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Tag: Jesse Waldman

Connect with music

Connect with music

The Oot n’ Oots band helps launch Mission Folk Music Festival. (photo from Mission Folk Music Festival)

Family band the Oot n’ Oots helps kick off the Mission Folk Music Festival on July 21, as part of the main-stage lineup that opens the weekend of concerts and workshops. Several other Jewish community members are also participating over the weekend, including Boris Sichon, Jesse Waldman and Abigail Lapell, who helps close out the annual event on the evening of July 23.

The theme of this year’s festival builds on last year’s, said artistic director Michelle Demers Shaevitz, also a member of the Jewish community.

“In 2022,” she said, “I programmed a festival that reflected the experience of homecoming, the coming back together of our community, our festival family. This year, I’m digging into the process and ideas of connection and reconnection, as we move through our experiences beyond that initial homecoming and return to the festival. For me, the idea of reconnection speaks to getting to know who we are as a community post-pandemic and how we have changed/emerged as a result of our experiences.

“I was drawn to our 2023 artists through the ways they express their connection to their homelands, their languages, their heritage and cultures, and musical traditions,” she continued. “It’s how Okan celebrates their roots to their homeland of Cuba and her languages and stories, while Terra Spencer sings of the Maritime landscapes and communities around her.

“It could be reconnecting to language, as Cedric Watson and Jourdan Thibidoux explore their roots in the Creole community based in Louisiana alongside Wesli, who sings in his Haitian Creole of home and in French from his newly adopted community in Quebec.

“It’s the ways that Leonard Sumner and Twin Flames sing their connections to their heritage or how Alysha Brilla presents her identity in her songs.”

And, she said, it’s how the Jewish musicians weave their Jewishness into their stories and songs.

screenshot - Boris Sichon on TikTok, playing an instrument he made himself
Boris Sichon on TikTok, playing an instrument he made himself. (screenshot)

Sichon, a classically trained percussionist, plays more than 400 different instruments from around the world, many of which would send most of us to the internet to find out what they are, such as mayuri, zurna and agogo bells. He can also make music from wrenches, plastic containers, kitchen bowls and even rocks – basically, anything. His TikTok videos are quite entertaining and mind-broadening. It’s easy to see why he is in demand for school and other educational workshops. He told the Independent he is currently “in the process of preparing a new program with an accent on voice and wind instruments.”

“I love to perform for kids,” he said. “It gives them an opportunity to travel around the world with exotic musical instruments.”

In performances, Sichon sings songs about “love, friendship and freedom [in] Ukrainian, Gypsy, Russian and Yiddish.” He also plays klezmer, and has taken part in the International Klezmer Festival in Jerusalem for many years. He has played at and collaborated with the Mission folk fest many times and, at this year’s festival, he takes part in a Sunday afternoon session, called Global Routes, with Dongyang Gozupa and Robin Layne & the Rhythm Makers.

photo - Jesse Waldman
Jesse Waldman (photo from Mission Folk Music Festival)

Earlier that Sunday afternoon, Waldman takes to the stage as well. A blues and folk artist, the Independent spoke with him ahead of his participation in the 2019 festival (jewishindependent.ca/blues-klezmer-at-mission). A couple of years ago, he shared more about himself and the importance of family in a piece for the JI about being inspired by his great-grandmother, Adele Waldman, to reimagine the Yiddish song “Papirosen” (jewishindependent.ca/a-great-grandmothers-song).

Making her debut at the Mission Folk Music Festival is Lapell, with a shared session on Saturday (with Alysha Brilla) and on Sunday (with Terra Spencer), as well as being part of the festival closing concert. She said “there’s so much great music on the lineup – personally, I’m especially excited for the workshop stages, to have a chance to collaborate with and get inspired by artists from across Canada and beyond.”

Based in Toronto, Lapell’s latest album, Stolen Time, which came out last year, earned her a 2023 Canadian Folk Music Award for English songwriter of the year. She was similarly recognized in 2020 for her album Getaway and she received a CFMA for contemporary album of the year in 2017 for Hide Nor Hair.

