Jerusalem jam band legends grow up
In Jerusalem, it's the time and the season for love. With the Old City's warm fuzzy hug still hanging in the air, this Tuesday night will see the launch of an album that's seemingly better suited for Haight-Ashbury than Ben Yehuda.
Aryeh Naftaly, who comes from the mean streets of love-era San Fransisco, has formed yet another musical group blending Carlebach-style Jewish hippie soul with the grooves of 70s California jam bands. This time it's The Elevators, an amalgmation of Naftaly, Michael Roth, Tom Curran and Ron Steiner taking the stage (clockwise from upper right in the above photo). All but Naftaly are recent immigrants to Israel, and the four are releasing their debut album, Olim with an all-out hootenanny June 23rd at live rock bar Canaan.
"The album is called Olim, which is a play on words: The elevator goes up and down and the fact that we are all olim, immigrants," Naftaly explains.
The Elevators have already gained a following as Israel's premier Grateful Dead cover band, so the album of original songs, mostly in Hebrew, is a big step for them. Naftaly, who was the driving force behind proto-jewish hippie band Ayn Safeq (or N Safeq), and played with Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach himself, is no stranger to writing original songs to jam to.
He says fans of his earlier work will find something to like in The Elevators, but the band is not just a rehash of earlier exploits. "We're all older and more mature musicians," Naftaly asserts. "The sort of frenziedness won't be there - we're a little calmer. Ayn Safeq used to be very frenzied. It will still be high-energy but a little more constrained a little more influenced by jam bands like the Grateful Dead. I think it should be really fun and exciting."
The show on Tuesday will kick off at 21:00. Both new music and "oldies" from Naftaly's past bands will be played, and CDs from his solo work will also be available.
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