Shelly Manne - Steps To The Desert 1962

In 1963, with guitarist Al Viola, bassist Monty Budwig, Shorty Rogers on trumpet, saxophonist Teddy Edwards and pianist/vibist Victor Feldman, Manne released one of only a handful of sessions from that time period to approach Jewish music from a modern jazz perspective.

On this reissue retitled as Steps to the Desert , the context of familiar melodies like "Hava Nagila" and a bop version of "Tzena Tzena" serve as springboards for inventive soloing by these top players. Manne gives both "Zamar Nodad" and the theme from "Exodus" a Latin bossa feel. On the latter, Viola beautifully states the melody providing solo opportunities for Rogers' muted trumpet and Edwards' sax. The powerful arrangements and solos on tunes like the au courant sounding "Bokrei Lachisi" presage further developments that would wait over three decades for fruition.

Fresh from Seattle's thrash/punk scene, drummer Aaron Alexander arrived in NYC to find a new Jewish music emerging as a polyglot crystallization of klezmer, avant garde, world and modern jazz. As part of the ground breaking Hasidic New Wave he defined this music's funkiest rhythmic edges.

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Shelly Manne - drums
Al Viola - guitar
Teddy Edwards - tenor saxophone
Shorty Rogers - trumpet, flugelhorn
Victor Feldman - piano, vibraphone
Monty Budwig- double bass


1. Hava Nagila
2. Bei Mir Bist du Schoen
3. Yossel, Yossel
4. Zamar Nodad
5. Bokrei Lachish
6. Tzena
7. Exodus
8. Die Greene Koseene
9. My Yiddishe Momme
10. Orchah Bamidbar
11. Zamar Nodad - (single edit)
12. Exodus - (single edit)
13. Tzena - (single edit)
14. Hava Nagila - (single edit)