Jordan Kessler
- Chief Development Officer (CDO), Central Synagogue
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Articles by Jordan Kessler
Chanukka im Herzen - Menorah In the Middle
Sarah macht sich mit ihrem neuen Verlobten Chad auf den Weg nach Hause, um ihn ihren Eltern vorzustellen. Die Dinge gehen drunter und drüber, als sie erfährt, dass die Familienbäckerei vor der Schließung steht. Ihr Vater erleidet einen Herzinfarkt, und ausgerechnet ihr Verlobter plant, das Grundstück zu verwerten, auf dem die Bäckerei steht. Alles scheint verloren, bis sie auf ihren alten Schulfreund Ben trifft...
Community Forum Shines Spotlight on Edison’s Seniors & Veterans: “Neighbors First” Event Set for Oct. 23
David Tingle for Mayor and Council candidates continue Oak Tree Tour with a community conversation at Oak Tree Presbyterian Church Edison, NJ — Caring for Edison’s seniors and veterans isn’t about politics , it’s about people. On Wednesday, October 23 at 6:00 PM, community members are invited to Oak Tree Presbyterian Church for “Neighbors First: An Edison Conversation,” an evening focused on the challenges and opportunities facing seniors and veterans in town.
Elvis Costello's Armed Forces Is a Timely Critique of Power
Armed Forces Radar / Columbia Rarely does a new artist arrive with a vengeance and then manage an unbroken track record of artistic success across multiple years and albums. By the time Elvis Costello‘s Armed Forces arrived in stores in early 1979, he was in the midst of that kind of run.
Robert Finley Ain't Wasting Any Time
Black Bayou Easy Eye Sound Like a number of other musicians in recent decades, Robert Finley has become a big star relatively late in his life (he’ll turn 70 the day before Valentine’s Day, 2024). With his very considerable charisma and talent, it’s not hard to see why. Finley’s last album, Sharecropper’s Son (2021), received more praise than his other releases, but it’s his most recent LP, Black Bayou (released in October 2023), that shines the brightest.
The Who's 'Quadrophenia' Shines Brightly on Its Golden Anniversary
Quadrophenia Track / MCA The Who‘s second album-length rock opera, Quadrophenia, is much less well-known than its first, Tommy. Plus, it sold far fewer copies in the United States than Tommy, Who’s Next, or Who Are You. But Quadrophenia is the Who’s most cohesive work, showcasing the band at the height of their musical prowess and Pete Townshend at his compositional apex. Fifty years later, Quadrophenia still sounds vibrant, fresh, and exciting.
In Music Doc 'Born in Chicago' Chicago Blues Crosses the Color Line
Born in Chicago Ravin' Films The newly available documentary Born in Chicago skillfully and concisely documents the impactful arrival of white Blues musicians on the Chicago scene in the 1960s. After a long delay, the film is finally on major streaming platforms in the United States, and it’s worth 76 minutes of your time. One of Born in Chicago’s producers, Bob Sarles, is a longtime master of finding and licensing historical footage for projects like this.
Telling His Story: An Interview with Bernie Taupin
SCATTERSHOT: Life, Music, Elton, and Me Hachette Bernie Taupin has written the lyrics to some of the biggest hits of the rock era, but his story hasn’t been as visible as that of his creative partner, Elton John.
Telling His Story: An Interview with Bernie Taupin
SCATTERSHOT: Life, Music, Elton, and Me Hachette Bernie Taupin has written the lyrics to some of the biggest hits of the rock era, but his story hasn’t been as visible as that of his creative partner, Elton John.
Living Colour's Time's Up Isn't Over Original
Professor Kimberly Mack’s satisfying addition to Bloombsury’s 33 1/3 series, an exploration of Living Colour’s Time’s Up, begins in a familiar place: the Academy in midtown Manhattan, at Living Colour’s December 1990 two-night homecoming. To quote “Type”, the album’s lead single, those concerts — which both Mack and I experienced in person — felt like a moment when everything was possible.
