Dear Friends,
Since last month's newsletter I have performed in Jerusalem, explored the Dead Sea and mountain biked on the Gaza border. That was followed by a tour to
Atlanta,
Marietta and Chattanooga and a wonderful Passover in the desert (Palm Springs, CA) with the family. It's
hard to sit down and write when I'm on the go much of the time. I leave in a few hours to sunny Utah
where I'll be performing at the annual Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration at the JCC
Salt Lake City, but not before I send out this newsletter! Soon thereafter I'm doing a show for
the Mormon community in Stansbury Park, UT, sponsored by the American Friends
of Israel organization. I know of
few more ardent and loving supporters of the Jewish People than the members of
this fine group. In these times of
dire challenges to the integrity of Israel it's refreshing to know that we do
have some sincere friends in the world.
Next weekend I have a trifecta: I will have the pleasure of leading services in Orthodox and Conservative synagogues over Shabbat and then performing my Kol Bamidbar musical with 150 kids  at a Reform congregation, Beth Emeth in Albany, NY on Sunday morning. That afternoon I'll catch the Empire express train to NYC for a Lag B'omer concert at the Carlebach Shul and then sing on Monday for the Cantors of the world at the annual Cantors Assembly Convention. Please, NY friends...motivate for one of these shows!
I'm frequently interviewed by the secular and Jewish press
when I'm coming to any given town. The list of questions is often includes, "How did you get started in
music?" It's hard to answer that
in a witty soundbite so I elaborated in the essay below, "The Making of a
Musician." It's dedicated with
love to my folks who truly are the wind beneath my wings.
The Songs We Sing Volume Two is mixed and mastered and will
be shrink-wrapped in a few weeks. For those of you who pre-purchased,
THANKS! It's not too late to sign up now at samglaser.com. Enjoy the latest YouTube video links
and check out upcoming stops on the tour schedule below. Have a happy Lag
B'omer and Shavuot and we'll connect again in May.
Sincerely,
Sam
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Preorder The Songs We Sing Volume Two!
Sam is currently wrapping up his 21st CD...the follow up to the ever popular Songs We Sing released in 2000.  Volume Two has twenty-eight lovingly recorded songs by Sam and his full eight-piece band and an array of guest vocalists. This monumental work breathes new life into these classic "common denominator" hit songs that unite the Jewish world. Preorder yours now at a 20% discount through the end of April...it will ship next month and you can count yourself among the first to hear it.
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The CHAI TOUR 2010!
Be a part of Sam's 18th year on the road! Get your organization signed up on this special tour while the best dates are still available! Click here for the concert options and click here for the full schedule; dates are added weekly.
Event programmers: Uplifting contemporary Jewish music will bring all ages in your community together like no other activity. As always, we discount significantly for midweek shows and when Sam is already in your area. Sieze the date!
Upcoming stops include:
Los Angeles, CA
Albany, NY
New York, NY
Dallas, TX
Tucson, AZ
Dubiecko, Poland
Krakow, Poland
Vancouver, Canada
San Diego, CA
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The Making of a Musician
By Sam Glaser
April 2010
I still wonder if I deserve to be called a musician. Call it the imposter complex or fear of
success. I find that chatty inner
voice stating that if I could only do _________ (insert musical goal) or as
soon as I make such and such a salary, then I'd really be a musician. The fact is that I am a musician. It makes me smile just typing that.
Being a musician is like running a marathon. Every mile your body tells you to
stop. Quitting is the reasonable
thing to do. Every month that we
struggle to make ends meet is a month that I ask, "What am I thinking trying to
do this for a living?" Every
conversation with a relative yields, "but Sammy, how long can you do
this?" Every amazing local jazz
band I see starts the mental recording, "And you call yourself a
musician?" For 47 years I have
been fighting that internal and external dialog and somehow, miraculously, I
can still say that I am a bonafide full-time, happy working musician.
I want to dedicate this month's article to my parents for
creating a space where I could pursue my dreams. Perhaps the most important
rule we had in our household growing up was that Sam could sing. I sang all the time. Still do. It drove my brothers crazy. I put myself to sleep every night bouncing my head on my
pillow and gnashing my teeth to the groove in my head. It freaked my parents out and they
sought medical help. I sang
through meal times, on car rides, in the bathtub. I sang along with my classical pieces that I played on the
piano. My folks defended my
musical quirk and would not allow anyone to silence it.
By age seven I was writing songs. My third grade teacher assigned a poetry assignment where we
had to scribe an ode to a color. My poems always had music attached to them. I thought that was normal. I started with Black, moved onto Yellow and then wrote a
song about how disappointed I was each time I saw pollution. Then came other themes: loneliness, the
love of the ocean and a song about the joyful chaos of living with three little
brothers. My mom, a talented
singer and pianist, marveled at my first poem Black and must have intuited its
lyrical rhythm. As she sat at the
piano attempting to put it to music I scampered up next to her exclaiming "Mom,
that's not how it goes!"
