#mark rubin

Center of the River Announces its Arrival with “Just Over in the Gloryland”

- Band is collaboration between Mark Rubin, David Buchbinder and Michael Ward-Bergeman

Reverent, wishful and ultimately a celebration, a new version of “Just Over in the Gloryland” announces a new project from former Bad Liver Mark Rubin.

Known as Jew of Oklahoma in his solo work, Rubin handles bass, guitar and lead vocals in Center of the River, a joint with accordionist/co-vocalist Michael Ward-Bergeman and trumpeter David Buchbinder.

“Gloryland” foreshadows a trio looking for light in darkness; one that acknowledges and vanquishes the latter on a wordless, hand-clapping coda/declaration of victory as Rubin’s sinewy bass and Buchbinder’s brass snake their way between the major-key notes emanating from Ward-Bergeman’s squeezebox.

This release is essential, coming as it does after a slow build that climaxes with Rubin and Ward-Bergeman testing the limits of their voices as they will themselves toward the titular reward. And just when things seem to be irresistibly overwrought, the dance party begins.

There’s no word as to what’s next for Center of the River, just that the new group aims to plumb the “deep musical traditions of the Mississippi and New Orleans” with original and traditional compositions and musical formats.

“Just Over in the Gloryland” suggests that will not be a problem for the nascent ensemble.

Song Review: Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma - “Southern Jews is Good News” (Live, Dec. 2, 2022)

Funny, sad, educational and potentially unsettling, “Southern Jews is Good News” is an ear-opener.

Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma performed the number Dec. 2 in Texas while seated next to a host who seemed unsure of what to make of a song that references farms with no pigs, Jews passing for white, Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin (a Jew) and a willingness to kill Jesus - again.

Southern Jews is good news, baby/it’s just those Yankees I’ma worried about, Rubin sings as he accompanies himself on banjo and breaks into joyful, wordless vocalizing to underscore the humor amid the seriousness.

Grade card: Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma - “Southern Jews is Good News” (Live - 12/2/22) - A

Album Review: Mark Rubin - Jew of Oklahoma - The Triumph of Assimilation

Mark Rubin is angry. He’s disheartened. But he’s also funny. And he mixes these emotions with bluegrass, folk, jazz, blues and klezmer music to make his point on the Triumph of Assimilation.

The self-proclaimed Jew of Oklahoma and former Bad Livers bassist announces a message of kindness, peace and love on “A Day of Revenge,” which kicks off the album, a half-hour treatise on being Jewish in America, on a hopeful note.

Things turn darker on “The Murder of Leo Frank,” a true-story murder ballad-cum-tale of false accusations whose refrain is: hang that little Jew. And joy comes back via the instrumental - and self-explanatory - “Yiddish Banjo Songs” and “Good Shabbes” a solo-acoustic bit of country blues that imagines how the Rev. Gary Davis might’ve sounded as a rabbi.

An Oklahoma native who once witnessed a cross burning in his yard and subsequently transplanted to New Orleans, Rubin celebrates all he is on the banjo-and-Yiddish “Avinu Malkeinu” (Our Father, Our King); with the Hanukkah-in-summertime “Spin the Dreidel,” featuring the Panorama Jazz Band; and on “Down South Kosher,” which bounces along on tuba, accordion, snare drum and banjo.

I used bacon as a garnish and ham hock as a spice/if you wanna keep kosher gotta work real hard/cause everything here’s gotta a little bit of lard/you make accommodations when you live in the south/don’t ask too many questions ’bout what goes in your mouth/don’t wanna stick out you wanna get along/so eat that crawfish and sing my little song, Rubin intones.

Elsewhere, he reunites with the Livers’ Danny Barnes on “My Resting Place,” a close musical cousin of “Man of Constant Sorrow.”

And while only a Jew could get away with a song like “Unnatural Disasters” - it’s not always easy to tell one when you see one/so someone you like might turn out to be one/it's the Jews/it’s always the Jews/we cause global warming and he give you the blues, Rubin sings to a shuffle not unlike an acoustic arrangement of the Grateful Dead’s “Loose Lucy” - one needn’t be Jewish to relate to the Triumph of Assimilation.

But it’s funnier - and cuts closer to the bone - if you are.

Grade card: Mark Rubin - Jew of Oklahoma - The Triumph of Assimilation - B+

Song Review: Mark Rubin - Jew of Oklahoma - “The Murder of Leo Frank”

Part modern murder ballad, part plea for justice, “The Murder of Leo Frank” is what might have happened if Bob Dylan had crossed “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” with “Hurricane.”

But it’s Mark Rubin - the Jew of Oklahoma retelling the story of the titular character, a man falsely accused of killing 13-year-old Mary Phagan and hung by a mob in Atlanta in 1915 while the murderer got away with with the crime.

Hang that little Jew/let’s that little Jew/hang that little Jew/he hanged that little Jew, Rubin spits on the refrain.

Set to solo-acoustic accompaniment, the track follows “It’s Burning” and “My Resting Place” from the Triumph of Assimilation, which Rubin releases June 1.

“Hopefully my tale will set a few records straight,” Rubin said of “the Ballad.”

“Frank was posthumously pardoned in 1986, though never formally absolved. Justice remains elusive to this day."

Grade card: Mark Rubin - Jew of Oklahoma - “The Murder of Leo Frank” - B+

Song Review: Mark Rubin - The Jew of Oklahoma feat. Danny Barnes - “My Resting Place”

Two-thirds of a Bad Livers reunion somehow wound up sounding exactly like a Dan Tyminski solo track.

Following “It’s Burning” as the second single from the Triumph of Assimilation (June 1), “My Resting Place” finds Mark Rubin - the self-proclaimed Jew of Oklahoma - on guitar and vocals joined by his former Bad Livers bandmate Danny Barnes on banjo. And the result is something like a long-lost leftover from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Don’t you look for me where the waters splash/you will not find me there, my love/but where the tears flow free and they teeth they gnash/that’ll be my resting place, Rubin sings in a voice eerily similar to the Union Station guitarist’s own with a melody not unlike “Man of Constant Sorrow.”

It isn’t particularly original. But timeless music carries no such requirement.

Grade card: Mark Rubin - The Jew of Oklahoma feat. Danny Barnes - “My Resting Place” - A