“Gerber is a profoundly original writer who writes as he speaks. His text is not only serious scholarship, but informal, conversational and full of surprises. This makes his interviews with musicians, record company bosses, musicians' managers, impresarios and jazz festival organisers speak with the exigencies of real life, so that his book is a succession of voices across the US, and if you love jazz or even have little more than a marginal interest in it, you will not want to put his book down.”

Kosher jammers: Jewish Connections in Jazz. Vol.1: The USA
by Mike Gerber
Vinyl Vanguard, £19.99

AS I grew into jazz in my teens and twenties, I had many jazz heroes. Some of them were east Londoners, but what I didn’t realise at that time was that their roots were Jewish, and learning the ordeals of their people throughout the first half of the 20th century made me love them even more. Favourite clarinetists like Stepney’s Monty Sunshine or Bow’s Cy Laurie, rampaging saxophonists like Ronnie Scott who had grown up with his uncle who fought at the Battle of Cable Street — it seemed that, in Britain too as well as in the US, jazz and the struggle against racism were synonymous.

No writer has done more to make this connection explicit than the London journalist and record store owner, Mike Gerber, whose first pioneering book, Jazz Jews, was published in 2010. Now he has extended his research to delve even more deeply into these links, starting with the US, and Kosher Jammers is the result.

Gerber is a profoundly original writer who writes as he speaks. His text is not only serious scholarship, but informal, conversational and full of surprises. This makes his interviews with musicians, record company bosses, musicians' managers, impresarios and jazz festival organisers speak with the exigencies of real life, so that his book is a succession of voices across the US, and if you love jazz or even have little more than a marginal interest in it, you will not want to put his book down.

Gerber maintains that “Jews like many others found inspiration in the sounds of black America” from jazz's earliest days in 1900s New Orleans. He traces the relationship between jazz, the blues and Jewish liturgical cantorial chanting, returning to this theme many times throughout his book.

He quotes bandleader Artie Shaw, whose popular success as a white jazz big band maestro was only surpassed by Benny Goodman, in a 2002 interview, two years before he died: “Being Jewish has everything to do with everything you are, in a society that is very abhorrent of Jews,” he told him. This statement haunts Gerber’s book.

Yet where would jazz have gone without the majority of Jewish composers who created the American Songbook? Gershwin? Jerome Kern? Richard Rodgers? Johnny Green? The melodies and starting points of I Got Rhythm, Body and Soul, My Funny Valentine or All The Things You Are became the food of jazz, played and recorded thousands of times by the music’s greatest virtuosi of the mid-20th century, from Armstrong to Coleman Hawkins, from Miles Davis to John Coltrane, who played and recorded Rodgers’ My Favourite Things time and time again.

But the real power of Gerber’s book is in its conversations. He knows just the right questions to ask. His interview with the great bop drummer and ex-heavyweight boxer, Stan Levey, for example, remembers his 1940s days with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and drums genius Max Roach with tremendous wit and vibrancy, and the same is true of dozens of exchanges he has throughout his book.

His writing travels through all the jazz genres, from New Orleans, to swing, to bop, post-bop, free improvisation and the Radical Jewish Culture movement led by New Yorker John Zorn. As a reader you marvel at the sheer number of interviewees he managed to trace and sit down with across the US — and this is but the first volume, with a second tome exploring the British and European connections yet to come.

In the meantime, if you want to be a continuing part of his interlocutions, visit Vinyl Vanguard, his small but throbbing record store in Walthamstow, east London. You’ll probably come away not only with his book but a few marvellous sounds too, and plenty of encouragement to support and add your weight to the Palestinian struggle. For Gerber knows well that jazz is the soundtrack of undiminished freedom and justice for all of us.

Chris Searle

4th February 2024


Kosher Jammers: Jewish connections in jazz

Chris May review, 17th September 2024

Jews have been so intimately, influentially and copiously involved in the story of jazz that every person's list of ten favourite musicians is almost certain to include one Jewish player, and probably more than one. Yet until 2010, when London-based writer Mike Gerber's Jazz Jews (Five Leaves Publications) was published, there was no book devoted to identifying Jewish connections in the music. Jazz Jews, which had been ten years in the making, ran to 654 pages and there were over 7,000 names in the index, which gives an indication of its scope and depth of detail. Nat Hentoff said of the book that it was "more comprehensive than I ever imagined possible," adding "The writing is not academic; rather, it grooves."

Gerber has since expanded Jazz Jews, adding newly researched material, and retitling it Kosher Jammers. To make the new edition's physical bulk more manageable, he has divided it into two volumes. Volume 1: The USA, the subject of this review, and an upcoming Volume 2, which will cover the rest of the world. 

Volume 1: The USA chronicles Jewish involvement in the development of jazz from its beginnings through to the new millennium, its fifteen chapters taking in the cornerstone styles, the musicians involved, the composers of the Great American Songbook, the enablers and facilitators, producers and club owners, the role of women, and more. Along the way there is a feast of off-piste takeaways. It is not widely known, for instance, that throughout his life Louis Armstrong wore a Star of David on a chain round his neck, as a remembrance of the Jewish family in New Orleans who took care of him during his early teens. And how many people know that stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith considered himself Jewish (his business cards were printed in Hebrew) and that "The Lion" part of his name referred to the Lion Of Judah? There are many more fascinating tidbits along these lines. 

