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- Jonah Rank in The New York Times: Article's video features Jonah Rank's music (6:06-6:46) - Jonah Rank's full piece excerpted by The New York Times!
- Buy Jonah Rank's physical CDs
- Jonah Rank in the mock-music-video for Osekre's "Fire and I"
- Buy Jonah Rank's music on iTunes
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- Read Jonah Rank's lyrics and track information at JonahRankLyrics.BlogSpot.Com
I am Jonah Rank, but in some circles I'm known as "Jonah Ranksta: Jewish Gangsta." In other circles, I'm known just as "The New Bad Boy of Wissenschaft des Judentums." I am often compared with Frank Zappa (because of my unique musical style and my lack of drug use), Randy Newman (because of my excessive satire), Matisyahu (just because I'm Jewish), Ben Folds (because I play piano primarily), Bob Dylan (because everybody is compared with him), and Louis Lewandovsky (because I sometimes compose Jewish-liturgical music). In short, my music can be described as half-Jewish comedy-pop fusion. Some people would sum that up as "alternative." Though I am a singer-songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist, I really am a part-time musician & full-time student at Columbia University and The Jewish Theological Seminary, where I am a student of Music & Jewish Music respectively.I have released 2 CDs so far (on which I play each instrument): Your Favorite Album and Loud and Dumb. Your Favorite Album is all experinstrumental music, and Loud and Dumb features poor-quality recordings of songs that are either comedy or pop or both. I am currently at work on several albums: most prominently an album of Jewish-liturgical music I am composing and a comedy album featuring songs with good recording quality. I have already released "Genetic Test", the first single from the upcoming comedy album; the video for it on YouTube has reached over 2500 views!. "Genetic Test" is a song that I erroneously claimed was as much part of the original repertoire of ABBA as all of their other songs, which I had penned. According to my tale, most of the plot of "Genetic Test", minus the actual genetic test, was used as the plot for Mamma Mia! (which would have had a better plot had it included both a genetic test and the song "Genetic Test"). As I was born though after ABBA broke up, my story was quickly doubted across the Internet.
Among my proudest accomplishment of late has been my accompanying and compositional work with various dancers in New York City. An excerpt of my composition for Phillip Askew & Lydia Walker's "Variations on Surya Namaskara" can be heard now on the video (6:06-6:46) available at the article on the website of The New York Times covering Columbia Ballet Collaborative.During the spring and summer of 2009, I contributed music to the films Scribble Squabble Morning and A Modest Education. In August 2009, I completed the mastering, mixing and producing of 13 tracks for Ghanian poet and Reggae artist Ishmael Adjetey Osekre on which I played keyboards, guitar, drums, percussion, bass and trumpet. A fake music video, in which I am prominently featured, has been released for Osekre's first single off of No Turning Back From Here, "Fire and I."
I'm blessed to know that I'm loving what I'm doing, and the music just keeps on coming.
Here's a list of some projects I've been involved in:
- Keyboardist: "Climb Your Mountain" by Yoni Stadlin (of the Stadlin Twins) and Davey Rosen (2008), Ishmael Adjetey Osekre's Verses for Masses (2008-2009), "You and I" demo by David Irwin (2009), more
- Drummer: Pending Chanukkah rock project by Lance Rhodes
- Composer/Pianist: Pending short film, Phillip Askew & Lydia Walker's "Variations on Surya Namaskara" (2008), Lorene Bouboushian's "It's Okay, It's Okay, Don't Worry, It's Okay" (2008), More
- Solo albums: Loud and Dumb (2006), Your Favorite Album (2008)
- Producer: All released solo tracks; "Conflict," "Fire and I," "I Know," "Kiki's Song," "No Turning Back From Here," "Nothing Changes," "On These Streets," "This is the Life," ""Verses for the Masses (Poem)", "Verses for the Masses (Song)," "We Are Going," and "You Are" by Osekre, Unreleased Track by Michal Richardson & Jonah Rank
- Artists with whom I've recorded/performed: Derrick N. Ashong of Soulfège, Phillip Askew, Lorene Bouboushian, Marina Evans, Avi Fox-Rosen, David Irwin, Mike Klein, Matthew Linakis, Noam Londy, Ishmael Osekre, Sean Peters, Lance Rhodes, Michal Richardson, Andre Rivie, Davey Rosen, Raphael Rozenfeld of Led Blimpie, Alan Silverman, Yoni Stadlin of The Stadlin Twins, Hannabiell Sanders, Jeremy Stein, Lydia Walker, Andres Wilson, and Kristin Young
Fun fact: at least 10% of all profits made from my music go to various charities! I write more info about this at my blog here. except it takes determination to navigate my blog, so good luck searching! (By the way, if you like reading blogs, subscribe to mine; I write a lot.)P.S. You can find my lyrics at JonahRankLyrics.BlogSpot.com (slightly under construction).
