The yids are alright

>> This holiday season, rock the Chanukah bush in style

by MARK SLUTSKY

-- Annie Dufresne eyes the linguistic divide -- Genetically programmed for your listening pleasure -- Depressing sounds for the holidays -- Electronic sounds for the hard-to-please -- The sound of Christmas evil -- This year's bumper crop of comp CDs made easy -- DJ sets in your Discman this season -- Stuffing the R&B renaissance in your stocking -- Country cracker Christmas -- This holiday season, rock the Chanukah bush in style -- Some seasonal jazz hints -- Yuletide mood swings

Chanukah's coming, and you know what that means: time to fry up some latkes, load up on menorahs and pile into the ol' mitzvah tank. What's that, you say? Mitzvah tanks, for the uninitiated, are vans piloted by pious Lubavitchers that cruise through Jewish neighbourhoods, going door-to-door urging their brethren to light candles and say their baruchas. It can be a tedious task, so what follows are some tunes to bump as those hydraulics kick in.

John Zorn's Tzadik label is always worth checking out with, among other things, Jewish music ranging from the traditional to the avant-garde. The long-haired klezmer wizard himself has just released Filmworks IX: Trembling Before G-d, a soundtrack he's composed for an upcoming film about--of all things--the gay Hasidic community. The music is largely played by clarinetist Chris Speed and organist Jamie Saft, with Zorn himself dropping in to sing on a lunatic beat-box version of "Simen Tov/Mazel Tov." That crazy number aside, Filmworks is a lovely, melancholy disc.

Also out recently on Tzadik is the Cracow Klezmer Band's De Profundis, which is some pretty heavy shit: Gypsy-inspired, accordion-driven klezmer that ranges from the dirge-like title track to the relentless nailbiter "Devil's Dance." Keen on keening? Then check out trumpeter Frank London's Invocations, which tackles that most intense of Jewish music traditions, cantorial singing, through London's horn. As well, guitarist Tim Sparks' Tanz goes for a little Latin-klezmer rendezvous, via percussionist Cyro Baptista. It's skilled musicianship, if a little too coffeeshop-friendly.

If your tastes run to the more traditional, and you're interested in hearing intensely skilled, string-based, 19th-century-style klezmer, check out Khevrisa's European Klezmer Music, out on the estimable Smithsonian Folkways label. It's beautiful, very formal music, heavy on the violin and the glorious cimbalom.

Finally, it's come to my attention that the up-and-coming Canadian boy band B4-4 is fronted by the twin sons of the cantor of my family synagogue. Were only Al Jolson alive to see The Jazz Singer writ large on the world of 21st-century pop music! A modern-day "Mammy," B4-4's hit "Get Down" encompasses the bittersweet experience of the Jewish third-generation immigrant with breathtaking clarity: "If you get down on me/I'll get down on you/I'll do anything/That you want me to." The new wave of Jews is on Columbia Records, and there ain't no cimbaloms in sight.