The Polina Shepherd Vocal Experience feat. Quartet Ashkenazim: Baym Taykh

Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Spring, 2008 by Chris Nickson

THE POLINA SHEPHERD VOCAL EXPERIENCE FEAT. QUARTET ASHKENAZIM

Baym Taykh

Oriente 64

You have to love an album that starts off with the inspired madness of the wordless "Ai Yai-Yai." But it's quite atypical of this album, which is all new Yiddish songs, the lyrics taken from poems and set to music by pianist and Shepherd. However, if you're expecting something akin to klezmer, you're in for a surprise. There are elements of that here, but for the most Part, this casts its musical net wider and more amorphously. With some ingenious and inspired arrangements, the singers and musicians do a sterling job (kudos to Merlin Shepherd, who not only sings and plays several instruments but also produced the disc). There's plenty of depth to the words, as you might expect from poetry (luckily, .there's an English translation), but the most important thing about this album is the way it helps revitalize Yiddish music, intent on making it a vibrant artistic force once more, as it was in the 1920s and '30s. The difference is that this really doesn't hark back, but views Yiddish music as something very contemporary and alive. It's a shining experience, one that's by turns wistful, joyous, introspective and melancholy. A new direction for Yiddish music? Time will tell.--CN