Revisiting 'Magic and Loss' Original
Rock songs usually address topics like sex, love, drugs, and rebellion. Rarely are they about mortality, and when they do address people’s deaths, they’re often dramatic, violent ones (think “Leader of the Pack” or “Creeping Death”). Rock is often the music of endless youth, and illness couldn’t be much further from its lyrical wheelhouse. Lou Reed attracted notice for his songs about sexual behaviors and drug habits (“Venus in Furs”, “Heroin”, and “The Kids”).
Trombone Shorty and Jon Batiste: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest
Trombone Shorty and his band, Orleans Avenue, brought the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival to an appropriately excellent end on Sunday evening, filling the prestigious slot traditionally held by the Neville Brothers (and before them, Professor Longhair). For the final minutes of his performance, he was joined by longtime friend Jon Batiste, who turned in his own show-stopping set on Friday evening.
Jon Batiste Steals the Show at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Original
Jon Batiste delivered a knockout performance in the headlining slot of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival‘s second Friday, just 13 months after he won the Album of the Year Grammy for 2021’s We Are. Quint Davis, who has played a leading role in producing the Festival since it began in 1970, said Batiste spent months preparing for this performance, and it showed. This was one for the ages. “This is not a concert,” Batiste said from the stage.
‘Sink: A Memoir’ Shuns Respectability Politics, PopMatters
Everyone tells Joey that he “ain’t got no heart”, and he somewhat agrees. Sink: A Memoir written by award-winning writer Joseph Earl Thomas is an unusual coming-of-age tale. The protagonist, the aforementioned Joey—Thomas as a child – undergoes a transformation. Externally he physically grows to be the tallest kid in class, a noticeable change akin to when the Pokémon he loves evolve. Internally the transformation is much more subtle.
Thriller 'The Cairo Conspiracy' Critiques Institutional Power
The Cairo Conspiracy Picturehouse Following his crime thriller, The Nile Hilton Incident (2017), Egyptian-Swedish director Tarek Saleh continues to affirm his reputation in the genre. The Cairo Conspiracy, or, Boy From Heaven (Walad min al-Janna), is an accomplished film. It was recognised at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, winning the award for best screenplay. As with his previous film, Saleh constructs his thriller with meticulous attention to detail.
Josh Ritter Haunts Listeners with 'Spectral Lines' (Review)
The prevailing mood of Josh Ritter‘s latest album could be accurately described as haunting. From the initial “ooooh” that opens to the final lingering chord and silence that closes the record, and everywhere in between, the ambiance is ethereal. There’s something mysterious going on between the Spectral Lines. The ten songs are musically linked in tone but not necessarily in the stated topic. The lyrics are poetic and metaphoric.
'White House Plumbers' Is an Uneven Glimpse into the Proximity to Power
It’s been over half a century since the Watergate affair, which is still publicized as the “biggest political scandal in US history”. There’s nary an adult in the Western Hemisphere unfamiliar with the White House wiretapping events of 1972, which led to the Nixon administration’s destruction.
Summer 2023 European Music Festivals Promise Exciting Mix of Genres
With the dread of the COVID-19 pandemic and mass performance cancelations behind us (hopefully forever), music festivals across the (North)Western hemisphere have had all hands on deck for media exposure and prime slots on our Instagram and TikTok feeds for months already. Among the usual narratives of art, “freedom”, and “joy”, another trend has solidified in the post-pandemic reality: proliferation and franchising.
The 100 Best Albums of the 2000s
100. Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere [Downtown] It begins with the click of a film reel. Then, it explodes into a manic gospel circus fronted by a multi-octave ringmaster. Two minutes later, 2006’s most infectious single cuts through the cacophony. In case you slept through 2006, that album is St. Elsewhere, and that song is “Crazy” by Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo, aka Gnarls Barkley. Who knew that existentialism with a go-go beat could be so catchy?
D’Artagnan' Is an Honourable Iteration
In 2002, on the bicentenary of French writer Alexandre Dumas’ birth, his ashes were re-interred at the mausoleum of the Panthéon, Paris. Then President Jacques Chirac played tribute to this giant of French literature, whose prolific oeuvre includes, The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires, 1844), Twenty Years After (Vingt ans après, 1845), The Man in the Iron Mask (L’Homme au Masque de Fer), and The Count of Monte Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, 1844-1846).
