As David Chevan reached deep inside his soul to examine his sins from the past year, an ancient cry emerged — in his voice, and on the strings of his bass fiddle.
“Ay-yi-yi,” Chevan groaned, tunefully.
Jews make that same sound this time of year during a 10-day penitential bender occupied by confessing sins and seeking exculpation for the new year ahead. That stretch began last week with the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. It culminates Friday night and Saturday during the holiday of Yom Kippur. The holidays are known as the Days of Awe.
The “ay-yi-yi” refrain comes during a melodic call-and-response chant during the holidays’ synagogue services.
Chevan has explored the cries of the season for years now through his work with the landmark ensemble Afro-Semitic Experience. The local biracial group launched 12 years ago to apply their jazz chops to traditional Jewish and African-American spiritual music. Seven soulful recordings and numerous cross-country gigs later, they’ve carved an exciting musical niche formed with bass, clarinet, trumpet, keyboards, percussion, and slide guitar.
The secret to their success: Preserving old melodies with new rhythmic and musical improvisations drawing from gospel, funk, Afro-Caribbean, klezmer, and other influences.
In recent years Chevan has brought that approach to the annual penitential season. He has produced a series of recordings beginning with 2003’s Days of Awe (still among my favorites of the Afro-Semitic collection). Beginning with a haunting slide guitar solo by New Haven’s Stacy Phillips to the prayer “V’Ani S’filiosi,” Chevan & Co. offered new yet familiar, historically respectful instrumental takes on nine of the season’s prayers.
Then Chevan grew interested in old recordings of operatic-style hazzanim (prayer leaders) from the early 20th century. In New Haven, as elsewhere, synagogues used to advertise the famous hazzanim they were bringing to town for the Days of Awe, hoping to draw crowds. The hazzanim made Days of Awe services as much performances as prayer, a tradition that has survived to some extent to this day. Chevan rescued those old meldies and then put them through the Afro-Semitic team blender. He also enlisted modern-day hazzanim to record and perform with the group, especially at this time of year.
Last year he recorded three such performances at regional synagogues, including New Haven’s Beth-El Keser Israel. Some of those cuts appear on Further Definitions of The Days of Awe, a new CD that the Afro-Semitic Experience has just released in time for this year’s holidays. The recording features Cheavn and his band continuing to press deeper into the seasonal penitential tradition both through the past and into the future. Track one features Cantor Jack Mendelson belting a rendition of the Ashrei prayer that sounds as though it could have been lifted direct from the bimah a century ago; that segues into a second track that riffs on the same prayer with an Afro-beat foundation. From there, they’re off.
Those two tracks came from the August 2010 New Haven concert. Click here to read about that performance, and on the play arrow to watch and hear a sample.
As he geared up for Yom Kippur this year, Chevan spoke in an interview about how exploring and discovering twists on the liturgical music helps him come to grips with spiritual dilemmas.
Music has always played a central role in worship, across religions, Chevan noted. Jews “read” the Torah every week by chanting it, for instance.
“I’m actually finding my emotional core when I start singing that melody,” he said as he traced the notes to the “ay-yi-yi” refrain that accompanies an extended Days of Awe congregational confessional. (Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch a sample.)
Sometimes his mind wanders, the way the congregant’s mind inevitably wanders during a long service. “Sometimes I’m thinking about the sins I’ve committed. Sometimes I’m thinking, ‘Am I playing B natural, B flat or G?’”
“We find a melody that allows us to hear the words and allows the words to resonate in us,” he said. “If we simply heard the word ‘sin,’ it sounds like a word.”
Along the same lines check out Leonard Cohen's Who By Fire which is based on the prayerUnesaneh Tokef , a high point in the Jewish liturgy for the High holidays.
Its a very moving paraphrase of the intention of this prayer