Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Jewish Music Review: Avraham Fried: Bein Kach U"Bein Kach

I would like to thank Sruly Meyer at Sameach Music for this pre-release album.

1) Matzliach Moshiach

Composed by Eliezer Kalish


Lively clarinet ( klezmer) intro here. This is a typical oompah freilach but they try to juice it up with different drum patterns through the song. I can see this being put in the frielach set at weddings.


Rating: 7 ½


2)Baishanim

Composed by Yossi Green

Eli Lishinsky arranged this song with a real Middle Eastern (Sephardic) flavor. You hear songs on many albums that try to capture some of that but this song hits closer to it. It has a nice bounce and if you like Sephardic music you will no doubt enjoy it.

Rating: 8

3) M’ noroh

Composed by Avraham Fried

Avraham Fried hits us for one of his own. It’s ok although he tries to spice things up at the end.

Rating: 6


4) Bein Kach U"Bein Kach

Composed by Avraham Fried and Benny Marcus

Starts off with a snapping finger swing style intro. This has to be one of the stranger songs you will ever hear Fried sing. Yuval Supal arranged it and he certainly has some interesting ideas about arrangements. It changes into a march and goes from Hebrew to English to Yiddish. Risks are good when they pay off: this song was just strange.

Rating: 5

5) Al Tiro

Composed Avraham Fried and Moshe Laufer

This intro is interesting it features some horses running (I think) and some intense piano vamping. The choir introduces the song and Fried takes over. The song is for the most part a rock/disco type.

Rating: 6


6) Father don’t Cry

Composed by Avraham Fried

To be fair most english songs are doomed from the start since they are generally cheesy and arranged badly. I really didn’t expect much but Avremi G. arranged this song excellently. The style is very contemporary and the song does not rhyme so it’s more of poem.

Rating: 8 ½

7) Malko D’olmo

Composed by Yossi Green

This is quite a different intro then you typically hear even from a chazzan type song on an album like this.
Fried went with Matthew Lazar to pull all the stops on a real serious cantorial choir intro.the song starts off as a ballad but a more freestyle cantorial one. It then moves into what could be called an oompah klezmer style. You certainly are not expecting the song to be headed in this direction. Fried was obviously going for a more classic sound from the altar heim.

Rating: 8

8) Lo Ovo

Composed by Yossi Green

A more contemporary style ballad. Starts off very simply with a piano accompaniment and moves into a rock ballad. The song ends with choir (conducted by Mona Rosenblum ) and a heavy rock ending.

Rating: 7

9) Shetita!

Composed by Eliezer Kalish

This hora starts with another arrangement by Yuval Stupal going for the Middle Eastern flair.
This song is arranged with a straight ahead hora feel with some drum breaks.


Rating: 7

10) G-D of Avraham

Composed by Nessie Niazoff

This yiddish song is a ballad that picks up pace to become an oompah frielach and back again to a ballad.It’s also the longest song featured on this album (7:04).

Rating: 7 ½

11) Nu Nu Nu

Composed by Avraham Fried

This song changes quite a bit starts out as some kind of 16 beat disco intro. Then becomes a moderate rock and changes to frielach back to rock then breaks for a bridge featuring a capella then back to rock with horns then back to frielach…you get the picture

Rating: 7




12) Kol Ho’oseik

Composed by Rabbi Hillel Palei

A slow ballad featuring acoustic guitars which picks up with drums about halfway through.

Rating: 6

13) B’zu Hasho’oh

Composed by Pinky Weber

Ruvi benet arranges this lively freilach and does a nice job bringing us the rock vibe in the middle.It’s nice to end this album on a strong note as this is probably one of the better songs on the album.

Rating: 8


Synopsis: This album is no Chazak but it certainly has its high points. The choir is quite good and the different arrangers each bring something new to the table. The problem is of course the songs, Yossi Green is not putting out the same quality material and I have yet to see someone putting out consistently good material come to the plate. You also must remember I haven’t heard this album that many times so don’t take my word for it check out the samples and make your own judgement. Overall it’s a pretty good album.

4 comments:

A Simple Jew said...

"To be fair most english songs are doomed from the start since they are generally cheesy and arranged badly."

I agree with you on this point 100%!

AS said...

glad to hear we agree brother :)

AS said...

Really...ever heard of REM?

Samuel Zamora said...

Description:
More than three years in the making, Avraham Fried's long awaited recording is finally here and features 13 phenomenal songs performed in a variety of styles. Also included is a bonus music video clip of his hit song "Father Don't Cry" (playable in your Windows compatible computer).bet basketball 1997 was the year that Chazak was released. Since then, Avraham Fried has released 2 new albums plus 2 singles, none of which has come close to the impact that Chazak had. Songs like Dida Bei and Chazak are hard to come by, and Fried two albums since then have fallen short. Does Bein Kach U’Bein Kach break this trend?
Bein Kach U'Bein Kach is a more traditional Jewish album with a large focus on freilach songs. The first song Matzliach Moshiach and the last song B'zu Hasho'oh are both freilach tunes, and throughout the album ballads switch to slow freilach. I commend Fried on integrating more freilach songs into this album. Lately, many yeshivish albums have concentrated on mostly disco and rock tunes and ignored the core Jewish style, freilach.sportsbook Although Fried did integrate more freilach, I don't see these tunes being played at weddings. Although Fried does a great job singing these songs as usual, the tunes and arrangements themselves are just all right. The drummer on these tracks is Ron Vered (who else?) or Asher Pedi who sounds just like Vered, and there always seems to be something missing from their freilach feel - the fills just don't fit the style and the core style itself is very rigid for this extremely upbeat groove. It's times like this that I miss Rick Cutler, who has a great freilach feel with tasteful fills. Also missing is Yaron Gershovsky on freilach. Instead, Yaron Gotfried covers piano for these tracks, and he doesn't add anywhere near the amount of energy that Gershovsky would have added.march madness The rest of the fast tunes are 2 rock songs, and one of each hora, old style hora and quasi- swing. It's interesting to note that this album doesn't have any disco tunes. Baishanim, composed by Yossi Green is an old style hora that is very pleasant to listen to. The arrangement is Sefardi style complete with tasteful percussion, clean guitar, and pitch bent strings EQed to perfection. Bein Kach is a quasi-swing, and I'm not sure why this song is the title song, except for the lyrics. Fried sings the chorus in Hebrew, English, Yiddish, and then...French. Why French? Shetitah! is a hora, also done Sefardi style. The tune, composed by Eliezer Kalish, is catchy and has original lyrics. The only problem is that there is no real high part, or chorus, to this tune. The B section sounds like a middle section that should lead to a third section, but it doesn't. As it is the B section rhythm is very similar to the A section and doesn't "go high" enough. This song could have been great, as it is, it's just good. Al Tiro, the first rock song is an average tune. Nu Nu Nu is a little more original, but doesn't reach near the level of Chazak. http://www.enterbet.com