10 February 1994
Yosi Piamenta
It took me months to figure out what Yosi Piamenta's right hand was doing when he played his guitar. With an unfiltered Players usually clasped between its fourth and fifth digits, the "Hasidic Hendrix"'s paw seemed to strum the strings like a rhythm guitarist, yet wildly spiraling Arabic melodies spun up and away out of all visual relationship--screwed-tight Oriental outbursts punctuated by distant echoes of the electric-guitar pantheon, from Clapton to Zappa to Mahavishnu John. What was going on? Suddenly last week it became clear: Piamenta was picking leads on his battered old Fender as though it were an electric oud. Bubbling underneath his screaming, fleet-fingered solos lay a few thousand years of Arabic technique picked up as a fourteenth-generation Sephardic Jerusalemer.
I was happily introduced to 42-year-old Yosi (né Yosef) Piamenta last spring by one of his frequent bandmates on the Hasidic wedding circuit, Klezmatics trumpeter Frank London. Piamenta is a crossover star in the international Hasid community, a unique and highly desired bandleader who performs at some hundred weddings each year both here and abroad. The son of an Israeli war hero, Piamenta received his first guitar as a bar mitzvah present. Today he's a baal t'shuve who returned to the orthodox flock about sixteen years ago, and a respected presence among the small yet increasingly significant local community of orthodox Jewish hipsters.
Pimienta devotes no less musical and religious fervor to his note-for-note Hebrew cover version of Men at Work's "Down Under" than he does to his wedding music, or such homemade productions as A Medley of Chassidic Hits (1982), Mitzvah! (1984 vinyl), Tismach (1988 cassette), 1990 (1989), and especially Songs of the Rebbes (1992)--bearing variations on the theme of "Please do not play this record on the Shabbat or Holidays," they are available at Kingston Avenue record shops in Crown Heights, and through Holyland Music, 4722 18th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11204.) Like some acid-rock successor to Yemenite chanteuse Ofra Haza's Fifty Gates of Wisdom , Songs of the Rebbes weaves different strains of Hasidic music (e.g., Belz, Kaliv, Lubavitch, Ger) into arm-pumping medleys that convey a fairly accurate represention of what you'd hear at one of his wedding gigs.
Not that you can exactly grok the Hasidic wedding scene without experiencing one. Attending to their festivities with a transcendent communal fervor shared by ravers, Sufis, punks, and voodoo practitioners. The Lubavitch men-folk in particular tend to party on the cusp of the millenium, slamming bodies against one another with intimate violence and throwing fists in the air in some timeless mosh pit of the spirit. Onstage, Yosi stands in portly, bearded, Garcia-esque repose, calmy driving his audience into a freylekh frenzy as children wander underfoot, rabbis kibitz, and the occasional guest vocalizes a favorite tune amid the circle dances, clattering crockery, and general abandon. (On the other side of the room, separated by a white wicker fence, daughters and wives have just as much fun working up line dances.) Having attended such events recently, I was struck by an admission of Craig Horowitz, who set the stage for his account of Lubavitch spiritual politics in last week's New York by observing, "They danced and celebrated with such unbridled joy and raw emotion that I felt embarrassed to be watching."
If Yosi had been transcending time and genre onstage, Horowitz might have been more inclined to plunge into the intensity. Last Monday night, Pimienta played at his keyboardist's Lubavitch wedding. On Tuesday, the Knitting Factory was packed with young Hasids thrilled to catch him in a more informal setting. In addition to Yosi's flutist brother, Avi (a zealous Jerusalem Lubavitcher who concluded the show with a brief commercial for the Moshiach), this latest version of the Piamenta band integrates the recently formed, unor??????? ???????? ??????? ??? ???? ????????? ?????????? ?? ??????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ??? ??????? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ????? ??????? ??? ??????????? ??????? ???????????????? ??? ??? ????????? ???? ????? ??????? ???????? ??? ???? ?????????? ??? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ? ??? ???? ?????????? ?????? ???????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ??? ?????????????????? ?????????? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??? ??????? ??? ?????? ???????? ????? ?????? ??? ???????? ??????? ??? ??????? ????????????? ?? ???? ??????? ??? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??? ????????? ???? ??????? ?????????? ?? ??? ????????? ????????? ???? ??????? ??????????? ???? ? ????? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ??????? ?????????? ??? ??? ????????? ????? ?????????? ??????????????????? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ??????? ??? ????? ???????? ?????????? ???? ???? ? ???? ?????????? ??? ??? ??????????? ????????? ??? ??????? ???????? ???????? ?? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???????? ???? ? ??????? ??? ???????? ????? ? ????? ? ???? ?? ??? ???????? ??????? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ? ??????? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ?? ? ??? ????????? ???? ??? ???? ? ??????? ???? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???????? ?? ?????? ??? ?????????? ???????? ????????
