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Ramon Tasat - News & Reviews

TESHUVA: Liturgical Explorations for the Days of A

A review of the CD featuring Ramón Tasat, Cesar Lerner and Marcelo Moguilevsky

by Cantor Sam Weiss

The most recent album by Ramón Tasat signals a noteworthy phase in the evolution of this energetic and prolific concert and recording artist. Over the course of his previous twelve collections Tasat has researched, arranged and lent his poignant singing to a wide range of Sephardic, Israeli, Italian and other liturgical and secular songs. Many of the earlier albums featured collaborations with other vocalists and instrumentalists that went beyond merely supplementing his own fine guitar accompaniments. On this thirteenth recording, however, Tasat takes his penchant for tapping the creativity of others to a new level of artistic synergy. Cesar Lerner and Marcello Moguilevsky, friends of Tasat from his native Argentina who form the talented duo Klezmer en Buenos Aires, have joined forces with him to create an outstanding Jewish fusion album -- born of a fruitful combination of musical sensibilities rather than of specific styles or genres.

The selections on Teshuva are a mix of familiar and tuneful Ashkenazic liturgical pieces, a few original compositions or adaptations, and the Sephardic favorite El Nora Alila. The album's primary unifying element is the texts, which come from the High Holiday Service or otherwise relate to the theme of religious introspection. But the familiarity of the source material is only the first step in this artistic venture. The intimate congregation of Tasat, Moguilevsky and Lerner transforms these prayers into bold personal explorations marked by many musical leaps of faith.

The three musicians give every piece the time and attention it deserves, blending the spirit of each song with their own personas. Much as Leib Glantz shattered the mold of the "Golden Age" Hazzanic recitative with his intensely personal approach to improvisation and word-painting, Tasat has opened a new path in the performance of popular liturgical songs. He "wails" the Hebrew lyrics with the soul of a cantor and the abandon of a jazzman, although his improvisations and phrasing are not rooted in either of these two musical traditions. Indeed, his interpretations are the perfect vocal counterparts of Lerner and Moguilevsky's famed instrumental virtuosity -- intriguing musical communication that owes allegiance to no genre.

If we may draw an analogy to the religious penitent who seeks to revoke his past deeds, on this album Ramon Tasat is the musical Ba'al Teshuva who seems eager to cast off the strictures of his bel canto reputation, in search of truer self-expression and the expression of the meanings of his chosen texts. For instance, the duo's avant-jazz dissonances, growlings, and squealing embolden the singer towards sprechstimme and other departures from the vocal technique one would have expected on the basis of his earlier recordings. The instrumental commentaries to the texts and melodies (a more descriptive term than "arrangements") are usually enriching and on the mark, though exceptions do arise. For example, the brief "crying" klezmer clarinet riff in the somber setting of Ben-Zion Shenker's Mizmor L'David (Psalm 23) registers on the listener as a "laughing" clarinet, in juxtaposition to Tasat's simultaneous true crying.

Mizmor L'David ends with a vocal and instrumental extension of the final words L'orekh Yamim (underscoring their meaning of "the length of days" or "forever"). The last note of this coda leads seamlessly into the first note of an almost nine-minute elaboration of the folk-tune version of Avinu Malkeinu. (While the trio's version of Avinu Malkeinu is a masterpiece of heartfelt prayer, due to the sparse instrumentation on this CD, a few of the other extended passages can register on some listeners as a bit self-indulgent.) Other favorites of mine are the Bluesy and strikingly fresh Yehi Ratzon, and the quasi-symphonic Hayom T'amtzenu -- in which the traditional banal repetitions of the word Hayom are deconstructed into motivic material for an extended composition.

Teshuva is admittedly a serious musical work; nevertheless some of the songs suffer from overly lachrymose performances. This can be due to the particularly plaintive timbre of Tasat's tenor voice, but often it is a result of a deliberate artistic approach. (The adaptation of Sim Shalom to the theme from Schindler's List, while not typical, speaks to the underlying aesthetics of the entire CD.) A doleful singing style is especially questionable when it is not supported by the meaning of the text (e.g. Tasat's original setting of Pithu Lanu Sha'are Tzedek) or when it is at odds with Lerner and Moguilevsky's more playful gestures (for example on Hamol Al Ma'asekha). Tasat finally provides much-needed emotional release by matching the vivacity of the duo in the closing Hassidic Kaddish Shalem. Compared to the rest of the album, perhaps the treatment of this joyous tune is overly giddy, even though it is done with the same musical intelligence that marks this entire recording.

Like the person on the road to Teshuva, this is an album about embarking, about striving to be what one is not yet. For the listener, this musical journey is an exhilarating one well worth taking.
It is available at http://www. ramontasat/rtrecord.html

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