The Nign of Reb Mendel

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I highly recommend this new CD by Joel Rubin and Rabbi Eli Silberstine (and ensemble). These are hasidic songs in yiddish which strongly inform (me) in a major esthetic influence on the klezmer I play. They sound more or less removed from various regional eastern european folk styles. The doubling of voice and clarinet on most melodies strikes me as a powerful evocation of the spoken and unspoken ways to spirit.