Passover Musical Countdown Begins with a Yiddish Jazz Version of "Go Down Moses"

With the first (and in Israel, the only) seder only five days away, we're getting ready by posting some Passover music to get into the mood.

Yisroel Leshes, Assistant Cantor at Lincoln Square Synagogue, has released Go Down, Moyshe - a video of the African-American spiritual “Go Down, Moses” in Yiddish – with a jazzy twist.

As reported by the staff of The Forward,

Leshes has previously infused Yiddish songs with jazz elements, as in his release of the song “Younger World”. In this video, he performs “Go Down, Moses” during a live performance of Yiddish jazz at The Mansion, a private venue near Union Square, that is open once a month for Jewish music.

“Go Down, Moses” was sung by African-American slaves as a song of freedom, beginning in the 1800’s. The words, quoting the Bible, re-interpreted Moses’ calls for freedom for the Israelites, as demands for freedom by enslaved Black people. It was first published as sheet music in 1861 after Reverend Lewis Lockwood heard runaway slaves singing it. The song became well-known across America since its widespread popularization during and after the Civil War.

For years, many American Jews have taken the song as emblematic of the Pesach story, and sing it at their Seder. Now Leshes’ clip may encourage some of them to sing it in Yiddish as well.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.  

 

Tumbalalaika Around the World: A Yiddish Jazz Version by Sharon Brauner in Leipzig, Germany

The Yiddish folk love song Tumbalalaika originated in Eastern Europe in the 19th century, but its exact origin is hard to pinpoint. That hasn't prevented it from being sung and played over and over, not only in places where Yiddish songs are sung, but just about everywhere in the world, in vocal and instrumental versions, in cabarets and in the movies.

Just as we have followed the songs Hava Nagila, Adon Olam, Hevenu Shalom Aleichem, and Abanibi as they took different forms as interpreted by a wide variety of singers, musicians, and dancers, we're continuing the series today that we started back in 2012, bringing you many interpretations of this universal courting and love song. 

The company J. Ariowitsch was one of the leading companies in the Leipzig smoked goods trade in the Weimar Republic. Now their building is a center for Jewish culture in Germany. Numerous cultural events, concert and reading series, exhibitions, lectures and seminars take place here every year.

Last week Sharon Brauner, Karsten Troyke, Daniel Weltlinger & Harry Ermer performed a live concert of Jewish music at Ariowitsch-Haus in Leipzig, including their version of Tumbalalaika.

Born in West Berlin in 1969, Brauner attended a musical school and took a job as a bouncer, bartender, and go-go dancer in Berlin's trendy clubs. Then she studied acting at the Lee Strasberg institute in New York while singing jazz standards at night in various clubs.

Brauner launched a singing career, and dedicated herself to popularizing Yiddish classics that she knew from her childhood. She reinterpreted the songs, some of which are centuries old, in swing, jazz and pop, Balkan polka, Arab arabesques, South American rhythms, reggae, waltz, country, and tango elements. The songs captured the joy and the soul of the music.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Welcoming Shabbat with Adon Olam at Touro Synagogue Jazz Fest in New Orleans

From its beginning in 1828, New Orleans' Touro Synagogue has evolved through changes in location, liturgy, clergy leadership, and the way New Orleans Jews view their religion.

 The synagogue bears the name of Judah Touro, son of Isaac Touro, the cantor who founded the oldest synagogue in the United States in Newport, Rhode Island in 1763.

With historic roots and a progressive heart, Touro Synagogue is a community that is filled with beautiful contradictions – a grand, historic sanctuary and an intimate, embracing chapel; an active group of knowledgeable sages and a vibrant young adult community; a love of enduring Jewish traditions and a drive for spiritual innovation and forward motion; a commitment to the inner life of the congregational family and a constant energetic force that engages with the renewal of greater New Orleans.

In 1991, Touro decided to invite guest musicians and a Jazz band to create the first Jazz Fest Shabbat, a special tribute to one of New Orleans’ greatest traditions, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Since then, this unique and nationally recognized worship fills the historic main sanctuary each year. Special guests have included Ellis Marsalis, Jeremy Davenport, Henry Butler, Theresa Andersson, Kermit Ruffins and his Barbecue Swingers, Marcia Ball, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, John Boutté, Dr. Michael White, the Joe Krown Trio with Walter Wolfman Washington and Russell Batiste, Jr., and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Each of them has added their own unique talents, making Jazz Fest Shabbat special every year.

Here's the congregation singing Adon Olam to When the Saints Go Marchin' In at the 2018 Jazz Fest Shabbat in May 2018.

Enjoy and Shabbat shalom!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.

Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: When Jazz Singer Billie Holiday Sang "My Yiddishe Mama"

This week marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of legendary songstress Billie Holiday, who died in 1959 at the age of 44. A few years before her death, Holiday recorded an impromptu cover of the Jewish classic My Yiddishe Mama, which was composed by Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack and popularized by vaudeville star Sophie Tucker in 1925.

By the late 1930s, Billie Holiday had toured with Count Basie and Artie Shaw, scored a string of radio and retail hits with Teddy Wilson, and became an established artist in the recording industry. Her songs What A Little Moonlight Can Do and Easy Living were being imitated by singers across America and were quickly becoming jazz standards.[

As Elissa Goldstein wrote in Tablet Magazine,

The song has been covered many times, by everyone from the Barry Sisters to Neil Sedaka to—improbably—Tom Jones, who apparently learned it from his father, a Welsh coal miner. (Also noteworthy: this rendition by Ray Charles on the set of The Nanny.)

Holiday’s version is something else entirely: with a simple piano accompaniment, it’s nostalgic but not kitschy, full of sentiment without being sentimental, evoking both strength and vulnerability.

According to the liner notes of the Idelsohn Society’s 2011 compilation “Black Sabbath: The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations,” the song was recorded at the New York City home of clarinetist Tony Scott, in an effort to coax his baby into ‘talking’ into the microphone.

Another version of the story, by musician Jack Gottlieb, has it that the child was the son of William Dufty, who co-authored Holiday’s autobiography, “Lady Sings the Blues.” In any event, Holiday’s crooning is successful—how could it fail?—and the child can be heard cooing toward the end of the recording. It’s a delightful, candid moment.

Enjoy!

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO IS NOT VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)