Broza Dejavu

Not Exactly Christmas Eve: David Broza in Concert Thursday, December 23, 2004 Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, New York Tickets: General Admission $45

Jewish tradition has a concept of hazaka - permanence - whereupon society can make an assumption about an individual after he performs the same act three times (usually in uninterrupted form). For the past three years, I've attended David Broza's Christmas Eve extravaganza, an evening created for Jewish New York who have nowhere to go on the most un-Jewish night of the year. But though this year was the initiation for my hazaka, I'm not entirely sure I'll be coming back.

An Israeli pop star trained in the art of flamenco guitar, Broza is a master entertainer. His wide range of talents, including fluency in Hebrew, English, and Spanish, stem from his rich cultural background; the Haifa-born Broza is the child of Anglo parents who made their home in Israel and Madrid, Spain. He has released nearly twenty albums since his music career began in 1978, and since 1995, when he headlined with Sting in Switzerland, has earned an international reputation.

Broza's unique sound is an intercontinental cultural stew infused with Spanish Flamenco guitar, salsa-tinctured American Folk, and fatalistic Israeli poetry. The panoply of energy produced by his rhythmically inspired finger picking and guitar banging is signature of Brozaic music, and came as no surprise to the veterans in the crowd. But they still came to hear a traditional Broza: melodramatic lyrics, fantastically magical guitar, and a deeply soulful voice. The animated Broza makes it clear that art is his God and he will adorn her. As he characteristically wailed intensely at the conclusion of his string jamming, it became clear that Broza still believes deeply in what he does.

But the problem with this year's show was that it was too much like the past. Broza has been doing the same "Not Exactly Christmas Eve" shtick for already nine years. And while the attendees are often returning fans that wait an entire year to hear the trilingual troubadour (myself included) and certainly are looking to hear their share of "Broza classics," the singer could have at least shaken up the order and added new material to the comical snippets he uses to introduce each song. Instead, he told the same jokes verbatim and spoke lovingly of the same friends, as if his whole stage aura was a disc playing on repeat. Broza plays with so much creative passion that the extra-musical aspect of his performance, his chaffy conversations with the audience, clashed.

Also, as done in years past, Broza's stage appearance was enhanced by "friends," a group of extremely talented musicians including SNL lead guitarist GE Smith, saxophone sensation Jay Beckenstein, bassist Francesco Santeno, and the eccentric, Brazilian percussionist Cyro Batista. Though together they made a sensational team, Broza left the stage alone to Batista for ten minutes so the man-of-rhythm could put on his magic show of noises; Batista is an unusually talented musician, if one can call him that. He makes noises with his mouth and the most obscure and random looking objects; he is constantly moving to the beat of sound, using anything in his vicinity to drum. It's entertaining for a few minutes, but not the ten minutes the producers gave him. And for fans who returned to see Broza, ten minutes of Batista was not what they paid for.

To his credit, Broza did try to introduce at least more Spanish songs to a crowd that was no doubt more familiar with his Hebrew and English compositions. Early in the evening while talking in English, crowd members screamed out for him to talk in "Hebrew." Others returned the yelling with "English." But no one suggested Spanish. Broza's heavy Spanish selection, however, seemed to lack the poetic flair of his Hebrew songs, though that is surely a response based on my ignorance of the language. The crowd though did not seem as energized during his Spanish songs either. For an artist whose music is dominated by Hebrew, and whose fan base at the Christmas season show no doubt comes from Jewish backgrounds, Hebrew may have been a wiser selection.

The show, however, was not entirely a flop. The remaining forty minutes, out of nearly three hours of Broza, was clearly the evening's highlight. As the beginning chords of Broza's magnum opus "Under the Sky" were recognized, cheers from the audience flooded the room, drowning out even Broza's own brawny voice. The crowd sang along as if it was a duet: "Despite all the pain, I still love," cried Broza. "And you still love," retorted back the audience. It was a match made in heaven.

Broza promised he would be back next year, for yet another show of "Not Exactly Christmas Eve." But because of the length of his performance, many in the audience who snuck out early were not there to hear it. If history can teach us anything, they'll be able to catch the end of this year's show at next year's. As for myself, maybe I'll be back; maybe I won't. At least for now I've got my Broza CDs and a whole year to decide.