Overview

The first edition of There Was a Fire is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist This book is about the power of memory, the human need for narrative, and the ability of music to encode and deliver the two. It outlines the role of the Jews who came to America from Eastern Europe during the late 19th and 20th centuries and helped define the spirit of the American Dream: a concern for the average man and a penchant for tikkun olam, healing a shattered world. This is the story of how popular music made the ethical framework for 20th century America possible, where popular song led to personal freedom, and social justice was only a chorus away. Newly revised and updated, the book includes the advent of Trump, Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and streaming services such as Spotify and their impact on the Jewish experience and American Music History.

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9780578773599

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Reviews

Terrific and tragically obscure . . . . I can hardly believe how good it is. --Eric Alterman, The Nation An extraordinary tour de force, weaving cultural, political, musical, and economic history. Part textbook, part family history, Sidran is a warm, funny, and authoritative guide in this thrilling, adventurous social history of popular music. The insightful section on Dylan alone is worth several times the price of the book. A must-read for all music lovers. --Daniel J. Levitin, author of the best-selling books This Is Your Brain on Music and The World in Six Songs There Was a Fire is born out of passion, brilliance, and an unfettered imagination. Ben Sidran is a cultural observer of the highest order, and this, his latest investigation, is a major work and an instant classic. --David Ritz, author of Brother Ray: Ray Charles; Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye; and Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin The Jewish influence on American music in the twentieth century is incomparable. Happily, it no longer is immeasurable, thanks to Ben Sidran's brilliant rendering of that story. His searching book There Was a Fire presents a picture of American Jews, to be sure, but also illuminates the larger American context. --Stanley Kutler, author of The Wars of Watergate Jazz people know what an extraordinary contribution Jewish composers have made to Artie Shaw to John Zorn. But after reading Ben Sidran's fascinating account, many will be left astonished at the depth of Jewish influence on the great American songbook-in publishing, recording, promoting and in nurturing the music. But the really intriguing question explored by pianist / producer Ben Sidran in this wonderful story is, why? What socio-economic and cultural forces drove Jews, recently settled in the US from the Eastern European Pale of Settlement, into the music business alongside Black people? And how did the 'longing for belonging' manifest itself in music and lyrics that celebrate an American Dream that Jews were invariably excluded from? --Gary Booth, Jazz Journal Sidran's mind is an exquisite work of jazz. And in this his latest book he gives us an idiosyncratic personal and cultural history full of parable, anecdote, history, footnotes, and riff. But beautiful. (And spiritual.) He writes like he plays: with brilliance and surprise. --Lorrie Moore, author, A Gate at the Stairs, Birds of America, and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital Sidran is a master of two types of keyboards. His writing, like his piano playing, is clear, direct, rhythmic, and flowing. His ideas cascade, develop, expand, intertwine, and resolve. --Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Author Information

Ben Sidran was a major force in the contemporary history of jazz and rock & roll, having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Steve Miller, Mose Allison, Diana Ross, Boz Scaggs, Phil Upchurch, Tony Williams, Jon Hendricks, Richie Cole and Van Morrison. Though primarily renowned as a gifted pianist, composer, producer, among other music-related roles, Ben Sidran has also made a name for himself as a writer. Sidran's first book, Black Talk: How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to Western Literary Tradition (Da Capo Press), is based on his doctoral dissertation. Talking Jazz: An Oral History (Da Capo Press), published twenty-four years later, collects personal interviews with jazz greats such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins. His third literary endeavor, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music (Unlimited Media), expresses his life-long affair with music and all its functions: as prayer, as community, as legacy, and as nothing but a party. He delves into the complex relationships between African-Americans and Jews, fathers and sons, history and hope, money and technology, ecstasy and transformation. His penultimate book, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, was a 2011 finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and remains a teaching text in Jewish Studies programs everywhere.

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