewish liturgical music to the Coolidge Corner Theatre on Wednesday, part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival.
Q: What was it like growing up Jewish and black?
A: To some, my existence was a dichotomy. Sometimes people would say, "Oh, wow, I've never seen Jews your color." Sometimes you'd share with them and sometimes not, because after a while, you get tired of explaining to people your existence, you know what I mean? But I didn't mind, 'cause I think it's always good to educate people.
Q: What inspired you to start blending gospel music and Jewish liturgical music?
A: When I was studying in college in Jerusalem, I went to the Great Synagogue, and they had this cantor and this male chorus behind a curtain. They sounded the closest thing resembling a gospel quartet I'd heard, but in Hebrew. I thought, "Why are they hidden over here in Jerusalem?" When I came back to the States, the first thing I did was start training a choir to sing Hebrew.
Q: Have you created something new?
A: In a way, yes, by giving a component of soul to liturgical music and making it more exciting. When you go to a synagogue and you hear wailing all the time -- I think the service should be happy. In Toronto we did a Soul Shabbat, a kind of Jewish revival. You need something innovative to bring young people back to the synagogue, and this music has been working. It's a form of spirituality they can identify with, and it's lively. People like that.
Q: As a religious Jew, how do you reconcile singing [some] songs that come from a Christian tradition?
A: I think of it as a soul tradition. That's the way I make the connection. Jews are no strangers to hatred, prejudice, ethnic cleansing, and the amazing thing is that some Jewish European music, when you hear the cantor wailing, sounds almost exactly like spirituals, same imagery, same type of feel, just a different tonality. But the amazing thing about gospel music is the component of soul, and that really has nothing to do with Christianity. That's what confuses a lot of people. When the slaves first came over from Africa, it was before they were introduced to Christianity. They had all these sounds, these grunts and chants and moans that developed into their work songs. At that time, the slaves spoke different languages, and their only communication was these chants and groans and moans. They took this element of soul and infused it into the Christianity the slave masters taught them. People who don't understand think I'm borrowing from the Christian tradition and putting it into Jewish music, but since there were Jews in Africa, I'm putting into Jewish music what I think should have been put there from the get-go.
Q: Do you feel a sense of mission in bringing your music to diverse audiences?
A: I think it's something I was meant to do. I've met so many people in different religions, different groups. What I started doing is reaching people through spirituality. We can't meet on a religious basis, but we can meet spiritually, and you'd have to be a dead duck not to feel the soul element in these spirituals. Sometimes we have black people, white, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and we all feel a connection with each other. We're doing our best to fix the world through spiritual music and by bringing the races and ethnic groups together.
I uploaded a Windows Movie file of Nelson's version of Adon Olam to our Yahoo briefcase:
http://f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/shoshndavid/lst?.dir=/Mail+Attachments
