Wow. Mindblown. Just got back from Oi Va Voi at the Jazz Café, Camden with Z. They're like a deranged Hasidic wedding on acid. Six/seven/eight piece band, playing crossover klezmer/ladino/drum n bass to a packed, appreciative crowd.
It's like Jewish musical tradition is some kind of open source property, and they've taken it and turned it into something that's truly their own. It looks back, it looks forward. It reflects the here and now and the past. They have a Shoreditch/Lower East Side vibe, possibly stretching as far as Williamsburg.
Why recreate words: here's what they say on their website:
"They are forging a new, true identity, which both draws on their roots and celebrates the cultural pluralism that surrounds us all. OI VA VOI's music speaks of the 'here and now' but knows of the 'way back when'. OI VA VOI has the intelligence to understand that identity springs from many places, from everything we've seen and heard and felt. Like the tastes of the best contemporary fusion cookery, the images of cutting edge art or the prose of postmodern urban writers such as Zadie Smith, OI VA VOI create something new through mixing and matching ingredients that they know, love and understand."
I've been having a lengthy, dislocated debate with N this week, about the nature of Jewish identity in the twenty-first century. I think these guys are really doing it: taking the best of our tradition (the chazzonus on Od Yeshoma is as good as the real thing, and it's not sampled), and turning it into something creative, new, exciting.
And afterwards, the DJ played Tradition from Fiddler On The Roof, and everyone danced in a cool, funky way.
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