Chording To Meg

Being the second day of spring, the Passover just around the corner, all I see is white in my window. Mind you; I live in Harlem. Whether you are Jewish but not feeling it, or you aren't Jewish at all but want to feel Jew-ish, there are ways you can feel more Jewish without guilt or doing anything involving clearing out bread from your kitchen cabinets. Here is my personal "FOUR ANSWERS" (playlist) for the week anticipating Passover! No. 1 Alberto Mizrahi Trio Globo "Dayenu" featuring Howard Levy, Eugene Friesen, and Glen Velez (YouTube) No. 2 Pharaoh's Daughter  "Taitsch" (Exodus)  (YouTube) No. 3 NPO Trio "Exodus and Emancipation" from NPO Trio Live at The Stone  (Bandcamp)  No. 4 Louis Armstrong "Go Down Moses"  (YouTube)

Until recently, I was a very unlikely candidate for conversion. Even though I am Japanese, I was raised in a believing Protestant household, and subsequently became a Born-Again Christian at the age of ten at a Christian camp in Japan. At 18, I moved to the U.S. to attend The Juilliard School. I used to be a Christian violinist, giving church concerts, appearing at evangelical events and on Christian TV programs. And I led prayer groups at a church in New York City. Yes, I was that crazy Shiksa. It was about ten years ago, that I started touring with “ Pharaoh’s Daughter ”, a Jewish Middle-Eastern band consisting of mostly Israelis and few Gentiles. It’s headed by an American Jew, Basya Schechter , an ex-ultra-Orthodox woman from Borough Park. We have performed at many Jewish festivals and all imaginable venues; Carnegie Hall, JCC’s, synagogues, colleges and even prisons. We traveled, ate, laughed, and occasionally, we cried together. For the past ten years, I got to pa...