Celebrating Jewish Music in America

Jazz great Dave Brubeck, during a 2001 Milken Archive recording session in Baltimore, Md.

© 2003 Milken Family Foundation

Klezmer Concertos and Encores, one of several CDs in the collection.

This month marks the 350th anniversary of the first Jewish settlement in America, in what is now New York City. Music commentator Miles Hoffman says one way to celebrate is to listen to a new collection from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music.

Jazz great Dave Brubeck, whose "Gates of Justice" is part of the Jewish music collection.

2003 Milken Family Foundation

The collection eventually will include dozens of CDs of Jewish music spanning those three and a half centuries.

The music, by about 200 mostly American Jewish composers, comprises a variety of styles, including sacred, secular, operatic, jazz and classical. The archive hopes to introduce "a repertoire that might not otherwise be heard, both to performing groups and audiences," Hoffman says.