Historical melodies have a magic touch: W.H. Cantor releases music album

    Cantor Mayer Davis may have found a way to reach some who suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease — through music.
    The West Hempstead resident, who has served as cantor at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan for 19 years, released his fifth album last month featuring Jewish songs and melodies that have been a part of his family’s traditions for more than three generations.
    In the process of producing the album, called Bridge of Generations, Davis found that the music broke through the barriers of Alzheimer’s disease for both his late mother and father-in-law, and stirred in them memories. As a result, Davis decided to donate a portion of the proceeds from album sales to The Alzheimer’s Association’s New York City Chapter.
    He was moved when one day, as he had been singing a particular melody that dates back to the turn of the century, he heard his mother, who had been unable to communicate verbally for months, enthusiastically singing along. She had even remembered a part of the song he hadn’t heard before.
    The event was reminiscent of an incident that had occurred several years ago, when Davis’ father-in-law was hospitalized after suffering from acute breathing difficulties. When it seemed doctors would be unable to help him further, Davis and other family members stepped in. Using an old childhood song, they were able to soothe him and ease his pain. So much so, in fact, that he even began singing along through his oxygen mask.

    “It was magical to hear my mother and father-in-law, even in the throes of Alzheimer’s, recall and sing the melodies we always treasured,” Davis said, adding that the tunes have deep roots in his family tradition. “These songs have tremendous feeling and depth, and I am hopeful that they will touch people in the same way they have touched me and my family.”
    The songs certainly touched Elly Zomick, co-owner of the well-regarded Cedarhurst-based Jewish music group Neshoma Orchestra. He wrote a raving review on Neshoma’s blog, in which he called the album unique.
    “[I]t provides undeniable evidence of the power of Jewish song to connect a present to both previous and future generations,” Zomick wrote. “That is no small feat.”
     The 16-track album is a tribute to the Davis family’s rich musical history: Davis, who succeeded his father as the cantor at Kehilath Jeshurun, comes from a family of cantors and composers with origins in Jerusalem and Eastern Europe.
    “I was blessed to have grown up in a family that loved and revered traditional Jewish songs,” Davis said. “Many of these melodies are not widely known and recorded here for the first time. Being able to share these songs give me a feeling of enormous satisfaction.”
    The album, which Davis dedicated to his late mother, Esther Davis, is accompanied by an illustrated memoir that traces the backgrounds of the songs as they related to the family’s history. That is part of what makes the album special not only to the Davis family, but also to the Jewish community, musicologists and ethnographers, according to the cantor.
    Clearly, it was of particular interest to Zomick, whose organization describes itself as providing the finest in Jewish and American music for the past 30 years. Zomick described the “nigunim” — humming tunes or voice instrumental music without lyrics or words — as unusually beautiful. “[T]hey are not easily learned, easily sung, predictable or cliché-ridden. They are what I might term irregular musical gems,” he wrote.
    Summing up his experience of the album, which he called a musical documentary, Zomick wrote, “If ever there were arrangements that added meaning to the adage ‘less is more,’ these are them.” He urged readers to listen to the album which, he added, was without doubt “a labor of love.”
    Bridge of Generations is available at Judaica stores and on Amazon.com. It will soon also be available on iTunes.