The Jerusalem Season of Culture, a non-profit arts organization that launches events each summer across a wide array of locations in the city, has announced the lineups for its two stalwart music festivals.Frontline, which is currently running through August 20, features an ambitious global program of young independent musicians, with a core group rooted in the local scene in Jerusalem. Highlights include Luke Vibert, Drumetrics Collective, and others bringing a bubbling collage of electronic music genres to a night dubbed “Entrenched,” which will definitely be sweaty; the abrasive noise-art of 60 Reebo and Nah; an evening of local, and deeply political, hip-hop; and the retro-punk-funk of France’s Zombie Zombie, whose liquid bass lines bring to mind Fela Kuti’s Africa ’70 playing the soundtrack to “Miami Vice.” By contrast, the Jerusalem Scared Music Festival, which runs from August 30 through September 4, looks back at the old. I had the privilege of attending last year’s festival, a splendid series of days (often moving through the night and into the next day) where, it seemed, every time you turned your head there was a completely different sound emitting from a corner of the performance space, located within the walls of the Tower of David.This year, Jonny Greenwood, the guitarist of Radiohead and the most interesting composer currently working in Hollywood — “There Will Be Blood,” “The Master” — will be headlining the Sacred Music Festival, performing in a duo with Shye Ben Tzur, who plays traditional Indian qawwali music. What form this will take is anybody’s guess, but the involvement of Greenwood, being no stranger to experimentation, certainly means it will be interesting.Other musicians performing at the festival include West Africa’s Aziza Brahim, the Culture Musical Club from Zanzibar, Israeli vocalist Shuli Rand, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa in collaboration with The Omri Mor Project, and many more.Reggae, and all its variations, is big at the festival and draws the most enthusiastic crowds. This year, the legend Max Romeo, age 70, will be performing with Zvuloon Dub System, a local group. Romeo — named by another legend, producer Lee “Scratch” Perry — got his start with the Upsetters, Perry’s house band, and later the Hippy Boys, most of whom would go on to form the Wailers behind Bob Marley.Following the single “Wet Dream” in 1968, banned by the BBC, Romeo cemented his legacy with a string of politically charged anthems, many of which were used by the People’s National Party in their turbulent 1972 election run. Romeo would later move to New York, where he produced a reggae-themed musical, titled “Reggae,” which he composed music for and starred in. The production opened on March 11, 1980, and lasted less than a month before closing. Feeling rejected and his career halted, Romeo spent almost the rest of the decade living in New York, even reportedly working at an electronics store at one point just to pay the bills. Romeo eventually turned to his friend, fellow reggae singer John Holt (“Tide is High”), who advised him to return to Jamaica and get back on track.Over the last two decades, Romeo has recorded a string of albums, some with his three children who have branched out into their own musical careers. And as an elder statesman, Romeo’s presence at the festival is a lynchpin of its unifying themes — tradition, universality, spirituality, and freedom.
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