My dad plays the trumpet. He comes from a musical family where everyone played
something and was expected to excel. His father didn't like his choice of instrument and my father was forced
to practice in the closet. All that pent up passion for that brassy sound still explodes anytime we
have a family occasion. My dad,
even though his lip isn't quite what it was, sends everyone in the room ducking
for cover as he plays My Yiddeshe Mama or a Louis Armstrong favorite. It's thanks to my dad that I have this
unyielding tenacity to reach for the stars and the ability to sell ice to
Eskimos.
Friday Night in my household meant Shabbat. Even though we rarely went to the
synagogue and  didn't keep kosher, Shabbat dinner was non-negotiable. It consisted of candlelighting, "ayshet
chayil" translated into English and Kiddush. My dad would give us a blessing, the same words that I say
to my children and hope that they will say to their children. My mom, an incredible cook, would break
out amazing, predictable food for her family and the myriad guests that we
almost always invited. Then, like
clockwork, we'd move en masse to the Steinway grand in the music room and sing
every song in the book.
The song books
were, of course, what became the influences that still resonate in every note I
compose. Great Songs of the 60's
by Milt Okun. Everything from
Rogers and Hammerstein and Rogers and Hart. Fiddler, Hair, The Me Nobody Knows, A Chorus Line. Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Carole
King, Simon and Garfunkel. The
Fireside Book of Folk Songs. My
new Songs We Sing CD got its title from the classic Jewish songbook of the same
name. Back then I didn't even
realize that I was harmonizing. I
hadn't heard of counterpoint or dynamics. I just did it, and I simply
had to master the piano and sight
reading so that I could keep up with my mom.
The summer after third grade we moved to Brentwood. For my dad it was a big statement to
move to a big house in a fancy neighborhood. For my mom it meant more space to keep clean. For me it meant my own room and
interesting new neighbors. Just
across the backyard fence lived John Densmore, drummer for the Doors. I can't describe the feeling I had when
I first heard Stevie Wonder's Superstition coming through the bushes,
loud. My knees went weak. That groove, that horn section! How did he get the piano to do that? I
ran inside and filled the Steinway with paper and paper clips to simulate a
Clavinet. Can you imagine my mom's
shock when she next sat down to play?
When I was ten years old, after a month Camp Ramah my dad
sent me to Tony Trabert's Tennis Camp. Dad's ultimate goal was to make tennis players out of his four
boys. Any self-respecting Jewish
boy had to know how to handle a racquet and as an A-rated player dad wanted us
to give him a good game. I was
placed in the lame group and only once did Tony stoop to teach us
personally. But a few nights each
week we had disco night. Wow. That was cool. That was the summer of Crocodile Rock,
The Doobies "Listen to the Music" and "Take it Easy" by the Eagles. The white
music was cool but I was totally destroyed by Tower of Power's "You Got to
Funkifize." I think it's because
of my dad's decision to make a tennis player out of me that I discovered
funk. Our experience with slavery
gives Jews a natural kinship with our African-American brothers. I feel it in my jeans (genes.)
Speaking of tennis, my dad was enamored of all things
sports. He worked hard, came home
late and took long trips. I was often frustrated when he couldn't concentrate
on our conversations due to the incessant "big game" on TV. Two of my brothers were into watching sports
whereas Johnny (Yom Tov) and I preferred to be outdoors hiking and biking and
making music. I did however find a
meeting place with my pop. That
was at Laker, Dodger, Rams and later Raider games. He had season tickets to everything. There we could shmooze
in between plays and he was happy to be spoiling us. My mom, on the other hand, retaliated by purchasing tickets
to every symphonic, chamber music and opera event available. This was a veritable gold mine for me
since my brothers had very little interest in such culture. My appearances with the LA Jewish
Symphony have been a fulfillment of the dream of that little kid in the suit
sitting in row E holding his mom's hand while sucking in every note of the LA
Philharmonic.
Any tribute to my parents would be incomplete without
mention of my Auntie Lynnie. Lynn
Berman, now Bar-lev, never had kids of her own. She's my mom's cousin but she's still an aunt, if you know
what I mean. Lynnie turned me on
to the world of art. She worked
with some of the most brilliant artists and graphic designers on the planet and they became my buddies.
Lynn gave me my first taste of being published; she took one of my early songs
called This World and turned it into a holiday card for her design firm. The silver gloss panel featured the
lyrics in my own hand and said at the bottom: "Sammy Glaser, age 7. May this child's dreams be realized by
all mankind." When I was eleven
she took me into a recording studio, hired a professional guitarist and helped
me record my first fourteen-song album. I can still see the walls of that studio in my mind...I had found nirvana.
Then for my Bar Mitzvah she had all of those songs beautifully transcribed and
bound in a book. Take note: the best gifts are thought out, unique
and clarify that you really know the recipient.
