‘Art and Soul’ Concert Features 7 Famed Cantors at University

It’s bound to be one of the hottest tickets since Paul McCartney or the Rolling Stones. Scalpers and ticket agencies alike are licking their chops and salivating in anticipation. Yes, it’s true. The Cantors are coming.

Well, maybe it’s not be the hottest ticket of the year, but the Dec. 16-17 appearances of seven of North America’s finest cantors at the University of Judaism (and the Stephen S. Wise Temple Dec. 18) has to be one of the rarer and more esoteric musical events of the year. And, in fact, tickets to Cantors are selling like hot potato latkes .

“In the most positive, these cantors are really living museums of a tradition,” said Dr. Michael Isaacson, who will conduct the cantors’ “back-up group,” the Michael Isaacson Chorale. “If one, for example, wants to know what it was like 75 years ago at the height of the modern cantorate, then one could get a good taste of that by coming to this concert.”

Why is that so special? Simply because cantorial singing is an endangered species. Since the early 1960s and the era’s rising interest in folk and popular music, Isaacson said, the tradition has been on the wane. What was once passed from father to son is being kept alive today by comparatively few singers--which is surprising, considering the one-time popularity of cantorial art, or, as it is known in Hebrew, hazzanut.

“After 1960, the whole mood of American Jewish music changed from cantorial music to lots of other things,” said Isaacson from his Encino home. “But it was for many years a thriving musical art. There are stories about Enrico Caruso going to hear a cantor named Yossele Rosenblatt, and saying, ‘I’m glad he’s into religion so I don’t have that competition.’ ”

Basically, cantorial singing is the art of taking a melodic formula or scale (in Hebrew: nusach ) and improvising on it.

Cantors must not only have naturally powerful voices, but a solid grounding in music theory and vocal technique, to say nothing of a solid grounding in Judaism. The cantor and the rabbi form a dual clergy in the Jewish faith: both are equally empowered, but the cantor, who predates the rabbi by 300 years, is considered the spiritual heart of the temple, and the rabbi the spiritual head.

“The golden age of cantors,” Isaacson said, “would have to be considered around 1880 to 1940. Basically, after the first wave of European Jews came to the United States around 1880, little synagogues began springing up around New York. And then, over the years, to compete with each other, to stay in business, as it were, they had to attract star cantors. The cantor became the draw!”

Kind of like a good house band?

“Right,” he laughed. “The synagogues used to steal them from one another. Great cantors used to do tours around America.”

And so they are doing it again--at least for this week. The lineup for “Art and Soul: A Concert with Seven of North America’s Greatest Cantors” includes Hazzan (Cantor) Paul Kowarsky and Hazzan Louis Danto, both of Toronto, ; Hazzan Isaac Goodfriend of Atlanta, Hazzan Abraham Lubin of Chicago, Hazzan Jacob Mendelson of New York, Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi of Cleveland and Hazzan Nathan Lam of Los Angeles. (Hazzan Daniel Gilder of Philadelphia will provide piano accompaniment.)

Several of these cantors have recently returned from singing in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union--where, Cantor Lam said, the synagogues were “overflowing.”

Is it correct to say that these seven men amount to a minor history lesson in cantorial singing and composition?

“Yes, it is,” said Isaacson. “It’s almost a smorgasbord of the cantorial art. All the cantors are known in their communities as premier artists. When you get them together, you also have to know there is a bit of--I don’t want to say showboating-- but they’re eager to show their wares for each other as well. And that’s what makes the concerts exciting, because it’s as if they’re having a jam session with each other.”

Lest the pop music term, “jam session,” seem entirely inappropriate, it is interesting to note that Cantor Lam is a well-known vocal coach for such non-cantorial singers as Lionel Richie, Motley Crue, Whitesnake, Belinda Carlisle (he produced the vocals for her first two solo albums), Brett Michaels of Poisson, Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, Tyne Daly, Marie Osmond and Donnie Osmond.

Any further connection between cantorial singing and pop music pretty much ends there, however.

“The hazzanut we will be doing,” said Lam, cantor for Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel-Air, “is really an outgrowth of the European Jewish expression; it has a lot of eastern European flavor Jewish music. We Jews tend to borrow things sometimes, so you will also hear a little bit of Middle East or Arabic sounds. If you listen sometimes to Spanish flamenco music, it has a little of that, too, because the Moors and Jews lived in Spain. And there is a certain operatic influence; there is a lot of melismatic and coloratura singing, meaning a lot of movement of the voice.”

Much of the concert will consist of ancient sacred Hebrew texts dating back 2,000 years, but there will also be a number of Yiddish language eastern European folk music composed in the last two centuries. Although all the songs are largely written out--a tradition that began in the 17th and 18th century--this does not mean they lack that most crucial hazzanut ingredient, improvisation.

“Even if music is written out,” explained Isaacson, “what is written out are the successful improvisations that have been passed down, generation to generation. The music began as improvisation, and then composers were called in to arrange it, and we have, in effect, a composition. It is very much as if someone notated a solo by Art Tatum. Even to have somebody play that in the style that it was once improvised is an art.”

And another, if less scholarly, cantorial art will be perpetuated at the concerts--the art of emulation.

“You have to remember,” said Isaacson, “that while one cantor is performing, the cantor that follows is in the wings, listening. And that’s why these concerts are just as important for the cantors as they are for the audience. Don’t forget this is an aural tradition, basically. So when they hear how one cantor treats a phrase, then they put that phrase in their bag of tricks. And a clever cantor incorporates it, and almost does one turn better.”

Some concert highlights:

* “ A Din Toyre Mit Got “ to be sung by Cantor Mizrahi, is an example of a traditional cantorial solo turned into a composition. A Yiddish folk song arranged by Erwin Jospe about 100 years ago, it tells the story of a dramatic confrontation between God and a rabbi on Yom Kippur. Its origin is more recent, within the last century.

* “ Hashkiveynu ,” an ancient Hebrew prayer to be sung by Cantor Lam that asks God to enable one to sleep at night in peace, and to wake up refreshed.

Despite the heavily liturgical nature of the music, Lam and Isaacson stressed that the concert is for Jew and non-Jew, cantorial music devotee and novice alike.

“There will be several different styles at the concerts,” said Isaacson. “In other words, different styles of famous cantors throughout history will be represented. For a person who has never been to a cantorial concert, it will be like being exposed to a whole environment that came before. Those who have been exposed have the fun of saying, ‘Oh yeah, he’s doing Yossele Rosenblatt,’ and so forth.”