• Hidden Melodies Revealed with The Sway Machinery "Part Ritual, Part Rock Concert"
• 9:30pm Seating / 10:00pm Show

$15 advance/$18 at the door

Presented by City Winery and Tablet Magazine.

Join us for a very special evening that is part ritual, part rock concert, as The Sway Machinery, lead by Jeremiah Lockwood, delve into Hidden Melodies Revealed: A Secret Celebration of Rosh HaShana.

The Sway Machinery will bring Hidden Melodies Revealed back to New York City after a triumphant 2009 run on the West Coast.   This multi-media concert/event celebrates the Jewish New Year and the power of the Cantorial music tradition in a presentation that is part ritual, part rock concert.  In a one night only production at the prestigious downtown venue City Winery, Hidden Melodies Revealed will unleash an all-out party that is both joyful and transformative and will include storytelling, animated film, and a hint of mass hysteria.

The Sway Machinery's unique musical vision recontextualizes Ashkenazic Jewish spiritual music in the broader spectrum of the world of music, finding inspiration for new versions of Cantorial classics in African popular music and the blues.  The band's powerhouse line-up of New York City greats (featuring members of Balkan Beat Box and Antibalas) brings pure fire to the stage.

For this year's presentation of the concert/event, The Sway Machinery will draw upon its recent experiences in Mali, Africa, where the band spent a month performing and recording with local musicians.  On this Rosh HaShana, the group will be joined by Khaira Arby, the "Nightingale of Timbuktu,” one of the leading female vocalists in the contemporary Malian music world.  Khaira's ethereal vocal style will bring a new and unexpected perspective on the spiritual experience of the Cantorial canon The Sway Machinery draws from.  Her participation in Hidden Melodies Revealed is an exciting new development of this ongoing project.

Last year, The Sway Machinery premiered Hidden Melodies Revealed in Los Angeles and San Francisco to standing room only crowds.  The event premiered in 2007 at the Angel Orensanz Foundation, taking a packed house of New Yorkers by storm with its powerful blend of tradition and visceral performance.  The event will feature Guggenheim fellow Shawn Atkin's film The Akeidah, which was commissioned especially for these events.  The film takes a unique look at the story of the binding of Isaac, one of the traditional Scriptural readings for the New Year.

ABOUT JEREMIAH LOCKWOOD

Front man of The Sway Machinery and frequent collaborator with Balkan Beat Box, JEREMIAH LOCKWOOD started his career performing on the streets and in the subways of New York City, playing solo and with Piedmont Blues master Carolina Slim. Local favorites, Jeremiah and Carolina Slim's relationship has been chronicled in The New York Times Magazine and Time Out NY. American Primitive, Jeremiah's solo album, is an attempt to capture that fascinating and powerful intersection of Americana and NYC street culture. Listen to "Love in the Dungeon" and "Going to Brooklyn" from American Primitive.

"Lockwood, a young Brooklynite who plays good guitar and banjo and sings like he's possessed by the schizoid spirit of Bukka White, forges his own idiosyncratic strain of blues-cum-country on his impressive debut." --DownBeat

The Sway Machinery, Jeremiah's band, offers a different view of his musical personality. This exciting project, a collaboration with musicians from Antibalas and Tom Waits' old band, is an exploration of the Ashkenazic Jewish liturgical music tradition Jeremiah grew-up exposed to in his family. The band has been capturing the attention of more and more New Yorkers in the last year and is poised to break out on the national and international level. Listen to "Birkas Kohanim" from The Sway Machinery's new self-titled EP, out now on JDub Records.

"Lockwood's arrangements of Jewish cantorial songs whip up a frenzy wherein all the world's music can do that which music does best: celebrate. Such joyful synthesis is what music is all about, not to mention what New York is all about." --Buzz Poole, The Village Voice