The East Village ‘Wailing Wall’

New beat in the Village: Rabbi Greg Wall has launched a new music series at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue.

by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Surrounded by dustily stocked bookshelves, antique lamps and floral artistic screens, a jazz saxophonist jammed along with his ensemble for a small crowd that straggled in and out of a dimly lit East Village basement this past Monday night.

No, this wasn’t your ordinary subterranean jazz haunt.

Suddenly, the sax player paused his band between sets to relate the piece they had just finished to Vayishlach, the Torah portion of the week, where Jacob confronts Esau and speaks to him about his evil father-in-law Laban.

Rabbi Greg Wall, a noted saxophonist working at the intersection of jazz and Jewish music, was just installed as the new spiritual leader of the Sixth Street Community Synagogue, what he is now calling the “Wailing Wall of Sixth Street.” And the basement gig was the launch of his “Jazz Rabbi’s Monday Night Invitational,” part of his effort to transform the synagogue into an arts haven.

Rocking back and forth with his tenor and soprano saxophones as if he were davening, the rabbi joined pianist Shai Bachar, drummer Aaron Alexander and bassist Dave Richards as they played songs from John Zorn’s Tzadik label as well as new material from their upcoming CD. The new concert series is just one of many events in a wave of musical innovation that Rabbi Wall is bringing to the traditionally Orthodox synagogue that has always been steeped in arts and culture.

“I’m trying to come up with programming that will appeal to the East Village demographic,” said the rabbi, who is hoping to please older congregants while bringing in the neighborhood’s youth. “We have a full schedule coming up.”  Continue reading…