A Night of Repackaged Memories

The upcoming February 27 concert is an evening billed to bring the best of Jewish music history back on stage in under three hours. Celebrating 60 years of Jewish music pretty much covers the modern musical era, beginning in the 1960s when sales of vinyl albums became commercially viable and record players commonplace in every household. Pirchei, Shlomo Carlebach, Reb Benzion Shenker, and the Rabbis’ Sons were the sounds of that decade.

Sheya Mendlowitz, the every-creative producer who initiated HASC’s A Time for Music over three decades ago after a summer day’s visit to “The Happiest Place on Earth,” had taken a long break from concert production, but finally acceded to repeated requests from Makor to come on board for their clients. He brushes aside the spotlight, though. “This is not just me, this is a team effort, an assembly of talent.” And the brainstorm idea? “The Eibishter gave it to me, like always. I would say it’s one of my ‘G-tt’ feelings. You’re going to know every song sung on that stage.”

While it’s true that the songs are exclusively from yesteryear, Yisroel Lamm promises that the evening will be a new sound and visual experience on many levels. “We’re presenting the material with a fully updated sound, with all the possibilities offered by technology and musical progress. Changes in music are not all boom, boom, boom, downhill, you know. Besides writing a fresh overture in honor of Makor, I’m rewriting the music in the way it could have sounded with the advantages of today’s increased opportunities — and I’m having a great time with it.”

Revisiting arrangements to old-time hits he’d created decades ago, Yisroel feels that the upcoming Jewish Music Hall of Fame “is a unique chance to do it again, much better. And in life, you don’t get too many second chances.”