“I’m always trying to challenge myself as a writer and collaborator,” she said. “I’ve had the chance to work with so many great players and personnel on these albums and I think it’s really helped me grow from one project to the next.”

Lapell has always sung.

“Singing and writing songs is very intuitive to me and definitely a big source of comfort and community,” she said. “Ultimately, I think it’s such a primal thing, singing and sharing music – for me, it’s a way of connecting with myself, with nature and with the world at large.”

photo - Abigail Lapell
Abigail Lapell (photo by Jen Squires)

Her Jewishness finds its way into her work subtly.

“I find my writing is infused with a lot of biblical and natural imagery,” she said. “I’m very drawn to stylized, sometimes repetitive language, whether prayerful or playful or both. I was raised in a religious Jewish family, and I think there’s a reverent spirit to my music – and sometimes a touch of gentle dissonance or wry humour – that reflects some of the Hebrew and Yiddish traditions I grew up with.”

For the Oot n’ Oots – 16-year-old Ruthie Cipes (voice, ukulele) with her dad Ezra (voice, guitar, keys) and uncles Ari (voice, guitar, keys), Gabe (voice, bass) and Matthew (voice, drums) – Judaism and Jewish community are important parts of their lives, but don’t necessarily influence their music.

“We’re grateful for the wisdom of our ancestors and the culture bestowed since Abraham,” wrote Ezra and Ari in an email interview with the Independent. “It’s a great gift that makes our lives rich and meaningful. We’re members of the Okanagan Jewish Community and supporters of Chabad Okanagan.”

The family lives in Kelowna.

“Our parents moved us from Westchester County in New York to Kelowna, B.C., in 1987,” said the brothers. “They wanted to get off the money-go-round and be farmers living in connection with the earth. They ended up founding Summerhill Estate Winery.”

The Oot n’ Oots was formed in 2007, when Ruthie was born, “but it really got going in 2015 once Ruth joined the band. We released our first album in 2016, although it was mostly recorded back in 2007. Then we made two more albums after our elder brother Matthew joined the band on drums.”

The group is currently recording their fourth album. Their third album, Ponderosa Bunchgrass and the Golden Rule, was nominated for a 2023 CFMA for children’s album of the year and it also garnered a 2022 Juno Award nomination – they were named Children’s Artist of the Year at the 2022 Western Canadian Music Awards.

“We write songs to make each other laugh and to inspire each other. That’s what we’ve always done and it’s what we continue to do,” said the brothers. “It’s a practice that’s ongoing. We want it to continue to be meaningful as we all grow.”

While the awards may refer to children’s music, the Oot n’ Oots describe their music as “all generations together music.”

“That’s the sweet spot for us – when it’s toddlers, teenagers, parents and grandparents all on the dancefloor together,” said Ezra and Ari. “We have a couple of other musical projects that we do, but the Oot n’ Oots is our focus because it seems to provide the most tangible value, and it feels really good to bring that energy of joy to the world.”

In addition to the festival opener, the Oot n’ Oots play a few sessions with other musicians over the weekend, which takes place at Fraser River Heritage Park. The festival includes food and artisan market vendors, as well as a licensed bistro, and attendees can choose to camp in the park for an additional fee. For the full lineup and tickets, visit missionfolkmusicfestival.ca.

Format ImagePosted on July 7, 2023July 6, 2023Author Cynthia RamsayCategories MusicTags Abigail Lapell, Boris Sichon, Jesse Waldman, Michelle Demers Shaevitz, Mission Folk Music Festival, Oot n’ Oots
Blues, klezmer at Mission

Blues, klezmer at Mission

Gabriel Paquin-Buki, far right, founded the band Oktopus, which started performing in 2010. (photo by Rémi Hermoso)

Among the Jewish performers at this year’s Mission Folk Music Festival, July 26-28 at Fraser River Heritage Park, are Vancouver’s Jesse Waldman and Montreal’s Gabriel Paquin-Buki. For both musicians, family has been a key inspiration.

