[Track notes from the original record release:]
Di Zilberne Khasene (The Silver Wedding)
From the wine-cellars of Bucharest, the alleys of Odessa, and the hashish-dens
of Constantinople, wandering musicians blended nineteenth-century Western
harmonies and rhythms with ancient Eastern modes to create klezmer
music. This soulful, defiant Old World jazz came over on the boat with refugees
from European oppression and was heard often in the streets of America —
streets which, for many, were paved not with gold but with broken backs. Our
arrangement of this wedding freylekhs (merry dance) is based on three
different recordings made in the 1910s by klezmer bands.
Papirosn (Cigarettes)
This song was popularized by "Der Poyets" (The Clown), Herman Yablokoff, whose
lyrics told the tale of an orphaned cigarette peddler freezing on a street
corner. Papirosn long ago entered the folk tradition. Several of us knew
variant versions. Our instrumental arrangement reflects this diversity. We
begin with an improvised doina or lament in Rumanian-Yiddish style. Then
we strike up a hot dance-band rendition which includes a version orignally done
by the great clarinetist Dave Tarras with Abe Ellstein's Orchestra.
The stringed instrument heard prominently here is a tsimbalom built by
Jozsef V. Schunda of Budapest. Its 35 courses (sets) of strings are struck with
a pair of small hand-held wooden hammers with cotton-wrapped tips. When the
tsimbalom was enlarged and refined from earlier hammered dulcimers a
century ago, its distinctive sound soon became an integral feature of urban
Hungarian, Slovak, Rumanian, Gypsy, and klezmer ensembles.
Medyatsiner Waltz
We culled this lovely waltz from Tshortkover Rebns Khasene, a wedding
suite recorded by Art Shryer's Orchestra in the late 1920s. Amid the tumult of
processional marches for the bride and groom, the clop of horses' hooves, and
the ribald humor of the klezmorim (all crammed onto one side of a
ten-inch 78-rpm disc), the wedding jester identified this as the devotional
tune of the Medyatsiner Rebbe (spiritual community leader).
Mayn Rue Plats (My Resting Place)
The tailor and writer Morris Rosenfeld chronicled the desperate longings of his
fellow sweatshop workers in hundreds of poems which appeared in the Yiddish
press from the 1880s to the 1920s. Set to music, many of them entered the folk
tradition — some as love songs, others as anthems of the emerging labor
movement. Mayn Rue Plats is both. Miriam Dvorin learned it from a
socialist songbook which belonged to her grandmother.
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Nit zukh mikh vu di mirtn grinen. Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats. Vu lebns velkn bay mashinen, Dortn iz mayn rue plats. Nit zukh mikh vu di feygl zingen. Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats. A shklaf bin ikh vu keytn klingen, Dortn iz mayn rue plats. Nit zukh mikh vu fontanen shpritsn. Gefinst mikh dortn nit, mayn shats. Vu trern rinen, tseyner kritsn, Dortn iz mayn rue plats. Un libstu mikh mit varer libe, To kum tsu mir, mayn guter shats, Un hayter oyf mayn harts di tribe Un makh mir zis mayn rue plats. |
Don't look for me where myrtles are green. You will not find me there, my beloved. Where lives wither at the machines, There is my resting place. Don't ook for me where birds sing. You will not find me there, my beloved. I am a slave where chains ring, There is my resting place. Don't look for me where fountains spray. You will not find me there, my beloved. Where tears flow and teeth gnash, There is my resting place. And if you love me with true love, So come to me, my good beloved, And cheer my gloomy heart And make sweet my resting place. |
A Glezele Vayn (A Little Glass of Wine)
Klezmorim often received their pay in the form of alcohol rather than in
negotiable currency like kopecks or zlotys. At such times a
military march could end up sounding like a three-day pass.
Baym Rebns Sude (At the Rebbe's Meal)
This is one of the oldest pieces in our repertoire, and we play it as it might
have been played by a street band in the days of the Czar. As in the old days,
the clarinetist improvises an introduction based both on liturgical modes and
on military fanfares, and the other players join in as soon as they recognize
the theme. The folk drum heard here is a baraban made by hand out of
wood, rope, calfskin, and goatskin.
Af Shabes in Vilna (On the Sabbath in Vilna)
This raucous march from an old disc by Abe Schwartz's Orchestra has little to
do with the Lithuanian town of Vilna, and even less to do with the Sabbath.
Since klezmorim seldom had names for the tunes they played, the titles
of their recordings (which conjure up images of wedding gaiety or old country
tradition) were almost always chosen arbitrarily in the recording studio.
Sonya/Anushke
Of all the recordings that Brian Wishnefsky's grandparents played for him years
ago in Brooklyn, Sonya and Anushke were the most memorable. These
songs from Czarist Russia enjoyed great popularity here in the 1920s.
Sonya, in fact had several different sets of lyrics about lost love,
Siberian exile, and the experiences of Russian-Jewish immigrants in
America.
The hammered dulcimer heard on this track is a tsambal mik from Rumania.
For several centuries this portable predecessor of the tsimbalom
provided melodic, rhythmic, and chordal effects in traveling bands of Central
and Eastern Europe.
Firen di Mekhutonim Aheym (Leading the In-Laws Home)
Our source for this elegant tune in the sirba rhythm ("limping" 3/8 from
Rumania) is a recording made in the mid-1920s by clarinet master Naftule
Brandwine, whose career was brilliant and brief. We've been told that he used
to perform with his back turned to his listeners, to prevent anyone from
copying his technique.
Lebedik un Freylekh (Lively and Merry)
At a traditional wedding the jester or bandleader would frequently shout, "
Lebedik! Lebedik! Freylekh!" to urge the musicians on to excesses of speed
and virtuosity. This is one of our favorite klezmer tunes and if you
don't dance to it, you'll never find out why.
Freylekhs fun L.A. (Merry Tune from L.A.)
The band learned this nineteenth-century klezmer tune from David Gray,
who learned it from fiddler Mark Simos, who learned it from his neighbor Israel
Lakretz, a mandolin-playing retired farmer born in Russia and now living in Los
Angeles.
Bessarabyanke (Girl from Bessarabia)
We all seem to have always known this Russian Gypsy melody in one form or
another. Our title comes from a version which made the rounds of Continental
cafés after the 1917 Revolution, recalling the fine wines and wild women
of Bessarabia.
Taxim (Improvisation)
A plaintive doina and dance melody originally recorded over 50 years ago
by violinist Jacob Gegna.
[Album credits:]
Produced by The Klezmorim and Chris Strachwitz
Recorded live without overdubbing at 1750 Arch Street, Berkeley,
California
on 11 & 13 March and 15 July 1978.
Engineer: Bob Shumaker
Cover illustration: R. Crumb
Art Director: Wayne Pope
Photos: Chris Strachwitz
Notes: Lev Liberman and David Julian Gray
Special thanks to: Dr. Martin Schwartz, mentor & gadfly; klezmer-investigator Henry Sapoznik; and jazz historian Richard Hadlock for lending us his rare copy of Wolff Kostakowsky's 1916 klezmer book.