This
article appeared in the Aug. 29, 2004 Jewish Advocate.
Voicing
an international dimension:
Jewlia
EisenbergÕs Charming Hostess to perform Aug. 30
By
Susie Davidson
Advocate
Corresondent
Growing
up in a socialist, multicultural commune in Brooklyn, Jewlia Eisenberg was
exposed to an unusually broad range of artistic expression. Music, poetry and
dance from all over the world were integral to the group, not only in daily
life, but in its day care and community center programs as well. Through
college and a move to San Francisco, Eisenberg continued to bridge the
boundaries of varied musical and performance genres.
This
Monday evening at 8 p.m., her vocal group, Charming Hostess, will appear at the
Zeitgeist Gallery in Inman Square, Cambridge. The self-described
Ònerdy-sexy-commie-girliesÓ will perform work from their ÒSarajevo BluesÓ CD,
to be released in November on New York-based avant-sax musician John ZornÕs
Tzadik label.
The composition and musicianship classes Eisenberg enrolled in at Berkeley paved the way for Three Women's Voices, her first a capella group. She describes Charming Hostess, which also features cellist Marika Hughes and vocalist Cynthia Taylor, as Òthree women in a whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm and radical braininess.Ó The group is in the midst of an East Coast tour; in 2000, they played in PhiladelphiaÕs Sixth Annual Intergalactic Jewish Festival. They have also appeared in Tel-Aviv, where they are set to return in March.
EisenbergÕs
father, a community organizer, was involved with the Brooklyn center for 25
years; her mother, a professor who writes for ÒScience Times,Ó eventually moved
to Manhattan. Eisenberg, a composer, bassist and extended-technique vocalist,
first learned and taught music at the enclaveÕs camp. Although its attendees
were mainly Jews and African-Americans, Puerto Rican as well as civil rights
and labor-themed songs were popular, as was Balkan music. Eisenberg lived among
a group of black Jews; her first arrangement was The Special AKAÕs ÒFree Nelson
Mandela.Ó Prior to composing her own music, she also arranged the Black
National Anthem, Civil War and other historic songs. ÒMy music inhabits an
African/Jewish Diaspora crossroads, where sounds are drawn from the female
body,Ó she explains.
Eisenberg
also curates the Oakland Radical Film Series, is an active Bay Area lay cantor,
and a Tikea fellow, one of 15 educators of Jewish teens with the San
Francisco-based Bureau of Jewish Education and the East Bay FederationÕs Center
for Jewish Living and Learning. At the Oakland Midrasha, she teaches "Fast
Forverts," and ÒThe J Train is Coming!Ó to teens. Both classes involve a
trip that explores Yiddish culture in New York.
Her
last CD, ÒTrilectic,Ó also on Tzadik, focused on political and erotic themes in
the life of Marxist theorist Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and his muse, Asja
Lacis. She describes ÒSarajevo BluesÓ as Òmusic of love and resistance during
wartime,Ó with doo-wop, Pygmy counterpoint, Balkan harmony and Andalusian
melody in the mix. Set to the poems of Bosnian poet Semezdin Mehmedinovic, the
work is a Òform of love and resistance to the brutalization of war,Ó she says,
noting that Òthe poems honor a cosmopolitan city that for many years
successfully rejected the limits of nationalism and militarism.Ó She is also
working on ÒThick,Ó recorded with art-funk trio Red Pocket.
"I
go to rock shows all the time, where there are not many women in the
audiences,Ó she says. ÒBut there are a lot of women, as well as a lot of people
of different ages in ours.Ó The group sings in Eastern European, North African,
and Jewish languages; among the Bulgarian village music are reworkings of the
Yiddish "Sha Shtil*" and "Di Grine Kuzine,Ó as well as a
Sephardic song, ÒMi Dimandas.Ó
Charming
Hostess will appear on Monday, Aug. 30 at the Zeitgeist Gallery, 1353 Cambridge
St., Inman Square Cambridge (across from the S&S Deli). Wheelchair
accessible. For information, call the Gallery 617-876-6060, or visit www.zeitgeist-gallery.org.