During Rabbi SukiBerry’s hours in the recording studio back in the “old days,” he presided over a full orchestra of musicians playing in sync, without any techie click track keeping them on tempo. Twenty-first century technology has made room for people like Shua Fried, one of the leading arrangers in the chassidic music world, whose musical tools and lexicon sing of an entirely different approach.
“I was 17 years old and I was learning in Mesivta Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin on Coney Island Avenuein Brooklyn” Rabbi Berryrecalls. “Living in BrightonBeach I had a short walk to ocean where I could sit quietly on a bench with a pencil and paper and just write. The peace and quiet allowed me to clear my head and concentrate undisturbed on the vastness of this world — then the music just came to me. Some of my best music came out of those sessions. That’s where I wrote the arrangements for Just One Shabbos and V’Chol Ma’aminim.”
To Shua Fried the scene sounds idyllic almost impossible. Fried one of the leading arrangers for a new generation of chassidic singers says of RabbiBerry’s description that it’s like a nice anecdote from a time gone by but totally divorced from today’s reality.
“What a phenomenal story” he says with a wistful smile. “Today when you sit down with a singer the first thing you do is start to think about the staging. What sort of album is it going to be? What sort of lighting will we need in the concerts? Is this a slow neshamahdige song or a fast rhythmic number to get people dancing at a wedding? There’s almost no concept of music for music’s sake.”
In 2012 he admits the melodies are almost secondary like an afterthought.
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