zelwel.com

my calling lately has been folk and experimental music

first the folk-

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

mizmor l’david- psalm 23- a traditional tune

then the experimental

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

scary music 1

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

scary music 2

anywho to book me solo or with a band (or for any other reason) write me an(/ a nice) e-mail at zelwel at hotmail dot com & thanks again for listening.

3 new lounge piano covers-

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

john barleycorn must die #1- fairport convention cover.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

john barleycorn must die #2- traffic cover.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

the robots- kraftwerk cover

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

+ something else somewhat more experimental- a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do or as one of the more inspirational characters of my life used to say- yashar yashar (untranslatable but it more or less means keep moving forward).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

here’s the traditional sephardic tune ‘morena’ again after some practice.

i’m sorry if this site has been sad for a while. it’s how i’m feeling. see… if i was an entertainer i would put on my happy face and try to sell it. but i’m not- presenter, yes, entertainer…. ????

i’m an artist and this is me and though it may not pay the mortgage (YET…. sue would say…..)… being like this, that is, it is what it is. i’m never going to be the guy that says I AM THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL BLA BLA BLA I DID THIS I DID THAT (because i feel what i do speaks for itself).

unfotunately that is what gets hired in the music biz … unless you’re just fabulous and everybody knows you (some of my friends are and that is encouraging….).

lately i’ve gotten into the habit of pairing melodic pieces with more experimental ‘noise’ pieces. so to go with ‘morena’ here is a noise piece. it’s called ‘narcissist vs empath’. (rough definition as used here- narcissism is about having it YOUR way. empathy is about bringing beauty to the world as you feel (for) others and have a sense of this. these two world views are diametrically opposed. they are repeating patterns and i see them in ‘art land’ all the time. in our sad fictional scenario here where each takes one side of the stereo loop the narcissist wins because he can yell the loudest. as a matter of fact he yells so loud that by the end the empath cannot be heard at all. since this is a work of fiction this all happens in less than 3 minutes.)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

in honor of cinco de mayo- ‘the wooly bully variations’. (‘wooly bully’ by sam the sham and the pharoahs, of course. and yes the sinfonia antarctica references are intentional.)

also i posted these to soundcloud last week-

‘unititled’. this is perc, e-perc, etc. sue calls some of this ‘pretty’.

‘hafinjan’ trad jewish-armenian folk tune. see http://www.hebrewsongs.com/?song=hafinjan for something about the song.

piece-o-day ‘in the machine’ a cri de couer in drone.

(the other nite i was at a show where most everything was like this. ’tain’t anything like mi yodea or gHOST project.)

mi yodea in rehearsal

eliezer kaplan, sue kaplan, ann gross rec apr 21 and apr 24, 2013 on a handheld zoom recorder

1) waterslide  (‘slide’ by kaplan, ‘mayim’ by amiran) 2) firn di machatonim aheim (brandwein) 3) im ninalu (trad) 4) cockeyed jenny/ zemer atik (barton bros/ kashtan & neeman) 5) heyser bulgar (brandwein) 6) los bilbilicos/ vayiven uziahu (trad/ zarai) 7) yedid nefesh (zweig & zweig) 8) mashiach hazaken (zarai/ ofek) 9) mayim (amiran)

this is stuff we’ve been messing with in rehearsals lately. i don’t think the recorded sound here really does this justice- not much i can do about that at this time. generally these podcasts will be built out of home or field recordings mostly done with a handheld zoom. so please don’t get hung up on the recordings and view the performances as the thing…

about this. this was recorded over two rehearsals and gives some insight into what we’ve been into lately. it’s interesting to me that there is only one original here- my ‘failed’ experiment with slide and mayim which became ‘waterslide’. the rest of this is covers. we come back to ‘mayim’ at the end but now as an independent tune which will probably show up in future shows. in fact when i started mi yodea one of my primary interests was to play the israeli dance music that my mother used to dance to and that i grew up with. there’s quite a bit of that here. in researching some of this i was surprised to find that ‘mashiach hazaken’ and ‘vayiven uziahu’ were written by the same composer- yochanan zarai.

we’re working as a trio now- keyboard and two percussionists. this (minimalism) presents a musical challenge which is not insurmountable (consider beat happening) but it is a challenge. mi yo would love to add a few more people who are willing to put in time and effort in the further development of this (and other) material.

mi yodea wuz here

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

here’s mi yodea (sue, ann, me) playing naftule brandwein’s ‘heyser bulgar’. sue and ann arranged the percussion based on an analysis we did of the original recording (on ‘king of klezmer clarinet’). fun stuff!

this is from ‘the compleat klezmer’. i might uh changed a few chords… but if you want to learn this music buy this book.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

piece-o-day ‘sunday morning edition’ loop ga roop stuff. i almost gave up a few times, but i’m still doing these. i think after 2+ years it’s become an exercise in self assertion.

related to this- new e-cd single- ‘all perc here is robots’
http://zelwel.bandcamp.com/track/all-perc-here-is-robots

then there’s my new weekly podcast- here is a link to the first one which features a jam i put together at the hollywood lounge in aug 2010-
http://zelwel1.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-21T06_07_41-07_00
even though things really began for me when mi yodea played out for the first time (5/24/2009) i realize i’ve been running around town making music since the late ’90′s and have recorded a lot of it. these podcasts will be based around archives from the fuzzy past to the here and now. the one i will be releasing next sunday will be based around the current version of mi yodea in rehearsal- playing old and new material. here’s a preview-

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

it’s the combo of my tune ‘slide’ with the traditional tune ‘mayim’. we call it ‘waterslide’. that’s sue on dumbek and voice, ann on bougarabou, and me on keys.

and finally a haiku-

bad ambassador
the last one i would have chose
from here to not there.

take care y’all. and people…. book me and/ or hire me please. need work- preferably in my field. thank you world.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

today’s piece-o-day- a pop tune (though i’ve only written words to the chorus) ‘find the kind’.

http://zelwel.bandcamp.com/track/postlude-america-roads
yesterday’s piece-o-day- ‘postlude (america roads)’- concluding the ‘just my lonely guitar’ e-cd.  the tune ‘america roads’ was written in 1984- in january of that year my dad died and i came back to miami (where my family was) from jerusalem, where i was living. that summer i wrote this tune on a broken acoustic guitar- somewhere i still have the original casette. the ‘postlude’ sort of dances around that tune… and then actually becomes it in the last minute.

for the longest time i wanted to do a solo guitar (e-)cd and i finally have one. the one i ended up with is pretty different from what i had in mind when i started out- thought it would be soundscapes and loops but…. nooooooo…. instead i end up with this, which is essentially a harmonics fest with the pod set on some variation of ‘trademark clean’ the whole way and not a soundscape in sight.

next solo project: ambient. see zelweldotcomguy youtube channel for plenty o’ previews of what might end up on that one…. but again- i’ll tell you if/ when i get here.

http://soundcloud.com/zelwel/an-a-space-loop
piece-o-day from 2 days ago- ‘an a space loop’. the lyrics here are : nehi nehi it’s a tribute to a soft drink i used to like when i was 16 (and a space where i used to drink it). except at one point there are other lyrics which say ‘this is part 3′ (that’s about 2/3 of the way in).