Welcome to RootMusic.org
Root Music Vol. 1 is the first release by Hazzan Neil Blumofe. Root Music Vol. 1 contains almost 77 minutes of both sacred and traditional music. Based on traditional prayer modes, called nusakh, much of this music is improvised in the moment. Improvisation is a concept highly regarded in the art form of the sacred cantorial traditions. Interpreting in the moment brings the highest fulfillment of musical expression and precisely reflects the sobering experience of the Jew in the world -- to live as a Jew is to daily improvise one's life.
For a complete listing of the tracks, or to listen to selections from the album, please click here.
For a listing of the musicians, please click here.
To learn how you can purchase this album, please click here.
RootMusic.org will be updated in the coming weeks with more in-depth liner notes, selections from the album and probably some other stuff we have yet to imagine. We hope you enjoy the album.
From the liner notes by Hazzan Neil Blumofe:
In this sampling, the tuneful point of departure is musical traditions culled largely from the (recent) American experience of liturgical expression and received (timeless) tradition. This dissonance is usually termed Nusakh-America and informs the slippery balance between how we as sacred musicians develop an understanding of nusakh and how we transcribe our own music manuals for future generations, noting both our memory of history and our contemporary sensibilities. What does Jewish music sound like? What is Jewish sacred music? What makes the Jewish music experience unique? As we continue to question our normative modes of performance with spiritual thirst and musical expression, this dilemma of identity looms even larger. Assessing our threshold in articulating prayer, we are compelled to maintain both our liturgical words and the doxology of revealed expression. In this journey the words of A.J. Heschel leap to mind: "in the radiance of prayer we behold the worth of our efforts."
Hazzan Neil Blumofe - Austin, Texas May, 2002