Since Time Is Gravity
Bassist, guembri player, and bandleader Joshua Abrams‘ music relies on pulse. As such, it finds organic connections to anything from some of Sun Ra‘s more riff-based 1970s-era compositions to Moroccan Gnawa music, a tradition from which Abrams snagged the guembri in the first place. There is a natural overlap with Pharoah Sanders‘ modal spirituality and perhaps at least a distant kinship with instrumental hip hop by the likes of Spliff Jacksun or Ghost McGrady.
The Next Waltz's Tribute to the Red Headed Stranger
Willie Nelson‘s presence on our planet gives us reason to celebrate. His turning 90 years old on 29 April offers us good cause to give thanks. Hallelujah! Where would American music be without him? Nelson has influenced generations of listeners and brought them together through music. There are plenty of honors for Nelson being scheduled, including a series of concerts he has organized.
In the Aeroplane Over the Meme with Neutral Milk Hotel
The meme shares with the trickster many attributes: the ability to exonerate the guilty and implicate the free, to profane the sacred while hallowing the lowly, and to cut through complex issues and calcified defenses with a Trojan horse simplicity. Therefore, its relationship to art, much like our own, is complicated. To even begin to comment on the meme, one must first be able to speak of art. This is in itself a high order.
Interview with Vernon Reid Original
Living Colour‘s seminal debut, Vivid was unleashed on an unsuspecting world on 3 May 1988. Slowly but surely – thanks to incessant touring and the second single, “Cult of Personality”, going into heavy rotation on MTV, among other factors – the album climbed the charts, eventually reaching number six and being certified double platinum.
Stand in the Joy (Album Review)
Stand in the Joy Six Shooter William Prince makes sincere, heartfelt music that touches one’s soul. His rich baritone voice captures the spiritual feelings embedded in our connections to each other and our yearnings for a higher power. Prince writes in plain language about the quotidian experiences that reveal the transcendent spirits in the everyday miracles of existence, such as falling in love, being young and innocent, the bonds that tie us together, and more.
Dindin (Album Review)
One of the surprising characteristics of African popular music is how sweet and uplifting much of it is in stark contrast to the difficult circumstances from which it sometimes arises. One strand of that long history is Kimi Djabaté, a multi-instrumentalist born and raised in the West African country of Guinea-Bissou. A musical prodigy on the wooden xylophone-like balafon, Djabaté was sometimes forced by his family to perform to earn money, so he could not just be a kid like other children.
The Quintessential Frenchness of Drama 'One Fine Morning'
Possessing a familiar French charm, Mia Hansen-Løve’s tender Parisian drama, One Fine Morning (Un beau matin) is an inoffensive and modest pleasure. The story, more plot-driven than narrative, centres on the hectic life of Sandra (Léa Seydoux), a young, widowed mother who works as a translator while caring for her daughter and her elderly father.
Bob Weir & Wolf Bros Trio Walk a Golden Road at the Guild
It’s a Saturday night in the South Bay, and historic vibes are in the air. Bob Weir & Wolf Bros Trio are set to conclude a week-long residency with their fifth show in six nights at the intimate and stylish Guild Theater in Menlo Park on 8 April. When Weir and his Wolf Bros last appeared in the Bay area in October, they played a three-night run with their expanded Wolfpack lineup at the much larger Warfield Theater in San Francisco to celebrate the Grateful Dead icon’s 75th Earth birthday.
Being (Album Review)
Never one to shy away from innovation, superstar Baaba Maal braids together driving beats, sublime Fulani folk, and electropop energy on his new album, Being, a fresh release from a consummate professional pushing the musical envelope. Often cited as a paradigm shifter in the worldbeat realm, Maal is irreducible to any genre in Being. He is equally a writer, producer, and performer, facilitating conversations between pasts, presents, futures, and many places.
Among Other Things (Album Review)
As someone who enjoys eavesdropping on conversations in bars and coffee shops, I understand how easy it is to judge other people by hearing snippets of their voices. I have privately exalted the supportive friend who consoles and condemns the mean SOB who demeans his partner’s failings. Mostly being generous, in one’s opinions, has its own rewards. This is also true when reviewing new albums. The assumption is that no one wants to make a bad record.
