This was a fantastic concert and an excellent music forum.  We will find a
way to work together again!

You guys were awesome! Everything about the night - the musicianship, 
song selections, originality, spontaneity, etc. - was perfect.

--anonymous mildly pleased audience member, Baltimore , 3.09

What a fabulous concert last night at TBI!!

I'm a music teacher and mom of a Bel Canto Prep Chorister. I had a wonderful time watching your group perform, and I loved it even more when your group was working with the choirs. There were so many different levels to appreciate: the musicianship and comaradarie of your group, your desire to share your music, your wonderful rapport with the kids. I think one of the things I enjoyed the best was how you and your group were able to make a "different" music so accessible; as a fairly white, square mom, it was an awful lot of fun to see these white, square kids being pulled out of their box. and enveloped by the music.

Thanks very much for your work with Bel Canto, and I wish you all the best of luck!

Tracy Calvaresi

Atzilut / Souls on Fire: Music for the Kabbala, 1996, ArcMusic Long before more recent bands such as Davka or Pharaoh's Daughter began working with Middle Eastern rhythms and Jewish spiritual music, Atzilut was exploring what they call "Music for the Kabbala." On this outing, the band even pulled in Arab classical master musician Simon Shaheen, with from texts from the zohar, Isaac Luria, and other sources in the Jewish mystical tradition. Cantor Jack Kessler's deep, resonant voice, playing against Shaheen's violin, and the entire ensemble, is amazing! The result is music that gets deeper the longer that you listen, but that is also a relaxing pleasure the first time through. The music, although primarily Middle Eastern in feel, also explicitly draws from klezmer, balkan, and Jewish folk traditions, as in a "Hallelu-Yah" that is, ecstatically, praise unto the Lord; as well as from Arabic music, as in the case of the Luria text welcoming the Sabbath and its mystic possibilities set to a melody by Sheikh Abd Al Rahim Al Masloub. [GRADE: A]

ATZILUT: CONCERTSFORPEACE.COM

Philadelphia cantor Jack Kessler is involved in music that ranges from nusakh to Yiddish folk music to the Middle Eastern modes of Atzilut. On this latest group project, he has enlisted Maurice Chedid on Arabic vocals and oud, taking a fusion of Jewish and Arabic music that dates back over 1000 years and updating it in a modern American context.

Chedid's warm voice starts things off very well with the CD opener, "Fo Rusnic". Although the ensemble is perhaps more percussion-heavy and lacks the massed violins of classic Arabic music, the result is still interesting and well-done. Kessler's powerful sonorities provide an interesting, more trance-ish counter to Chedid's warmth. It is especially interesting is that this is not traditional North African Jewish nusakh, but rather (to my inexpert ears) very Indian subcontinent-influenced melody. So we have the fascinating and very pleasant (if anachronistic?) listening of traditional Arabic music fused with Jewish Indian chant. Thus, "Shira" starts off with a gentle, Arabic sounding melody, and then as Kessler's voice gains strength, moves into a more repetitive, strongly sung meditation mode, punctuated by deliciously gentle oud solo. The joining together of both men's voices on the final "Hinei Mah Tov/Ma Achla'a" is so ood that I only wish they did it more often on the CD. Atzilut might best be thought of as a Jewish spiritual jam band. The fusion with more traditional Arabic singing is quite invigorating and (of course!) fits perfectly and sends a message very worth pondering at a time when we are once again more hopeful about the prospect for peace in the Middle East. As we listen to Kessler's deep baritone intone "G-d is in this place and I did not know" (Yesh Adonai ba-makom ha-zeh/v'anokhi lo ya-dati) that seems especially poignant. As the instrumentals take their breaks jamming with his voice, both peace and G-d's presence seems especially credible and beautiful a notion.

It was a fantastic concert, we loved the band!