Jeremiaih Lockwood Headshot

Jeremiah Lockwood

Musician

Jeremiah Lockwood is a scholar and a storyteller; a singer, guitarist and composer with an expansive knowledge of musical traditions and techniques that stretch from The Piedmont blues to the cantorial traditions of his family. He is currently a Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Lockwood’s music career began with over a decade of apprenticeship to the legendary Piedmont Blues musician Carolina Slim, playing in the subways of New York City. He also trained under his grandfather Cantor Jacob Konigsberg and performed in his choir. Jeremiah’s band The Sway Machinery seeks inspiration from diverse realms of experience related to the cultural geography of New York City. The Sway Machinery has played around the world, including stints at legendary music festivals like Montreal Jazz, Roskilde, and perhaps most notably, Festival au Desert in Timbuktu, Mali. His first book, Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era, is coming out in February 2024 with University of California Press.

Articles

Blog

Ghosts, Electronic Media, and Jewish Voices

Musician and Reboot Network member Jeremiah Lockwood has a special fondness for ghosts and has been talking about how to bring the presence of the spectral into the experiences of music, ritual and life for many years. In his latest project with his band, The Sway Machinery, he turns to the sonic apparitions of live davening cantorial archives of his grandfather and others for inspiration. He will premiere a new set of songs, titled The Dream Past, September 21 in Brooklyn that will be featured on the Sway Machinery’s YouTube Channel after the show. Get tickets and find out more information here. Get a taste of the music here.

Blog

In the Women’s Synagogue

Normative ideology about prayer in the Jewish tradition prohibits women’s voices from public spaces, especially as prayer leaders. But in the era of cantorial music’s emergence as a mass mediated pop music phenomenon in the gramophone era, there was a scene of women cantors who boldly grabbed hold of the new possibilities of recording. Working as recording artists, stage performance and radio performers, women singers had careers as performers of khazones, the stylized version of Jewish prayer reconfigured as an emotive and dramatically charged art form. Reboot Network member Jeremiah Lockwood shares in a blog about his research into this fascinating history. Read more here.

Blog

Hidden Melodies Return

When Reboot Network member Jeremiah Lockwood was growing up, his grandfather Cantor Jacob Konigsberg would disappear for three months each year. “We knew where he was, but no one was allowed to see him except my grandmother. He went into what he called ‘hibernation,’ a state of restless anticipation, anxiety about his vocal health and intense spiritual preparation for the High Holidays, Lockwood said.

As a musician who has melded elements of cantorial music with his musical strengths as a composer, blues guitarist and rock musician, Lockwood is often reminded of his grandfather’s focus and achievement. Read more here.

Appears in

Reboot Records

A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Album

A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Album, produced with Reboot, is a solo guitar tribute to the holiday. With heartfelt appreciation of the 1968 classic The New Possibility: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli Christmas Album, Lockwood has sweetly crafts eight songs, one for each night of Chanukah, to celebrate the dancing candlelight with his new, blues-inspired takes on the most beloved melodies of the holiday’s canon. From the prayers for lighting the candles to the kids’ songs that are sung around the burning menorah, Lockwood paints the light through the darkness with his instrumental creations. Learn more, listen now and order the vinyl record!

Reboot Records

Detroit Chanukah Memories

Highlights of Chanukah memories from the Detroit Jewish community are featured in a new music video from Reboot in celebration of their new Chanukah album A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Record. In the video, Lockwood is playing the album track “Ritual.” This is a love letter to the Jewish Community of Detroit, celebrating the moments of togetherness that the holiday of Chanukah has fostered over the years.

Reboot Records

Highlights of Chanukah

Highlights of Chanukah memories from across the country and through generations in celebration of the Chanukah record A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Album. In the video, Lockwood is playing the album track “Ritual.” The video features vintage photographs spanning the 1920s-1990s, gathered from vernacular collections, garage and estate sales, press archives, personal and family collections, and Jewish Community Centers photo archives that represent modern celebrations of Chanukah. Watch it here. Want more? Check out our special video of Detroit community Chanukah memories.

Reboot Records

Chanukah Oy Chanukah

Enjoy the latest music video of “Chanukah Oy Chanukah” from A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Record, released November 22, 2021.

Reboot Records

Little Dreydl

As the nights get longer and days get brisker, the feeling of the holidays descends upon us. And with all holidays come the traditions, reflections, smells, sights and sounds that uplift the season, help us greet the familiar time of year. Reboot Records and musician Jeremiah Lockwood present a Chanukah record that is sure to become a standard in holiday’s lexicon. Enjoy the music video of Little Dreydl from A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Album. Learn more and stream the album.

Reboot Records

Mi Yemalel

Enjoy the latest music video of Mi Yemalel from A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Record, released November 22, 2021.

The Golem Rescored

Music and the Monster

Episode number two features a score from Jeremiah Lockwood, Meg Baird and Charlie Saufley. In this episode, we explore themes of music and mysticism and the interpretation of image through musical score, looking at the relationship between sound and image with Jeremiah Lockwood, a student of Jewish Mysticism and the blues. Film is a medium greatly focused on the image. But the music and the words that undergird those images are equally important in cinematic storytelling. And in the world of silent film, the music carries that entire load. Watch here.

Studio Projects

A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Record

A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Album, produced with Reboot, is a solo guitar tribute to the holiday. With heartfelt appreciation of the 1968 classic The New Possibility: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli Christmas Album, Lockwood has sweetly crafts eight songs, one for each night of Chanukah, to celebrate the dancing candlelight with his new, blues-inspired takes on the most beloved melodies of the holiday’s canon. From the prayers for lighting the candles to the kids’ songs that are sung around the burning menorah, Lockwood paints the light through the darkness with his instrumental creations. Learn more, listen now and order the vinyl record!

Digital SeriesReboot Rescored

The Golem Rescored: Teaser

A clip from Episode 2 of The Golem Rescored, with a score by a trio featuring Sway Machinery’s Jeremiah Lockwood, a student of Jewish Mysticism and the blues along with Meg Baird, a chanteuse formerly of the band Espers, and her longtime collaborator guitarist Charlie Saufley, both of whom are in Heron Oblivion.

The Golem Rescored: Guests

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of The Golem, Reboot is cutting up the film into eight parts, creating an episodic series with new scores by renowned musicians and hosted by preeminent scholars, composers and film historians discussing the significance of the film and its music and taking a deep dive into the Jewish history, occultism, Hollywoodism, traditions and astrology.