'Uncomfortable Television' and the Postmillennial Spectator
It’s been more than two decades since American Television entered an era called ” the golden age” by most critics and academics. Cable TV shows overtook networks, sweeping the public (un)consciousness with “prestige” series’ of varied genres.
Forever Means (Album Review)
The EP (extended play) is a niche genre that, surprisingly, has still retained meaning in the digital download age. Situated between a single and a complete album, its short format has typically served as either an introduction to a new band before a full LP has been released or as a posthumous repository for recordings that failed to make it on an album.
New Orleans Jazz Fest Returns For Second Post-Pandemic Run
From its humble beginnings in 1970 to the pre-pandemic spring of 2019, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival enjoyed an uninterrupted 50-year win streak, growing in leaps and bounds along the way, from total attendance of 350 to daily attendance as high as 160,000. Not even Hurricane Katrina could throw Jazz Fest off track.
Iggy Pop Is in a Frenzy on 'Every Loser' (Review)
The word “loser” — denoting someone unsuccessful in life — is in the title of Every Loser and the name of the band that plays on it. But does it describe Iggy Pop? Maybe, if the pop charts are what measure success, but artistically, Iggy’s anything but a loser. He has never had an album crack the top 10 or a single in the top 20, but he’s inarguably one of the most important and influential rock artists of all time.
The Crowning Glory of Chicago’s Blues King Muddy Waters
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The Crowning Glory of Chicago's Blues King Muddy Waters
In 1977, Muddy Waters came back Hard Again. For decades, late-career comeback albums have been celebrated. Critics and fans alike have heaped praise on Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, among others. Just as impressive, but too often overlooked, is an album that predated those by more than a decade: Hard Again by Muddy Waters. Hard Again wasn’t an entirely unexpected return.
The Unlikely Success of Son House's 'Father of Folk Blues'
The story of Son House’s sole studio album is so implausible that it could easily pass for fiction. By the middle of the 1960s, the so-called “blues revival” was in full swing, with white audiences “discovering” the music of Black blues artists. As part of this process, some artists who had stopped performing and recording long before, such as Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James, were “rediscovered” and brought back onto stages and into studios.
'Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome' Turns 45
George Clinton and Parliament–Funkadelic were R&B’s great jesters. Their outrageous outfits and lyrics are often hysterically funny. Clinton walking out of a stage prop spaceship wearing a pimp’s full-length fur coat is pretty hard to forget, as is guitarist Garry Shider wearing nothing but a diaper, shooting the audience with a toy gun while suspended from an arena’s ceiling. But jesters do more than make us laugh.
Catching Up with John Oates
With six #1 singles to their credit, John Oates and his musical partner Daryl Hall are the bestselling duo in music history, Hall & Oates. To put that in perspective, they’ve sold more records than Simon & Garfunkel, the Everly Brothers, the White Stripes, the Carpenters, or Sam & Dave. In 2003, they were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2014, they entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Menorah in the Middle (2022) ⭐ 4.6 | Adventure, Drama, Family
Sarah is headed back to her hometown for Hanukkah with news of her engagement. Upon returning she finds out that her father had a heart attack and things have gotten out of hand.Sarah is headed back to her hometown for Hanukkah with news of her engagement. Upon returning she finds out that her father had a heart attack and things have gotten out of hand.Sarah is headed back to her hometown for Hanukkah with news of her engagement.
Al Green's 'I'm Still in Love With You' at 50
Al Green is a complicated figure. I could write about his upbringing and the early, less successful stages of his career, his long turn to the church after being assaulted by his girlfriend, or his return to (secular) form in 2003 and the years that followed. But I won’t, because none of that is as interesting as Al Green on Hi Records in his prime, when he was the greatest soul singer alive — maybe even the best ever.
Meet the NYCFC Pigeon, Masked Hero of the New York Soccer Community
He has worn the pigeon mask since before the team's first game, and went on to nearly win this year's MLS Works Community MVP contest. Meet Bed Stuy, Brooklyn's own Omari McCleary. The day after NYCFC's stunning, come-from-behind victory over DC United at Yankee Stadium last week, I caught up with Omari McCleary, a.k.a. the NYCFC Pigeon, to learn more about the famous mask and his role as a community activist in the Five Boroughs. Hudson River Blue: Where did the idea for the pigeon mask come from?
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