A Mother's Day Musical Special: Cantor Azi Schwartz Sings "My Yiddishe Momme"

Today is Mother's Day and we celebrate by posting a tribute to all mothers in the form of a new rendition of My Yiddishe Momme by Cantor Azi Schwartz of the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York.

My Yiddishe Momme is a song written by Jack Yellen (words and music) and Lew Pollack (music), first recorded by Willie Howard, and was made famous in Vaudeville by Belle Baker and by Sophie Tucker, and later by the Barry Sisters.

Tucker began singing "My Yiddishe Momme" in 1925, after the death of her own mother. She later dedicated her autobiography Some of These Days to Yellen, "A grand song writer, and a grander friend". Sophie Tucker made 'Mama' a top 5 U.S. hit in 1928, English on one side and Yiddish on the B-side. Leo Fuld combined both in one track and made it a hit in the rest of the world."

Enjoy, and Happy Mother's Day!

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.)

"My Yiddishe Mama" Gets Updated For a Younger Generation

Last fall, cantor and musician Meir Goldberg released a music video of the classic English/Yiddish song, My Yiddishe Mama. 

But unlike the many covers of this 1920's hit by Yossele Rosenblatt, Sophie Tucker, the Barry Sisters, Leo Fuld, Itzhak Perlman, Tom Jones, Neil Sedaka, Yitzhak Meir Helfgot, and uncounted others, Goldberg's video fuses his traditional interpretation with that of a group of Jewish rappers called Brooklyn Mentality. 

The combination produces a different, upbeat sound that just might resonate with the younger generation without losing listeners who grew up with the traditional rendition.

As Rukhl Schaechter wrote in The Jewish Daily Forward,

Before Goldberg and his producer, Daniel Finkelman, made the video, they were aware that combining a sentimental Yiddish song with the raw and sharp beat of hip-hop would not go over well with many viewers.

“On the flip side, we also knew that if we went with the old lyrics of ‘Mein Yiddishe Mama’, we would potentially lose the younger generation,” Finkelman said in an interview with the Forverts. As it turned out, it was a risk worth taking. Since the video came out, it was shared multiple times on Facebook to a mostly young audience.

The music video is also remarkable for another reason: both Goldberg and Finkelman grew up in Israel in the 1980’s. Contrary to the stereotype of Israeli society’s negative stance towards Yiddish, they both have fond memories of the Yiddish songs they heard at home. Finkelman’s parents were immigrants from Ukraine, and his grandmother often spoke Yiddish. “Our favorite radio program was ‘Rozhinkes mit Mandlen’, where they constantly played Dudu Fisher and the Barry Sisters,” he said.

Goldberg’s father was a cantor in the IDF, and his family also listened to Dudu Fisher, as well as Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, at home in Tel Aviv. “My parents didn’t really want us to listen to the goyishe (secular) love songs, so they played the Yiddish songs before we went to bed,” Goldberger said.

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.)