I could go on and on raving about the support and love my
parents have showered on me. I'll
finish up for now at my Bar Mitzvah year. My mom pushed me hard. She
took me to lessons in Torah trope with the Sinai Temple organist, Aryell Cohen
and made me practice daily. My dad
used his garment industry cache to arrange for the printing of my "Wilderness"
song on all the tablecloths for the party. Cantor Joseph Gole soon took interest in my budding ability
to interpret liturgy and invited me into his Shachrit Choir every Saturday
morning. Aryell suggested a more
aggressive tack with my progress on the piano and my mom shlepped me to lessons
with his strict German teacher all the way in the Hollywood Hills. I learned to chant the entire Shabbat
service and had to master two Torah portions...one for LA and one for Israel
where I had a second celebration a few weeks later. I remember my mom saying,
"Sam, if you work this hard at everything in your life, there is NOTHING you
can't do."
That year, the concert choir at Paul Revere Jr. High held
auditions to find the best male and female delegate to a citywide vocal
competition. My folks nudged me to
go for it and exalted when I was chosen to represent the school. My mom helped me go through my
repertoire for the finals and we opted for Every Valley Shall Be Exalted from
Handel's Messiah. I had no problem
with the range or long runs: I was still a boy soprano and had great breath
control thanks to my love of surfing and bodyboarding. My mom rehearsed with me, shlepped me
to practice with my piano teacher and then the final voice juries. I won the first prize male vocalist in
the LA City Schools and had my award presented by Zubin Mehta at the LA Music
Center. Best $100 of my life.
So I'm a musician. I think, eat and breathe music. I produce albums for wonderful clients that become a part of my
family. I get to see the world
performing in over fifty cities a year. What a gift. Best of all,
those new songs that still haunt me almost nightly get to find an audience with
you, my friends and fans and readers of this monthly diatribe. It's thanks to you that I keep the
balls in the air, keep my kids in Jewish day school and release an annual
CD. I have a new one that will be
mastered next week. Wow...this is
hard work! Hundreds of studio
hours later and I'm so excited to say that it's almost shrink-wrapped and
available, 28 of the greatest hits of the Jewish People, fully arranged with my
ten-piece band and squeezed onto one CD.
You don't have to buy my new CD.
I made it for my friends, family, peers and for the entire Jewish
people. But most importantly, I
made it for me. Just like the
twenty CDs that I recorded before it. Thank God each of my albums is "in the black." That said, if they didn't make a dime it would be OK. I still would have the satisfaction of
knowing that I made the very best art I was capable of at that time in history
and that I had yet another opportunity to give my parents nachas.
I'd like to conclude this essay with a challenge. What can you do to spur creativity in
your own household? What are those
things that you love to do that you never have time for? Wish you took piano lessons? Sang in a choir? Knew how to paint? Well, start today. Join a choir, find a teacher, take an
art class! These days the arts
aren't as supported in schools as they used to be. What can you do to make a difference? Are your kids going straight for the TV
or Facebook when they come home? Require a two hour homework/creative session minimum before the screen
goes on. Was there a time in your
life you were told that your creation was lame or stupid or worthless? And you never tried again? Well, get over it. As Warren Miller
says, "If
you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do."
Create something today! You too can make a musician.
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New Videos for April!
A new song and video for Yom HaShoah, based on the Million Butterflies children's campaign:
Million Butterflies
A powerful itunes visualizer trip into Take Me As I Am from the Presence Album:
Take Me As I Am
Amercia's Funniest Home Videos candidate: Sarah Glaser's new school project:
Nim'sBits Commercial
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SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN:
Sam Does Simchas!
You want your wedding or Bar/Bat Mitzvah to ROCK! Sam specializes in customizing music for your event to ensure that it will be unforgettable! With top musicians, great vocals, pro sound and lights...there are few bands that can deliver the same impact nationwide. The band draws upon the deepest repertoire in the Jewish world combined with  authentic rock, jazz, motown, disco and standards. Many clients opt to supplement their private event with a Sam Glaser concert or Shabbaton for the whole community. Whatever your needs, visit the Sam Glaser Orchestra site to learn more.
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The Latest From CAJE!
CAJE is back! Check out newCAJE.org! The Coaliton for Advancement in Jewish Education is an international group of educators, rabbis, cantors musicians and artists that gather together over 1200 strong each summer. They have invited me to perform annually for the past sixteen years and those concerts and workshops are some of the most fulfilling of my tour. Just to give you an idea of the serious fun and true unity, here are highlights from my 2006 show at Duke University. Sadly, the organization declared bankruptcy last year but there is now a grassroots newCAJE that is picking up where CAJE left off. The inaugural conference has just been announced for this August in Boston...get involved now!
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Thank you!
Thank you for reading, for listening, for your support and friendship.
Glaser MusicWorks
800-972-6694
Outside of the US 310-204-6111
sam@samglaser.com
1941 Livonia Av.
Los Angeles, California 90034
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