Recording Review

Absolute Chanukah
by Eva Grayzel
www.EvaGrayzel.com
reviewed by Alan Irvine

This CD is a bit trickier to review than most. It is, after all, a holiday recording, and we tend to have different standards for holiday material. Of course, we want the material to be good, but also we want the recording to evoke the right mood, to be in the holiday spirit.

So what is the mood of Absolute Chanukah? Basically, it is fun. Although there are a couple of serious pieces here, especially the story "Acorn Menorah," which tells of celebrating Chanukah while hiding from Nazi troops during WWII, for the most part the songs and stories are upbeat and energetic. Grayzel is clearly enjoying herself here, and her joy easily transfers to the listener. There is lots of singing and music, poetry and rap. Some of the pieces are silly, like "Driedel Man," which tells of a sort of Chanukah superhero/djinni who helps two boys win a Driedel spinning contest. A couple of the pieces get a little preachy, like "I Still Have All My Love" where a mother uses the lighting of the Chanukah candles to teach a lesson about the nature of love, but preachy in that "meaning-of-the-holiday" vein which, of course, is also something we look for in a holiday recording.

I have been careful to use the term pieces instead of stories for good reason. There are only a couple of traditional prose stories on this recording. Most of the pieces are songs or poems (narrative poems, however) set to music. The cover of the CD, in fact, carries the blurb "New Songs and Original Stories," and it is not by happenstance that the songs are listed first. And the material is new and original. All of the music is by Pierre Bohemond, who also performs the music and oversaw the production. All of the words (stories and song lyrics) are Grayzel's, except for two pieces by Suri Kreiger, who also helped on the production of the CD. So if you are looking for traditional stories, in either form or content, this is not for you. But if you want to go to a fun Chanukah party, that is exactly the feel of this recording. So join Grayzel and her friends in a (mostly) light-hearted celebration of the holiday.

—posted January 2004