92YTribeca (Venue Partner)
200 Hudson St
212.601.1000
This event has passed.
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Joshua Nelson: Shabbat Dinner + Kosher Gospel Performance
- When
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Friday Feb 5, 2010 (7pm)
- Where
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- Price
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45.00
- Links
For Joshua Nelson, kosher gospel is a way to claim both parts of his identity as a Black Jew. For audiences around the world, whatever their faith or heritage, his kosher gospel has been a revelation. With his fire-and-brimstone voice at the helm, his band and singers have shared the stage with such notables as Aretha Franklin, Maya Angelou, Former President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama and at the funeral of jazz legend Sarah Vaughan. After his appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah called him "The Next Big Thing" in music.
Kosher gospel is the marriage of Jewish religious lyrics and meanings with the soulful sounds of American gospel music. While the word "gospel" is usually associated with African-American Christian churches, the musical styling is African. These African rhythms pre-date the West Africans' introduction to Christianity and these same sounds have been retained in the musical cultures of Black African Muslims and Jews. Such soul-inflected vocalizations filled the Black Hebrew synagogue Joshua Nelson attended as a child with his family, observant Jews who traced their lineage back to Senegal. Nelson has been an artist in residence at Jewish congregations across the country, including at his home synagogue of Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel, a Reform congregation in South Orange, NJ. Whatever the venue, Joshua Nelson, the Prince of Kosher Gospel, brings people—and cultures—together in joyous song.
