arts&life

music

Greg Kurstin

Jack Antonoff

The Tribe At The Grammys:

NATE BLOOM CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

he 2018 Grammy Awards
will be presented on
Sunday, Jan. 28, at 4:30
p.m., hosted by James Corden.
This year is the 100th anniversa-
ry of Leonard Bernstein’s birth,
and Andrew Lloyd-Webber will
turn 70 this year. Patti Lupone
will honor Lloyd-Webber’s music
by singing “Don’t Cry for Me,
Argentina” from Evita.
The 2017 Tony-winner Ben
Platt (Dear Evan Hansen), 24,
will then join Lupone on stage
and they will honor Bernstein
by singing, together, a song from
West Side Story.
The vast majority of Grammys
are not presented on TV. Here,
the verified Jewish nominees in
the awards I believe will be pre-
sented on TV.
Jack Antonoff, 33, co-wrote
and co-produced Melodrama,
an album by singer Lorde that is
nominated for album of the year.
Antonoff is a rock star in his own
right (as a member of the bands
Fun and Bleachers) and he’s also
known as the former boyfriend
of actress/writer Lena Dunham
(Girls), 31. The couple recently
broke up after being together for
five years.
Benjamin Levin (aka Benny
Blanco), 29, produced “Issues,” a
song of the year nominee. A top
producer/songwriter, Levin has
already won three Grammys.

Pink (aka Alecia Moore), 38,
is nominated for best solo pop
performance (“What About Us”).
Pink’s mother is Jewish and, for
the first time that I know of, she
referred to herself this past year
as “a Jewish woman,” following
the Charlottesville events.
Michael Shuman, 32, is the
bass player and sometime-key-
boardist and drummer for the
band Queens of the Stone Age.
The band is nominated for best
rock album (Villains). Known as
“Mickey Shoes,” Shuman grew up
in the Los Angeles area, where
he went to Hebrew school. He
had a small part as a bar mitzvah
boy in The Wedding Singer, a hit
Adam Sandler film. Queens
began in 1996 and Schuman
joined in 2007, replacing Alan
Johannes. Johannes left when his
wife, Natasha Shneider, another
Queens member, became ill
with (terminal) cancer. Shneider,
her brother and her parents
(who were Soviet-era musical
stars) were allowed to leave the
Soviet Union in 1976. An amaz-
ingly multi-talented musician,
Natasha Shneider, who passed
away in 2008, remains one of the
few women in a major hard-rock
band.
The band The National is
nominated for best alternative
music album (Sleep Well Beast).
The five-member group includes

Bryce and Aaron Dessner

Jorge Drexler

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January 25 • 2018

twin brothers Bryce and Aaron
Dessner, 41.
Bob Dylan, 76, is nominated
for best traditional pop vocal
album (Triplicate) and the late
Leonard Cohen is nominated
for best rock performance (“You
Want It Darker”). Cohen is also
nominated for best American
Roots performance (“Steer Your
Way”).
It’s fitting that Cohen and
Dylan are paired together, for
one last time, at the Grammys.
They were contemporaries who
had the air of biblical prophets
and, of course, they were often
called poets who were also song-
writers. Cohen began as a poet,
and judging by their respective
work on the printed page, he
probably deserved that title
more than Dylan . Nonetheless,
Cohen was very gracious when
Dylan won the Nobel Prize for
Literature shortly before Cohen’s
death in 2016.
Cohen didn’t become “big
public” famous until his 1984
song “Hallelujah” became a huge
hit following the inclusion of
Rufus Wainwright’s version in
the 2001 movie Shrek. But Dylan
heard Cohen sing the tune in
Paris in 1988 and, the next day,
told Cohen that he loved it.
Reports say they met up every
few years and that they truly
admired each other’s work and

jn

weren’t hesitant to tell each
other that.
Finally, Greg Kurstin, 48, is
nominated for an award he won
in 2017: producer of the year,
non-classical. Last year he won
mostly for his work producing
Adele; this year, it is mostly for
his work producing Beck, the
Foo Fighters and Sia. He is also
nominated for producing the
best song for a visual media —
“Never Give Up” from the Lion
soundtrack (and performed by
Sia).
The following is a list of Jews
nominated for Grammys that
probably won’t be given on TV. It
isn’t a complete list, but it covers
some biggies and is also meant
to highlight a few Jews in musical
genres not normally associated
with Jewish folks.
Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Before
Seinfeld), 63, and Sarah
Silverman (A Speck of Dust), 47,
are nominated for best comedy
album. All three albums nomi-
nated for best musical theater
album have Jewish nominees
— Come from Away, composed
by David Hein, 35ish, and
Irene Sankoff, 35ish; Dear Evan
Hansen, composed by Benj
Pasek, 32, and Justin Paul, and
featuring the voices of Ben Platt
and Rachel Bay Jones, 48; and
Hello, Dolly! composed by Jerry
Herman, 86, and featuring the

Ben Platt

voice of Bette Midler, 72.
Similarly, all the songs nomi-
nated for best song written for
a visual media include Jewish
nominees: “City of Stars” from La
La Land was composed by Justin
Hurwitz, 32, Pasek and Paul;
“I Don’t Want to Live Forever”
from Fifty Shades Darker was
co-produced by Jack Antonoff;
“Stand up for Something” from
Marshall was written by Diane
Warren, 61; and, as noted above,
“Never Give Up,” produced by
Greg Kurstin.
Jorge Drexler, 53, is nomi-
nated for best Latin rock, urban
or alternative album (Salvavidas
de Hielo). Drexler became the
first Uruguayan to win an Oscar
when he won the best song
Oscar in 2004. A medical doctor,
he has been Grammy-nominated
four times before. Anat Cohen,
38, a clarinetist, saxophone play-
er and bandleader is nominated
for best Latin jazz album (The
Music of Moacir Santos) and for
best world music album (Rosa
Dos Ventos). Born and raised in
Tel Aviv, she resides in New York.
Noam Pikelny, 36, is nomi-
nated for best bluegrass album
(Universal Favorite). Considered
one of the best living banjo play-
ers, he has won many major
bluegrass awards, including the
Steve Martin Prize (he played
“Dueling Banjos” with Martin on