Yes, it’s the dreaded holiday season. As the sage says, “It's the most wonderful time of the year…if you’re twelve.” If you’re OVER twelve, it’s probably just a lot of stress.
There aren’t too many shopping days till Christmas. Chanukah? It’s going on right now. Your Chanukah present isn’t a somber cover of “Kol Nidre,” and most certainly not one of the terrible “Chanukah Oh Chanukah” songs that tried and failed to nudge “Frosty the Snowman” off the charts. Nor is it something self-deprecatingly bit of novelty from Adam Sandler or Tom “Chanukah in Santa Monica” Lehrer. It’s “Three Hebrew Prayers,” which is more reformed than orthodox. It shows the artist's influences, which seem to include Afro-Cuban jazz, experimental classical, semi-traditional choral (of the “Carmina Burana” Carl Orff variety perhaps) as well as Semitic melody.
It’s the work of the former Goetz Gustav Ksinski, who was born in Germany, October 28, 1922. When the Nazis came to power, Goetz went to the only secure homeland for Jews: Palestine. The 16 year-old farmer (he worked on a kibbutz) taught himself piano, and was soon getting gigs with jazz bands in Jerusalem. (Yes, jazz bands in Jerusalem!)
Like the fictional “Hey Now” announcer on “The Larry Sanders Show,” Ksinski adopted a more American last name: KINGSLEY. He played organ in various California synagogues, and graduated from the LA Conservatory of Music. He appeared as an accordionist in the 1953 film “The Juggler.” The major concert halls were on the East Coast, and remarkably, within a few years, Kingsley was the musical director for Laurence Olivier’s hit “The Entertainer,” and for Josephine Baker's solo shows. He provided the music on productions of “Porgy & Bess” and others, winning Tony and Obie nominations. For TV, he worked with Lotte Lenya for a special, “The World of Kurt Weill.”
In his spare time, he wrote a lot of religious music, some of it, as John Rutter was doing in the church, was pretty hip. However, for those who aren't too keen on odd choral work and experiments melding jazz and opera and the kitchen sink, you'll find Kingsley's better known ELECTRONIC POP stuff here:
https://soundcloud.com/gershon-kingsley
Mr. Kingsley is generously streaming a wide variety of his experimental and quirky electronic work. He’s one of the rare musicians who uses Bandcamp without a pitch for money, and with no interest in a record deal. He’s put out plenty of records, starting in 1966.
That was the year Vanguard released (now it's called "dropped") “The In Sound from Way Out,” an upbeat moog exercise that featured Jacques Perrey. “Kaleidoscopic Vibrations” and “Music to Moog By” followed, and in 1970 Kingsley created the “First Moog Quartet.” They made history by performing synthesized music live at Carnegie Hall. The reaction was…not great. Experimental electronic classical music also baffled most critics (Morton Subotnik's "Silver Apples of the Moon" was released by Nonesuch circa 1967). Moog music would succeed more as a novelty, with Walter Carlos "switching on" Bach, and in 1972, Kingsley skipping up the charts with “Popcorn.”
Kingsley's "The In Sound" album amused me but my appreciation for him deepened when his "First Moog Quartet" appeared on a WGBH-produced public television broadcast. It was hosted by Arthur Fiedler, of all people. The Boston Pops conductor's series was pretty mainstream in its musical guests, but the maestro knew something was happening, and commissioned a work for his full orchestra. I remember it well: “Concerto Moogo.” For some reason, it’s not been recorded on vinyl or CD. The soundtrack from the TV show lays in a vault at WBGH in Boston.
Kingsley created a musical logo for WGBH which they still use, and did well when various TV commercials needed snazzy zappy electronic plops and fizzes to call attention to their products. He wrote TV themes in England and Germany, and in the 80’s when synth rock was something new, The Master recorded on the Relativity Theory record label. Into the 90’s the eccentric and eclectic composer offered “Cristobol,” a musical based on the 500th anniversary of Columbus allegedly discovering America, and then “Tierra,” an opera performed in Germany. “Voices from the Shadow,” with lyrics on the Holocaust, was first performed at Lincoln Center in 1998. Ten years later, and another opera appeared, “Raoul,” about the Schindler-esque Raoul Wallenberg.
Today, many of Kingsley’s blips and bops have been stolen…er…sampled…by hip hop acts. His own “Popcorn” was been covered and re-covered and was re-done via Grand Royal, the label run by the Beastie Boys. As late as 2015, Kingsley was adding tracks to his Bandcamp page. Here's wishing a happy Chanukah to Gershon Kingsley, who has created a vast array of sumptuous music...and who has to know that a lot of Christmas trees are being decorated to the sound of "Popcorn."
Three Hebrew Prayers - download or listen online. No ego passwords, no creepy Russian cloud server, no re-directs
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