This is an odd one! It’s subtitled “The Secret Musical History of Black-Jewish Relations.” So why is a whitebread, protestant boy reviewing it? Well…to cover all the bases I guess!
The Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation is “a small but dedicated team [of volunteers] from the music industry and academia who passionately believe Jewish history is best told by the music we have loved and lost. In order to incite a new conversation about the present, we must begin by listening anew to the past.” And to do that they re-issue lost collections, like this one.
For background you should check the wonderful Web site that’s been created around this release. It features videos of many of the performers, lots of history, and a fascinating tale of the appearance on blues chanteuse Alberta Hunter on the Dick Cavett Show in 1979. Alberta was 84 years old, making a musical comeback after years of working as a nurse. After singing some blues she sang “Ich Hib Dich Tzufil Lieb” (a Yiddish love song from the ’30s). It had been adapted into “I Love You Much To Much” and was a hit for the Andrews Sisters but Alberta Hunter sang it in Yiddish! She then launched into a controversial conversation with Cavett about the ‘theft’ of black traditions by white Jewish composers: “they used to steal our lives,” she said, “so many songs were written by colored people but we had no out. We didn’t know what to do to protect our material at that time.”
The question of who suffered more, blacks or Jews, will not be answered here, but this collection of Yiddish songs by black performers provides an excellent opener for further discussion. The album begins with Billie Holiday’s rendition of “My Yiddishe Momme” and whatever the history, and controversy, a CD should be about the music! Billie is accompanied by piano, and adds her own unique touch to the song. She is recorded live, in an intimate setting, the audience sounds like it includes a baby. I am reviewing a preview copy without benefit of liner notes. Cab Calloway follows some chanting with a zippy scatting “Utt Da Zay” fronting his big band. Pretty cool really. Johnny Hartman is next crooning “That Old Black Magic” and then a bit of blues as Libby Holman and Josh White do “Baby, Baby.” The aforementioned Alberta Hunter track follows, and to tell you the truth it’s hard to believe this is an 80 year old black woman singing.
The rest of the album is every bit as surprising, Eartha Kitt singing “Sholem”, Marlena Shaw jazzing up “Where Can I Go”, the incredible voice of Jimmy Scott singing the “Exodus” theme. More jazz, with “Sabbath Prayer” from Cannonball Adderly, and “Dunkin’ Bagel” from Slim Gaillard; some R&B — “Swanee” by Aretha Franklin, and the Temptations “Fiddler on the Roof Medley”. Johnny Mathis, Nina Simone each get a track and Lena Horne brings it home with “Now”.
All in all an odd, but somehow fascinating collection. Well worth a listen. By the way, the Idelsohn Society is named for Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, composer of the classic “Hava Nagila” What better name could they have?
(Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation, 2010)
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