Passover Songs
-a Latin Style

George Robinson

Special to the Jewish News

B

enjamin Lapidus finds it a
bit odd that so many jour-
nalists characterize his new
recording, Herencia Judia, as a return
to his spiritual roots in Judaism.
As far as he knows, he never went
away.
"I've always been aware of who I
was;' he says. "Maybe it's because my
new album is all Jewish music that
some writers
think it's some
kind of spiritual
reawakening, but
there have been
Jewish-themed
songs on each
of my previous
recordings as well,
at least one on
each of them!'
Lapidus plays
Latin music, par-
ticularly Cuban,
and is one of the world's foremost
players of the tres, a Caribbean folk
instrument used almost exclusively in
the Latin settings he favors.
In Herencia Judia ("Jewish
Heritage"), Lapidus has re-imagined
familiar Jewish texts (and occasional-
ly, traditional melodies) in Caribbean
rhythms. Four selections associated
with Passover resonate with bicultural
references.
The familiar Pesach words of
"Dayenu" are set to the plena, a narra-
tive song style originally from Puerto
Rico; the "The Four Questions" and
"Ma Nishtana" are performed in a
Cuban form, the changui, which origi-
nated in the 19th-century sugar-cane
fields; "The Four Sons" is set to the
Cuban musical genre of nengon, which
preceded the changui.
"I've always wanted to do this
album;' says Lapidus, who brought to
the project a clear idea of how to unite
these different musical cultures.
"Each song called out for a different
style," he explains. "The forms of Latin
music are as rich and varied as our
holidays and liturgy. I tried to work
with as much stuff as possible, to keep
it interesting and original!'
Surprisingly, the blend of Caribbean

rhythm and Hebrew text is frequently
a seamless one. "The plena is all about
tongue-twisters and lots of words,
so it worked very well for `Dayenu:
The changui repeats lines like a blues
— it's an AAB rhyme scheme — so it
fit (Mah Nishtana:"
For "Limpieza Judia," a musical
re-creation of the New Year's ritu-
als of kapores (the transfer of sins
performed before Yom Kippur) and
cleansing, Lapidus chose "a bata
rhythm, ilubanche, and it matches
precisely with the
I way you recite the
prayer for kapores,"
he says.
"Ein Keiloheinu"
is in the style of
the Puerto Rican
bomba, an import
from West Africa
that uses a call-and-
response form and
a gradual increase
in speed, well suited
to that familiar
Jewish lyric.
Lapidus also includes "Kaddish para
Daniel" in memory of slain journalist
Daniel Pearl.
If Lapidus, 35, inherited his
Jewishness from his parents, they also
were at least partly responsible for his
musical tastes.
"My father plays accordion, played
with klezmer bands in the Catskills,"
Lapidus says. "I grew up with that,
but it wasn't my musical experience
exactly"
It was the "Latin tinge" that blew
through the mountains that really
grabbed Lapidus. His father and
paternal grandmother both dabbled
in rumba, mambo and cha cha, those
"exotic" sounds that enveloped popu-
lar music in the 1950s and '60s.
Lapidus' understanding of Latin
music is considerably more sophisti-
cated. He has a degree in jazz guitar
from Oberlin Conservatory of Music
in Ohio and a doctorate in ethnomu-
sicology from the City University of
New York Graduate Center. ❑

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