My Cousin, The Late Jay Black

I Will Miss The Great Singer's Speaking Voice

My cousin Jay Black of Jay & the Americans died October 23, 2021, at age 82 in New York. I have some stories.

He wasn't born Jay. His birth name was David Blatt. In 1965, my friend Scot Brody and I were at the United Synagogue Youth of Conservative Judaism's convention in Washington, D.C. Scot was representing Jewish Community Center of West Hempstead, where my Bar-Mitzvah reception had been held two years earlier, at which Jay declined to sing. "If I do it for you, I'd have to do it for everyone," he waved at the assembled family members. I didn't understand it then, but for all of his boldness and outer machismo, cousin Jay was also very shy and anxious before he performed.

I was representing Shelter Rock JCC, where for strange reason I was chapter president. The strange reason was that nobody else wanted the job. We'd had no membership the year before when my parents made me go to the youth group hoping I would "find some friends" in the new neighborhood we had moved to. To stop my p…