Bop Kabbalah+Voices

In 2016, Ty completed and premiered a chamber jazz piece featuring two female voices called “Future Generations (Doyrus Fun Der Tsukunft).” The first version of that piece for sextet was also his master’s thesis at Brooklyn College. Then in 2018, he received a grant from Brooklyn Arts Council to grow that body of work and launch a new project called “Bop Kabbalah+Voices: New Radical Yiddish Liberation Songs.” The grant supported the creation and performance of a song cycle that sets Yiddish labor texts from the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Those texts about the fight against capitalism — for a truly just and equitable world — are defiant, courageous and prescient, resonating loudly TODAY.

Sara Serpa and Judith Berkson joined Ty to bring this music to life, and after a series of concerts, the three of them recorded everything in 2019. Final mixes were completed just before the pandemic, and it was mastered during quarantine. The album is entitled “Bop Kabbalah+Voices: When You Speak of Times to Come (Ven Du Redst Fun Naye Tsaytn),” and it was released on Infrequent Seams at sundown on December 10, 2020, just in time for Hanukah. You can Order it on Bandcamp HERE.

This concept album features a lush trio of guitar, electronics, piano and Sara and Judith’s imaginatively versatile and acrobatic vocals. Leftist texts from the 150 year-old Yiddish labor movement are given an unprecedented modern musical treatment: delicate, plaintive, hypnotic and passionate. On Ty’s first album as bandleader in six years, you’ll hear the song cycle followed by the ambitious, 23-minute “Future Generations (Doyrus Fun Der Tsukunft).” Alongside his guitar work, Judith and Sara’s voices dance, soar and sometimes erupt. Meticulously recorded, mixed and mastered by Grammy Award-winning engineer Damon Whittemore, “Bop Kabbalah+Voices…” looks to both the past for inspiration and the future (“When You Speak of Times to Come…”) for creative visioning — may this music inspire listeners to imagine and join the organized struggle for a more just, humane world. A portion of all profits from the album’s sales were donated to help support the immigrant justice work of New Sanctuary Coalition.

After two years away from live performance, Bop Kabbalah+Voices played two hometown Brooklyn concerts on June 16 and 17, 2021. The second of these was part of the Infrequent Seams Streamfest II and a high fidelity video and audio recording was captured while the trio was particularly focused and on fire. Ty re-mixed the audio and it was again mastered by Damon Whittemore for release on Infrequent Seams (IS-1046) in August 2022. You can order the album, entitled “The Yiddish Song Cycle Live” HERE on Bandcamp and watch the video for “Es Rirt Zikh/It’s Moving” as well.