Is it something in the air? This morning, we got a heads-up about an exhibit coming to the CJM called "Jews on Vinyl"—which is about pretty much what you'd think it'd be about. Then, about five minutes later, we heard that Rob Tannenbaum (music editor of Blender) and David Fagin are coming to town with their latest revue, Good for the Jews. Coincidence?
"Jews on Vinyl" will turn the museum's diamond-shaped Yud gallery into (get this) a 1950s-style living room, to be hung with copies of album covers featured in the new book And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost. (Which easily wins our award for best book title EVER.) The show won't open till early February, but until then, just ponder some of the magical musical (and more) moments you might—if you're very, very lucky—be able to revisit at the gallery's two listening stations: Chubby Checker doing the Twist to "Hava Nagila," the Irving Fields Trio's classic "Mazeltov Merengue," Charlton Heston reading from the Old Testament... we almost can't wait.
Fortunately, you don't have to wait till February for Good for the Jews—Tannenbaum and Fagin will be at the Red Devil Lounge on December 26. Here's the show's tag line: "No songs about dreidels. No Israeli folk-dancing!" (And, we'd bet, no Mazeltov Merengues either.) Could there be any better way to escape the holiday schmaltz? We think not.
