New Guests at Passover

“Music is a world within itself

With a language we all understand.”

--Stevie Wonder, 1977

*

Picture the scene: A reggae singer in dreadlocks, a full-voiced Jewish cantor and a West African drumming ensemble are holed up in a CalArts recording studio in serene Valencia trying to collaborate on a song. Where or how do they begin to fuse these dizzying genres of music into something that is both pleasing to the ear and true to the traditions of their respective sounds?

The answer comes by way of 40-year-old Alan Eder, a specialist in African and reggae music at CalArts. On Saturday, Eder, who works as a piano technician at the school, will lead the Pesach Posse, an eclectic ensemble consisting of a West African drumming group, African dance troupe, reggae band and several cantors. The 21 dancers, musicians and singers, some of whom are CalArts staff or students, will perform music from their CD, “Reggae Passover,” in the school’s Graduation Courtyard.

A Fulbright Scholar who studied in Nigeria, the pony-tailed Eder performed a similar show called “Reggae Hanukkah” at the Skirball Cultural Center in December. “The music is traditional Passover music with Hebrew texts, arranged for the composition of our ensemble,” Eder said.

Pesach is the transliteration of the Hebrew word for Passover, which is a weeklong celebration of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and their escape from bondage. This year, the holiday commences with the ritual Seder meal on Monday evening.

Focusing on tearing down the religious, racial and musical fences that divide blacks and Jews, Eder put together the band in the fall of 1995. Like Stevie Wonder, Eder believes that music is the one language understood by people from around the globe. He admits, though, that while the concept of a unified musical front might sound good on paper it wasn’t easy to achieve in the studio.

The album “came out sounding very natural, but that doesn’t happen by accident,” Eder said, while sitting in an airy conference room at CalArts. “You have to know where you want to be in the end with this process. . . . You have to have something to build on so you can get there. I had a vision, but I didn’t have a road map that was rigid.”

The upbeat jam sessions in the studio worked well, but Eder had to sacrifice a bit of each style to come up with a sound that kept intact the essence of each influence. He and his longtime mentor, drummer Kobla Ladzekpo, an integral part of the project, have been working together for more than 20 years, since Eder was a student at UCLA. Ladzekpo is one of West Africa’s most respected drummers and also serves as director of the UCLA African Ensemble and as co-director of the CalArts African Ensemble.

“Everyone is a specialist but they had to extend themselves and learn,” Eder said. “Kobla, an African drummer, learned how to sing some of these traditional Passover songs. The cantors, who are lead singers, had to learn some African rhythms, which was very challenging for them. Musically, I just made it clear to everybody that this is a collaborative project, and you just can’t come in and do your one thing.”

The album cover features a Star of David placed among traditional African colors--red, green and gold--and the blue and white of the Israeli flag.

The idea of producing what he jokingly refers to as an “Afro-fusion high-life” album happened by accident. While his family sat at its traditional Passover Seder, Eder began to think of African rhythms that sounded similar to the Hebrew songs they sang.

Soon he was adding an electric bass or cowbells to the music. The demand for tapes by his friends made Eder visualize a full-length album.

“What’s blown my mind is the kids and old people in their 70s and 80s,” Eder said of the reaction he’s received to the project. “One surprise has been among the Orthodox Jews. I thought they would all just say ‘blasphemy’ and slam it, but a number of them loved it and responded favorably. I think they recognize the essence of tradition being furthered and revitalized. They have no problem with the fact that I have mixed the cultures, only with the technicality that some of them can’t use electricity when they are observing a holiday.”

One of the album’s highlights is a quirky but stylish original reggae composition called “Four More Questions (Peanut Butter and Jelly on Your Matzah).” With a backdrop of horns and cowbells, singer Patti Linsky asks: “Do you like peanut butter and jelly on your matzah?”

Throughout the album, the artists are allowed to test their own musical boundaries. If one element is their bonding point, it is the drummer.

“What this record is about, despite the horn sections and the guitars, which people like a lot, is the drummers,” Eder said. “Every one of these pieces has some heavy drumming in it of one kind or another. So that’s one of the elements of cohesion from piece to piece, even though the styles vary a lot.

“The drum is the center of African culture,” Eder said. “And I’m among those who believe that Africa is the center of humanity. So if there’s one instrument that we are all going to relate to, that’s going to be at the hub of the musical, cultural or even spiritual wheel, it’s going to be a drum. A drum that came from Africa. And if it’s a drum set, it still goes back to Africa if you trace its ancestry.”

Whether his fusion works well has yet to be determined by the crowd’s reaction at the group’s first public performance, but Eder will be forever satisfied with exploring new musical ground.

“You have to do something from the heart,” he said. “Put it out there and understand that as an artist you are taking a risk. Someone might not like it, and they might shoot you down. But you have to take the chance in turning people on to something they didn’t even know was possible. It’s been very gratifying personally and spiritually in doing this project.”

BE THERE

Pesach Posse plays Sat., 4 p.m., in the Graduation Courtyard at CalArts, 24700 McBean Parkway, Valencia. Admission is free. For information, call (805) 253-7832.