Eli Rosenblatt is a unique musical fixture in Seattle — a feat that’s a direct result of the nature of Rosenblatt’s music, which is poignantly and accurately described on his MySpace page as “eclectic.” Indeed, Rosenblatt’s new self-titled album kicks off with consecutive songs in Hebrew, English, then Spanish. All, improbably, sung in pitch perfect accents.
The fact that Rosenblatt can sing comfortably in all three languages — his is not the parody Spanish of, say, Joe Strummer on “Spanish Bombs” or “Should I Stay or Should I Go” — and play comfortably in a variety of styles, holds the album together. It’s a credit to his vocals and his band that should-be stark transitions like the one between “Devil’s Back,” an Appalachian-sounding horror tale and “La Sirena,” a languid Spanish-language salsa number, feel seamless.
“The Devil’s Back” is a representative example of the way Rosenblatt treats Judaism on the record — present, but in a matter-of-fact way. Rosenblatt’s Jewish images feel like tropes, much the way Christian images appear in blues songs, for instance.
“Stones and bones and alcohol/the higher you get, the further you fall/Moshiach will come and save us all,” Rosenblatt sings.
One could substitute Moshiach for Jesus and it wouldn’t matter much.
It wouldn’t matter because Rosenblatt’s is not Jewish music — rather it is Jewish-influenced music. In fact, it feels Afro-Cuban as much as anything else. The Spanish tracks would fit right in during a Buena Vista Social Club performance, for example. And the Hebrew songs, “Yisemechu” and “Biglal Avot,” play more like Latin-fusion explorations than liturgical statements.
The English-language tracks are clearly influenced by the storytelling and musical styles of Eastern European Jewry — one can tell that Rosenblatt has read his Bashevis Singer, or something similar. “Shmuli’s Dream” is a song as fantastical as its title — and “Outerspace” has a classically off-kilter, klezmer-tinged melody.
I have a very limited history of Jewish music consumption — so limited, in fact, that when I think Jewish music, it’s along the lines of Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and the Beastie Boys. But I found Rosenblatt’s album extremely appealing. It had just the right amount of Jew-ish sensibility, just the right amount of American rock and blues structural familiarity, and wore the pleasant melodic brightness of Rosenblatt’s Afro-Cuban influences with aplomb.
Needless to say, if you’re going to buy one Jewish-Seattleite, Afro-Cuban-influenced record this year, make it Eli Rosenblatt’s.