Gregg Wall’s Later Prophets
Ha’Orot: The Lights of Rav Kook”
Tzadik Records
By George W. Harris

Can Hasidic Judaism and Modern Jazz mix? Saxist Greg Wall thinks so, and does a pretty good mitzvah together to prove it. This album is sort of a Jewish answer to the 70s Gil Scott Heron type of jazz that featured black poets reciting verse over R&Bish grooves. Here, Wall and his band of mishbooka (Shai Bachar/p, Dave Richards/b, Aaron Alexander/dr) lay down modal moods behind Rabbi Itzchak Marmostein’s spoke words. Most of the words are from prayers and poems from Rabbi Rav Kook, and they mix ancient ideas with modern mysticism. The music is not kitsch or klezmer, but bona-fide modal jazz. All accessible in the early Coltrane-Impulse vein, it serves as adequate background or as intriguing instrumentals on “Nigun Ha’Rav #2.” Non-members of the tribe should enjoy the whole megilla of songs. Original, yet as ancient as Abraham.