Yiddish lifestyle is now appearing on the club scene. Jewdyssee, the young musical group around Maya Saban, is injecting new life into traditional Yiddish music. Their powerful mix of familiar Yiddish melodies and rousing party rhythms aspires to more than just musical novelty, however. This music is focused on identity, lifestyle, culture, understanding, tradition, the present, and the future.
Maya Saban’s musical journey began with a Yiddish birthday song. “I was always hoarse until I was seven years old”, explains the singer. “My mother sent me to a speech therapist, and at some point the therapist asked me, ‘It’s your dad’s birthday, wouldn’t you like to sing him a song?’ Suddenly, I was able to sing. The song was called Abba – Daddy.”
At the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest
The 33-year old Berliner still loves Yiddish music to this day. She began by taking singing lessons with the Jewish Community’s children’s ensemble “Gita”, and then her path took her to German pop music. She garnered attention as the voice of the dance project “Music Instructor” and for own singles like ‘Mit jedem Ton’ (“With every sound”). She performed at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest as a background singer for Lena Meyer-Landrut. Journalists were fascinated by the fact that a Jewish singer was performing with the German delegation. “So funny, because it’s so natural to us. After all, we’re Germans.”
German-Jewish identity
Saban says she is continually fielding questions about her German-Jewish identity. Her fans need to talk about more than the music inspired her to launch the “Yiddish Lifestyleblog” in addition to the band. The blog offers a platform for Jews and non-Jews to discuss the issues they care about: Jewish lifestyle, modern Jewish identity, religion, music, politics, food, and much more.
This type of networking is especially appealing to young people. Saban hopes that it might also help a few people discover her music. “It’s exciting to play a song like ‘Beltz’, which my grandma sang to me, to an audience of Jewish kids and realize that they’ve never heard it before. If they hear the Jewdyssee version first, then maybe a few will say, ‘Hold on now, that’s a traditional song.’”
What Saban means by “Jewdyssee version” is a rousing mix of electro beats, trumpets, and clarinet sounds. The style is probably best described as Club-Traditionals-Electro-Swing, a mix that makes the “genre” accessible to a broad target audience.
More than music: Jewdyssee´s Homepage presents a "Yiddish Lifestyle Blog"
The regular members of the band include, in addition to the singer Saban, a DJ and a rapper. “Depending on the budget and how elaborate we are getting, we add a drummer, a bouzouki, or horns.” “The core group is like a family,” says Saban, “and the band around us is made of musicians who are interested in Jewish music. We have a Russian guy in the band and we also have people from Tel Aviv who have now moved here.”
Jewdyssee's first CD
Past, present, future
The idea of calling the band “Jewdyssee” was born within this close-knit circle. “For me, that just nailed it. This odyssey, the journey, the arrival. It refers principally to the musical journey. And the Jewish odyssey, which has gone on for centuries – millennia, actually. To me, that encapsulates the past, the present, and especially the future. That is why we named our album ‘5773’. So that the new year will be sweet, healthy, and successful.”
Saban and her band already have plans for a second album. There is a special place in her heart for one song in particular. “A Jiddische Mamme is a melancholy song, just like Abba”, she says. “The mother is gone.”
Maya Saban wants to make something positive out of it. She wants to communicate the Jewish joie de vivre without cutting off its roots.