“This year, I want to talk about second chances, moving on, rising above adversity, getting back up… all of that stuff, it’s so important"

M

usic should be discussed in a place with a musical vibe, Shuey thought. In the old days, they would sit in the back room of the studio, empty pizza boxes and soda bottles all around them, creating and planning and dreaming.

Then they had moved their sessions over to that room in Shuey’s old house, sort of a closed-in porch with glass walls and plants all over and good energy. The crew would often still be there when the sun came up, the glass walls painted orange as new music came into the world.

It felt strange to welcome Raffi Katz, who had been part of those gatherings, to the study of a rented house, a lackluster room with a single dark seforim shelf, shaggy beige carpeting, and a needlepoint of the Kosel on the wall that looked like it was made by someone who had run out of steam halfway through. The room had no energy, but Raffi seemed eager to talk.

Raffi looked good. He had gone from a sound-equipment shlepper to a technician, then he’d opened the studios and had somehow become a broker, matching up singers and songs, musicians and gigs. Now he was a producer, and, in a magazine article that made Shuey wince, he had been called a “visionary.”

He had gotten married last year; at the chasunah, a series of singers had taken to the stage to bring joy to the chassan and kallah, but no one had asked Shuey if he wanted the chance. Thirteen singers had gone up, while Shuey Portman sat at table 37, which had more chairs than actual place settings, eating pickles in relative anonymity.

Marriage seemed to have done Raffi well. He was dressed normally, and his hair didn’t look like he had just come out of a cave.

Shuey wasn’t sure if they were heimish enough to go with the joke, but decided it was worth the shot. “I gotta say, marriage has done you well, you look almost normal,” he said. “Your hair is at manageable levels.”

Raffi looked at him absently and ran his fingers through his hair, as if checking that it was still there.

“Ha,” he said. “You good?”

“Baruch Hashem. Busy. Where are you living now?” Shuey asked.

Raffi had asked for the meeting and come to his house, but if Shuey would just look at him expectantly and not try for some small talk, then it would be painfully obvious that he was desperate to hear what Raffi wanted. It was smarter to make this a friendly get-together, touching base, let’s see if we can work together, that type of thing.

Raffi was living in Woodmere and life was good and he had an idea that was still sort of vague, but he wanted to try to tease it out together.

“Sure,” Shuey said. He was all for teasing it out.