By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
June 12, 2004
People sometimes get confused when Rick Recht plays Jewish music. They think of songs from a bar mitzvah or a Jewish wedding. What he plays, though, is pop music that sounds hopeful. Some of it happens to be sung in Hebrew.
“I play everything from Smash mouth’s ‘All Star’ to Hebrew songs at our concerts,” says Recht, 33, phoning from his St. Louis home. “Our shows are very much about music, but the songs we choose are also a subtle and progressive way of bringing not just youth, but adults, into the positive ends of Judaism in a non-[preachy] way.
“We use the production qualities from the secular world and join it with Judaism. By the end of the song, I’m hoping the audience isn’t thinking they just heard a Jewish song. I hope they’re thinking about the positive message that we try to sing.”
Artists such as Amy Grant long ago figured out there’s a market for Christian music, and Recht is optimistic there’s an audience for Jewish music as well.
“There are certain things about Jewish music we feel are very unique, but there are also other parts of it that sound like music we hear every day on the radio,” he says. “The difference is that concerts are performed with interaction in mind. That’s very important. We don’t expect everyone in the audience to know the words to a song sung in Hebrew, but we perform it in such a way that they’ll be able to sing along with us.
“At secular shows, the artist is the star. At Jewish shows, the person on stage is the liaison. The music is educational and encompasses a tradition. My job is to present it to the audience and let them lead themselves.”