The book also addresses weighty questions. Perhaps the most important of these asks to what extent, if any, does a musician's, or a composer's, Jewishness impact on the way they play jazz, or write songs. Gerber's interviewees come down on the subject variously. Some, like the saxophonist and label owner John Zorn, are certain that klezmer and the cantorial tradition are audible Jewish retentions in some Jewish musicians' jazz. Others are adamant that Jewish ethnicity and cultural traditions are not involved. Some, including Artie Shaw, in what was possibly his final interview, are unable to make up their minds. At times Shaw, in a lengthy interview, denies ethnicity has anything to do with it, at other times he implies that it does. Gerber presents the opinions and proffered evidence of both sides and leaves it to each reader to make up their own mind. 
The book's many interviews—conducted in person in the USA, on the phone and by email—add considerably to the success of the book, which also draws on a wealth of published sources. 
It would take more than a book even as chunky as Kosher Jammers to cover every person who have contributed to the totality of Jewish connections in jazz. Inevitably, there are some omissions. These include the late Bernie Brightman, who was a dope smoking regular at New York's Savoy Ballroom in the 1940s and who later founded Stash Records, launching its extensive catalogue with Reefer Songs in 1975. Brightman's accessible interviews throw valuable light on the personal and societal relationships between Jewish and African American jazz enthusiasts in the 1940s and early 1950s. Another omission is the new millennial proliferation of US-based Israeli musicians, such as the great tenor saxophonist Oded Tzur. Gerber says he will be covering this in Volume 2. 
Bottom line: a scholarly, valuable and accessible addition to our bookshelves.

“an absorbing account of how the children of Jewish immigrants took to jazz music (the title, ‘Kosher Jammers’ was lifted wholesale from Mickey Katz, a clarinettist who delighted 40s Borscht Belt customers with his unique cocktail of jazz, klezmer and Yiddish lyrics).”

“Fascinating insight into the Jewish influence on jazz over the years, from musicians to composers, critics to label-owners”

Kosher Jammers, which is subtitled “Jewish connections in jazz, Volume 1: The USA”, is a new book by London-based journalist – and record shop owner – Mike Gerber. It is essentially a re-print of the first part of his previously published book, Jazz Jews, which came out in 2010. Part 2, which is focused on Europe, will hopefully follow.

In an age in which “cultural appropriation” is considered to be a thing, there are some in the jazz world, Jews and non-Jews, who questioned the entire premise behind Mike’s book. But as he argues quite persuasively here, the Jewish influence on jazz is not to be underestimated; whether you consider the influence of key musicians over the years, such as Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Paul Bley Stan Getz, the Brecker Brothers, to name but a few, songwriters such as Gershwin, Arlen and Rodgers, record label owners such as Ira Gitler, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, influential critics such as Leonard Feather, Nat Hentoff and Dan Morgenstern, promoters such as George Wein, not to mention some of the more notorious managers over the years, such as Joe Glaser.

Mike treads a fine line, never downplaying the overwhelming and overriding importance of the African-American tradition, but examining the ways in which, directly and indirectly, Jewish influence played a small, but important part, in what we now consider jazz. 

The book is well-researched, and includes countless original interviews, including one the last interviews with Artie Shaw. It is also well-written and easy to read; numerous typos from the first edition have been cleaned up and the material has also been updated with more information.

The topic itself may sound quite niche, but when you consider the names mentioned above, and the numerous ways in which they influenced the music over the years, I would say that there is plenty to enjoy here for anyone with a keen interest in the history of jazz. The only section that was too long, in my opinion, was the section specifically on Jewish-jazz, or music with a specific Jewish theme, which was probably longer than it needed to be.

Overall, I really enjoyed Kosher Jammers. While jazz is still considered a fairly niche music, and jazz books are a niche within a niche, this book sheds some light on some key elements within jazz history, contains countless interesting anecdotes and is written in an entertaining and accessible way.

“This is an assured and informative book that opens up discussion on Jews in jazz while never denying the centrality of African-American ancestry”

Jazzwise, April 2024. Review by Garth Cartwright

Mike Gerber is a journalist and co-owner of Vinyl Vanguard, the Walthamstow used record shop, and author of 2010’s Jazz Jews. He has rewritten Jazz Jews as two separate books – Kosher Jammers looks at the US while the next volume will focus on Europe. It turns out to be an engaging and informative read – Gerber is interested in the role Jews have played in American jazz, both as musicians and composers and behind the scene (managers, label owners, promoters, critics) in clear, succinct prose.

  The project has preoccupied Gerber for many years and he’s got interviews with several individuals no longer with us, including Artie Shaw and Newport Festival founder George Wein. George Gershwin, Red Rodney, Nica the Jazz Baroness, Leonard Feather, Benny Goodman and others all appear and are discussed at length, and Gerber is willing to highlight flaws as well and strengths. Throughout, he is interested in whether the klezmer music that accompanied Jewish immigrants from Russia to the US played any part in shaping jazz – it’s something he discusses with musicians throughout.

  This is an assured and informative book that opens up discussion on Jews in jazz while never denying the centrality of African-American ancestry. If the book has any flaws, it’s in the last chapter – where he interviews Zorn, Roy Nathanson and other contemporary Jewish jazz musicians – goes on too long for this reader. And when discussing the likes of Joe Glaser, Herman Lubinsky and Morris Levy, he’s gentler than history suggests their reputations deserve.

“wonderful – absolutely fascinating… a great, great book.”

Adam Sieff, presenter of the Jazz On The Beach radio show

“Kosher Jammers: Jewish Connections in Jazz Volume 1 The USA by British author Mike Gerber is a mightily comprehensive overview of the influence of Jews in jazz”

Howard Mandel - president of the Jazz Journalists Association

https://howardmandel.substack.com

“This book took me a long time to read because I kept turning to YouTube to listen to yet another example of a musician I hadn’t heard of. Very enjoyable!”

Blues guitarist Simon Prager — Jewish Socialist magazine (Autumn 2024)