In 1925, Samson Raphaelson wrote The Jazz Singer, a play that dealt with the essential conflict of the immigrant experience: the choice between maintaining the traditions of the old country or assimilating into American culture. In the preface to the first edition of his play, Raphaelson wrote, "In seeking a symbol of the vital chaos of America's soul, I find no more adequate one than jazz.... I have used a Jewish youth as my protagonist because the Jews are determining the nature and scope of jazz.... Jazz is Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, Sophie Tucker. These are Jews with their roots in the synagogue." 
 

In our JaZZamir concert, we will explore some of the wonderful music that arose out of that creative tension between old world and new, that irresistible synergy created when the ba'al tefilloh met the blues, when Jews encountered jazz.

Between 1880 and 1924, more than two million Jews emigrated from Eastern Europe to America. For many of these immigrants, jazz was an important marker of American culture, to be embraced by those who wanted to become real Americans. Moreover, African-American musical idioms--jazz, blues, spirituals--held a special appeal for Jews with roots in Eastern Europe. The blues scale was nearly identical to the synagogue's selicha mode. Its free rhythms and improvisation resonated with the art of cantorial recitative. And Jews who had just escaped Russian pogroms, Jews who had yearned for centuries to return to their homeland, could relate to the African-American longing for freedom, for relief from suffering and persecution.