Israeli singer admires African-American gospel and blues

SAN DIEGO– One of Israel’s foremost performers of Yemenite music — Sagiv Cohen — says he finds surprising similarities in mood and lyrics between the historic songs of African-Americans and those of the Jews of Yemen.

In San Diego on a private family visit, Cohen explained that both peoples — African-Americans during the time of slavery, and Yemenite Jews during times of persecution and random killings at the hand of Yemenite Arabs–  expressed their suffering as well as their joy in their music.

Although the rhythms are different, there are extraordinary similarities in mood  between African-American gospel songs and blues, on the one hand, and the traditional Yemenite Jewish melodies, on the other, he said during an interview on Thursday, Nov. 8.

Like African-Americans who expressed their longing for freedom from slavery through coded references to Moses and the Promised Land, so too were some traditional Yemenite songs clothed in the language of the Bible but clearly intended to communicate the hope for freedom from oppression.

While Cohen is particularly well known for his lyrics and melodies in the Yemenite genre, the popular singer and composer also performs more mainstream Israeli music and even has ventured into English language and French language songs.

Like many an African-American gospel singer, Cohen grew up under the influence of religious music — the stirring Yemenite melodies sung in his grandfather’s synagogue.   He recalled that he was honored before bar mitzvah age with the opportunity to step forwards and lead some of the chants.

But it was not to be a cantor that music called him.  After his service in the Israel Defense Forces, he attended the Rimon School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, where he was exposed to a multiplicity of musical styles including rock n’ roll, reggae, and jazz, but nothing so resonated with him as his own Yemenite music and African and American gospel and blues.

Cohen said it struck him as amazing that people so far apart geographically could have had such similar experiences, and have chosen to express themselves so similarly.

Yemenite music and African-American music developed independently of each other in the centuries before instant communication throughout the world.  With today’s Internet, he said, these musical styles are likely to increasingly cross-fertilize each other.

*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com