Waldman is a guitarist, singer-songwriter, studio producer, sound designer, and film and TV composer. Originally from Thornhill, Ont., just north of Toronto, his bio describes a cassette of his grandmother singing the Yiddish folk song Papirosen to his mother as one of his “most cherished possessions.”

“That recording was from the late ’50s, most likely 1957,” Waldman told the Independent. “My family had one of the first consumer-level tape recorders, they also had one of the first eight-millimetre film cameras, too. They always loved documenting the family, taking time capsule-like snapshots to cherish and enjoy later on in life.

“The recording of that particular song – which is about a young girl selling cigarettes on a street corner – has a beautifully haunting melody. I believe my grandmother learned it from her mother, my great-grandmother. At some point, it was transferred onto a stereo cassette recorder and a few copies were made. The same tape also contains interviews with my mother, a toddler at the time, and other family members, since passed away.”

A guitar he found in his parents’ basement also played a part in the start of his musical career.

“The guitar was an old beat-up nylon-string classical guitar that belonged to my Aunt Sherri,” said Waldman. “Actually, I suspect it belonged to one of her ex-boyfriends. I figured out how to play ‘Smoke on the Water’ on one string and was hooked for life! That was back in 1989.”

Waldman made his way to Vancouver in 1995 “on a whim,” he said. “I wanted to go somewhere where no one knew me and reinvent myself. From the moment I saw the mountains and smelled the ocean, I instantly felt at home. Then, after meeting the people and getting a feel for the laidback vibe of the West Coast, I was sold on Vancouver.”

For Paquin-Buki, whose group Oktopus began performing in 2010, it was his father who introduced him to klezmer.

“My father was born into a Polish Jewish family and has carried klezmer music with him all his life. His transmission to me of this cultural legacy occurred quite naturally. The cassettes he would play in the family car, the klezmer recordings during parties at our home, the live bands at family weddings and those rare times he would play songs on the piano were enough for me to access the roots of this musical tradition,” said Paquin-Buki.

“As it is for many children, I believe it was the rhythm of this music that excited me. The recordings we listened to were mostly of fast songs and, for me, were synonymous with joy. My love for this music today has so many facets! When we listen to klezmer, we can somehow feel the richness of the Jewish people’s millennial history and hear their encounters with musicians from all over the planet and across centuries. Also, major-minor ambivalence in the main klezmer scale (the freygish) embodies the dichotomy between laughter and tears so characteristic of Jewish culture. And it’s always fun music to play.”

Waldman has similar views. “I’ve always enjoyed klezmer music,” he said. “The mile-a-minute dance numbers, the sorrowful ballads and the cheeky vocals. Many klezmer compositions use melodies based on the harmonic minor scale, which includes a minor third and a major seven, which makes it sound particularly haunting and mournful to me. In terms of culture, all of my band mates in my early days were Jewish. I definitely cut my teeth with fellow Jews who know the delights of Shabbos dinner and a good bagel with lox and cream cheese!”

photo - Jesse Waldman
Jesse Waldman (photo by Jodie Ponto)

While he enjoys klezmer, Waldman’s music is predominantly folk and blues. “I love the sound, the rawness and heavy emotional weight of those styles,” he explained. “I also love the storytelling aspect of it, specific life experiences, places and relationships. Real folk and blues is unique to each artist but also has a tradition of carrying classic songs through the generations. I also love how blues has a way of transforming deep pain into something beautiful.”

Waldman’s debut album, Mansion Full of Ghosts, which was released in 2017, is described as “an exploration of the city’s vast duality, a backdrop of beauty mirrored by a fierce underbelly and a need to keep a light on in the dark.” It includes songs about his neighbourhood, the Downtown Eastside, and, in talking about what drives him to make socially conscious music, he said, “I think mostly my compassion for other people, particularly those less fortunate than myself. I also yearn to connect with people on a deeper level and music and honest lyrics are a good way to achieve that.”

Among the talent featured on that album is his partner, Megan Alford. Currently, the two are working on a recording of her music, Field Guide to Wildflowers, scheduled for an early 2020 release. “My role is producer and guitar player,” said Waldman. “She is an outstanding songwriter with a great voice and poignant and deeply personal lyrics. We’ve been working together for a couple years now and the songs have really come to life.”

