Eight years ago, the first time that I heard Jeremiah Lockwood’s band Sway Machinery play at Brooklyn Bowl, I listened to two galaxies of sound merge together in my mind for the first time. Lockwood, the grandson of a well-known cantor (Jacob Konigberg), grew up in Manhattan steeped in the traditions of Ashkenazi religious music. As a young musician he fell in love with American roots music and finger-picking guitar styles and studied under the legendary blues artist Carolina Slim but eventually he returned to the melodies he learned singing with his grandfather and transported them into a musical hybrid landscape informed by the great cantors of the Ashkenazi tradition as well as Buddy Bolden, Bessie Smith, Fela, Tom Waits…and a thousand other folks. Soulful, haunting, heart-breaking – Lockwood’s take on Jewish music was both traditional and radical in the same moment.  This coming high holidays I am very fortunate to be able to stand beside him and serve as the rabbi/MC for four shows/services taking place in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Here is a taste of Lockwood’s genius in action for those who have not seen him:

And here he is rocking out in Brooklyn:

This High Holidays we will also have the pleasure to be led in song by one of his musical colleagues, the brilliant Jewlia Eisenberg from the band Charming Hostess. Here are Jeremiah and Jewlia doing two duets:

Working with these two is a true thrill. I am deeply grateful for all the work of Rabbi Dan Ain (this event is his brain-child and he has done it for seven years! Good luck in San Fransisco!), Wendi Weinman (the wonderful executive director of Because Jewish), and the generous support of Mike Greenhaus (Relix Magazine) and others for this opportunity. Tickets are on sale now:

HIGH HOLIDAYS 2018

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE FULL HIGH HOLIDAY PACKAGE

JOIN US FOR FIRST NIGHT – CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO NUBLU CLASSIC

JOIN US FOR BOWL HASHANAH – CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO BROOKLYN BOWL

JOIN US FOR KOL NIDRE – CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO ROULETTE

JOIN US FOR YOM KIPPUR – CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO THE CUTTING ROOM

Come join us!

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:

Jeremiah Lockwood

As a young man, Jeremiah Lockwood apprenticed with Piedmont Blues musician Carolina Slim, and studied chazzanus with his grandfather Cantor Jacob Konigberg. His band The Sway Machinery seeks inspiration from New York City’s cultural geography and has performed at festivals around the world, including, perhaps most notably, the Festival of the Desert in Timbuktu, Mali. He toured for years as guitarist in the band Balkan Beat Box. Jeremiah is currently a PhD candidate at Stanford University where he is engaged in research on the culture of Cantorial music.

Shoko Nagai

Shoko Nagai, born in Nagoya, Japan, is a composer, pianist, accordionist and improviser. After graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1999 she moved to New York City and quickly established herself in various scenes performing with such renowned artists as John Zorn, Butch Morris, Frank London, Miho Hatori (CiboMatto), Satoshi Takeishi, Erik Friedlander, Marc Ribot, Elliot Sharp, to name a few. Nagai performed in Sweden for the Nobel Prize Ceremony for Herta Muller in 2010.

John Bollinger

John Bollinger is known in the New York scene as an explosive force, his fearsome groove and bone shattering bursts of energy adding an incredible excitement to his wonderful feel for a multiplicity of genres. He has worked with, among others, Barbez, Nanuchka and Guignol.

Jewlia Eisenberg

Jewlia Eisenberg is a musician and composer working at the intersection of voice, text and diaspora consciousness. Her music is mostly released with John Zorn’s Tzadik label on theRadical Jewish Culture imprint. Her work has been curated into the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of Peace in Uzbekistan; she performs regularly in Europe and the Americas. She has been a visiting artist at CalArts, MIT, and the University of Colorado, where she taught on the boundary lands holding music and critical theory. The New Yorker describes her as “Thoroughly delightful…running the gamut from hard-edged and powerful to sweet and soulful.”

Sydney Faith Rose

Sydney Faith Rose, CHHC, RYT is a certified holistic health coach, meditation instructor and mental health professional with 10 years of experience bringing mindfulness based, person-centerd health initiatives off of the meditation cushion and into the world. Over the past decade, in addition to teaching yoga, guiding meditations, facilitating mindful eating workshops, and creating personalized wellness plans, she’s worked with businesses and non-profits to develop and grow community wellness programs for whole people with bodies, minds and hearts.

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Dave Harrington

Dave Harrington is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and DJ. Best known for his work with DARKSIDE and Nicolas Jaar, Harrington has carved out a space for himself at the intersection of improvisation and electronic music, where spontaneous and psychedelic music can feel equally at home in both techno and free jazz. He brings this freewheeling spirit to his DJ sets playing largely his own remixes and edits along with on the spot live programming and improvising with analog electronics, crafting sets that exist somewhere between DJ and Live.

Jordan McLean

Jordan McLean is the regular trumpeter for Iron and Wine, with whom he has toured North America. He also performs with The Sway Machinery, with whom he has performed in clubs and synagogues around the U.S. and festivals in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia and Mali, including the Festival Au Desert, outside of Timbuktu. McLean is a charter member and lead trumpeter of the world-renowned Afrobeat band Antibalas, created in 1998 by Bosco Mann and Martin Perna.