Mozaik

Rock and roll and improvisational jazz affects have already been blended with klezmer and Jewish music customs to make the trance-like dance music of Berkeley, CA-based octet Mozaik. Their musical cross types has been known as “psychedelic Jewgrass,” “klezmer-trance music,” and Fiddler over the Roof-meets-the Pleased Deceased. The Jewish Bulletin defined a concert by Mozaik as “merging hypnotic electric guitar riffs using a deep bass backdrop, and using a saxophonist who appeared as if Display Gordon and blew like Sonny Rollins.” Forwards magazine defined the group as “an eight-person action whose loopy outfits made them appear to be a white edition of George Clinton’s P-Funk All Superstars.” A article writer for the High Sierra Music Celebration noticed that “Mozaik will take the jamming strategy that often uses jazz sensibilities and provides tribal-trance to Masada-like enormity with tabla, mandolin, violin, dumbek, bass clarinet, and even more.” Mozaik premiered at the School of California-Berkeley being a duo offering electric guitar, mandolin, saz, bells, seed products, and shells participant Brett Jacobson; keyboardist Peter Kafin; and an ever-changing ensemble of supporting music artists. In the first ’90s, Jacobson and Kafin had been asked to accompany Hasidic instructor and Jewish musician Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach on the tour of Morocco. Both musicians continued to execute with Carlebach in Israel, NY, and California. The knowledge sparked a enthusiasm for traditional Jewish melodies and niggun (Hebrew for “melody without terms”). A focus on of Mozaik’s touring plan can be an annual concert that celebrates Chanukah in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. Jacobson and Kafin, who keeps a Master’s level in music therapy, talk about a pastime in the curing forces of music. In 1994, Jacobson founded a music therapy corporation. In the middle-’90s, Mozaik resolved on a far more formal lineup that included contrabass, electrical bass, shofar, and sampler participant Justin Katz; violin, fiddle, and noticed participant Morgan Fichter; and saxophone, flute, bass clarinet, and slip whistle participant Shroeder. The tempo section features tabla, dumbek, traps, flute, and clabash participant and vocalist Aharone Bolsta; riqq (Middle Eastern tambourine), zills (finger cymbal), and dumbek participant Jen Miriam; and traps and percussion participant Patrick Kaliski.