Charming Hostess were born from the fusion of
an a-capella women's trio
(Jewlia Eisenberg, Marika Hughes, Cynthia Taylor)
and the punk-rock band Idiot Flesh.
Under the musical direction of Jewlia Eisenberg, they recorded
Eat (Vaccination, 1998), an album of adventurous harmonies and rhythms.
The female singers specialize in harmonizing frantically like the
Shonen Knife on speed.
The music mixes excessive doses of ska, folk, gospel, klezmer,
supported by an orchestra of flute, clarinet,
cello, fiddle, saxophone and didgeridoo.
Unfortunately, they excel at rearranging old folk tunes (their repertory
ranges from Africa to the Balkans), not at composing original material.
The hymn Sha Shtil is a notable exception, both for the stark choral
performance that merges Andrews Sisters, Gregorian liturgy and Tibetan mantra,
and for the medieval saltarello,
The complex Ferret Said weaves a rhythm borrowed from Paul Simon
(Boy and The Bubble) with prog-rock gymnastics.
Their creative polyphony of female voices deserves better material.
Jewlia Eisenberg's
Trilectic (Tzadik, 2001) contains her ambitious Trilectic Suite,
a tour de force of a-cappella multiplied vocals
whose vignettes (sung in several languages) are mostly inspired by Jewish tradition but also include blues laments (Gershom Is Schocked),
jazz ballads (Dream of me),
convent-like chants (The Touch of Her Hands),
and even regular songs with drums (Sicily).
Peaks of melody and counterpoint include Fortress Moscow and
Bread and Circuses.
Her second solo The Grim Arithmetic of Water (2004)
documents a collaboration with choreographer Jo Kreiter.
Charming Hostess returned with
Sarajevo Blues (Tzadik, 2004), which
opens and closes with Jewish traditionals
but is mostly taken up by a suite inspired by
Bosnian wartime poet Semezdin Mehmedinovic's collection "Sarajevo Blues".
The suite succumbs to the temptation to
imitate Balkan folk music, something that works well only in
What Will You Remember, but also rises above the premise with the
avant-jazz of The Tunnel and the avant-folk of Exodus.
The standout is a sarcastic skit of political musichall, Death is a Job,
followed by the grotesque chamber lied Zenica Blues.
The Charming Hostess Big Band (featuring
Jewlia Eisenberg, Carla Kihlstedt, Nina Rolle, Wes Anderson, Nils Frykdahl and Dan Rathbun) released Punch (ReR, 2005).
The album contains several Balkan traditionals,
a cover of Lefty Frizell's country elegy Long Black Veil,
and at least one British traditional, Lady Gay (in Joan Baez's repertory in the early 1960s).
There is only one display of the Charming Hostess'
creative harmonies (Rise).
There is the jazzy prog-rock of Heaven Sitting Down and of the exuberant Torso (with saxophone, trombone and trumpet) but it's way too little.
They set to music a text by Bruno Schulz in the turbulent hard-rocking
Street Of Tubing (with Andrew Borger on saw)
The Bowls Project (Tzadik, 2010) contains six traditionals and ten Eisenberg originals inspired by ancient Jewish inscriptions on “demon bowls” discovered underneath Babylonian houses.
The Ginzburg Geography (Tzadik, 2022) contains 13 songs dedicated to the Italian Jewish writer Natalia Ginzburg and her husband Leone.
In 2011 Jewlia Eisenberg premiered her an interactive sound sculpture about sex and magic titled "The Bowls Project" inside an environment designed by architect Michael Ramage with video art by Shezad Dawood.
Jewlia Eisenberg and acoustic guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood formed Book of J (2018), a folk project influenced by the Jewish musical tradition.
The Ginzburg Geography (Tzadik, 2022) is a concept album
based on the life and work of two Italian anti-fascist Jews, the writer
Natalia Ginzburg and her husband Leone, who was tortured and died in jail.