As can blues music, klezmer holds space for both happiness and sadness. In addition to being a musician, Paquin-Buki holds a master’s degree in comparative literature. In his first semester, he took two courses that focused on literature from the concentration camps. Le Verfügbar aux enfers (The Lowest-Class Worker Goes to Hell), written by Germaine Tillion, a prisoner at Ravensbrück, particularly caught his attention. “This work has a substantial musical dimension and contains a lot of humour…. I was very keen on exploring this taboo subject of laughter and the Holocaust and especially on trying to understand what its benefits were and what shapes it could subsequently take…. For the time being, there is no direct connection between this topic and Oktopus’s music but, in performance, it allows me to flesh out historical intros between pieces. It also adds a new dimension to these tears that are halfway between laughter and sorrow, since klezmer music – and particularly the clarinet – reproduces vocal inflections that convey laughter and sorrow.

“I would very much like to compose a piece based on one of the works I used in my thesis, ‘La danse de Gengis Cohn.’ I also have a mind to add a work from KZ Muzik, a vast box set recording that traces and publishes many works composed in concentration camps. But, overall, the fact remains that my own academic project on such a profound and terrifying topic has changed my general view of the world and impacts everything I do.”

photo - Gabriel Paquin-Buki
Gabriel Paquin-Buki (photo by Julien Patrice)

Paquin-Buki is the driving force behind Oktopus’s mission to perpetuate klezmer. “By striving to perpetuate this musical tradition, I am keeping the culture of my ancestors alive and this is of special significance to me,” he said. “Nevertheless, since klezmer carries universal values, our approach also makes substantial room for the musical traditions of Quebec.”

Indeed, Oktopus combines elements of different cultures.

“The klezmer repertoire is so vast that we cannot possibly cover it all in our lifetimes,” said Paquin-Buki. “But we have also chosen to incorporate classical melodies – we are all classically trained and so we necessarily view klezmer through the lens of classical music, in the way our ears have been trained to hear it – as well as Quebec chansons [folk songs] and, sometimes, songs from other cultures around the world.

“Trying to somehow recreate these songs as they were played decades or even centuries ago is not really in line with our view of tradition, which is not a static concept for us. Tradition is something that evolves and so, in certain respects, we try to imagine what the klezmorim repertoire might have been like if they had settled in Montreal. They would have necessarily incorporated Québécois and Canadian songs and styles. Historically, klezmer absorbs the different cultures it encounters along its way, while staying true to its deep roots, which colour everything it touches. The important thing is to remain connected to those roots.”

One challenge in maintaining that connection for Paquin-Buki has been that his “classical training got in the way in some respects because klezmer is largely an oral tradition.” He couldn’t find any scores for a klezmer ensemble and, he said, “In the environment in which I functioned as a musician, nothing was possible without written-down notes. But, to make a long story short, I finally decided to write out the arrangements myself. They turned out very badly at the beginning, but with help and a lot of work, they evolved into something presentable.

“The group’s configuration,” he said of Oktopus, “is loosely based on what I heard on recordings of the Klezmer Conservatory Band: clarinet, violin, flute, trombone, tuba (now bass trombone), piano and drums. Back in 2009, I was not acquainted with that many musicians, so I recruited a few friends and other promising students from the faculty of music. The group began playing in 2010 – three pieces performed in a chamber music concert at the Université de Montréal. The following year, we were offered our first professional engagements.” Oktopus has two albums – Lever l’encre (2014) and Hapax (2017) – both of which were nominated for Juno and Canadian Folk Music awards.

Local Jewish community member Geoff Berner (jewishindependent.ca/songs-of-justice-and-of-hope and jewishindependent.ca/songs-with-meaning) is also on the Mission Folk Music Festival lineup this year. For more on the festival, visit missionfolkmusicfestival.ca.

Format ImagePosted on July 12, 2019July 10, 2019Author Cynthia RamsayCategories MusicTags blues, British Columbia, folk, Gabriel Paquin-Buki, Jesse Waldman, Mission Folk Music Festival, Oktopus
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