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Klezmer is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions. The musical genre incorporated elements of many other musical genres including Ottoman music, Baroque music, German and Slavic folk dances, and religious Jewish music. As the music arrived in the United States, it lost some of its traditional ritual elements and adopted elements of American big band and popular music. Among the European-born klezmers who popularized the genre in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s were Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein; they were followed by American-born musicians such as Max Epstein, Sid Beckerman and Ray Musiker.
Naftule Brandwein, or Naftuli Brandwine, was an Austrian-born Jewish American Klezmer musician, clarinetist, bandleader and recording artist active from the 1910s to the 1940s. Along with Dave Tarras, he is considered to be among the top klezmer musicians of the twentieth century, and has a continuing influence on musicians in the genre a century later. Along with Tarras and other contemporaries like Israel J. Hochman, Max Leibowitz and Harry Kandel, he also helped forge the new American klezmer sound of the early twentieth century, which gradually gravitated towards a sophisticated big-band sound.
Joseph Moskowitz was a Romanian-born American cimbalom player, composer, restaurant owner and recording artist in New York City during the first half of the twentieth century. A descendant of a family of klezmer musicians, he was among the most well-known American cimbalom players of his time, and had a wide repertoire which included not only Jewish music but also Romanian, classical, and ragtime music. He is thought to have composed over 100 cimbalom pieces which drew upon various musical influences. His restaurant Moskowitz & Lupowitz, on Second Avenue also became a popular destination and celebrity hangout in the 1920s and 1930s.
Henry "Hank" Sapoznik is an American author, record and radio producer and performer of traditional Yiddish and American music.
Abe Schwartz was a well-known klezmer violinist, composer, Yiddish theater and ethnic recordings bandleader from the 1910s to the 1940s. In his various orchestras, he recorded many of the leading klezmer musicians of the early twentieth century, including Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras.
Richard K. "Dick" Spottswood is an American musicologist and author from Maryland, United States who has catalogued and been responsible for the reissue of many thousands of recordings of vernacular music in the United States.
Abraham "Abe" Elenkrig was a Russian-born American klezmer bandleader, Cornet player, barber and recording artist of the early twentieth century. He was among the earliest bandleaders to record klezmer music in the United States, making a series of discs for Victor Recording Company and Columbia Records from 1913 to 1915. In 2009, the Library of Congress named his 1913 recording Fon der Choope to the National Recording Registry.
Shloimke Beckerman also known as Samuel Beckerman, was a klezmer clarinetist and bandleader in New York City in the early twentieth century; he was a contemporary of Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein. He was the father of Sid Beckerman, also a klezmer bandleader.
Louis Friedsell was a conductor and composer for the Yiddish theatre. He has written the music for about 150 plays and operettas . A large number of his songs were written for historical operettas and comedies. As a conductor he made at least eleven recordings for the United Hebrew Disc and Cylinder Company.
Kalman Juvelier was an Austrian-born Yiddish theatre actor and manager, Broder singer, Tenor, and recording artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who was active both in Europe and the United States. After emigrating to the United States in 1900, he became a key figure in the Yiddish theatre in New York, working with such notables as Boris Thomashefsky, David Kessler, Bertha Kalich and Jacob P. Adler and was director of the Hebrew Actor's Union as well as the Jewish Theatrical Alliance. From roughly 1905 to 1918, he recorded roughly 90 Yiddish language discs, mostly Yiddish theatre music, for most of the major record labels in the New York area.
Max Leibowitz was an American klezmer violinist, composer and bandleader in New York City primarily in the 1910s and 1920s.
Israel J. Hochman was a Russian-born Jewish American violinist, klezmer bandleader, music arranger, and recording artist in early Twentieth Century New York City. He recorded prolifically for Edison Records, Emerson Records, Okeh Records, and Brunswick Records during the period of 1916 to 1924. He was one of a handful of bandleaders such as Abe Schwartz, Joseph Frankel and Max Leibowitz whose recordings are considered to make up the golden age of American klezmer.
Itzikl Kramtweiss or Krantweiss, also known by the anglicized name Isadore Krantweiss, was a Russian-born American klezmer musician and recording artist of the early twentieth century. He was leader of the Broder Kapelle, a popular klezmer orchestra in Philadelphia which made recordings for the Victor Recording Company in the late 1920s.
Abraham "Art" Shryer was a Russian-born American Klezmer cornetist, bandleader, and recording artist who was active in the New York City area in the 1920s and 1930s. In the late 1920s he recorded a number of Jewish and other Eastern European music sides for Brunswick Records, Vocalion Records, and Victor Records.
Florence Weiss was a Russian-born American Yiddish theatre, Vaudeville and film actor, recording artist, and soprano who was active from the 1920s to the 1960s. She worked and performed with such artists as Moishe Oysher, Alexander Olshanetsky, Boris Thomashefsky, Fyvush Finkel, and Abe Ellstein. The height of her popularity was during the 1930s, when she often toured and performed with her then-husband, Moishe Oysher, and appeared in three Yiddish-language films with him: The Cantor's Son, The Singing Blacksmith, and Overture to Glory.
Gustave "Gus" Goldstein was a Romanian-born American Yiddish theatre actor, songwriter, vaudevillian, and recording artist. During the boom in Yiddish music recording in the 1910s and 1920s, he recorded dozens of 78-rpm discs of comedy and theatre music for Victor, Brunswick, Emerson, OKeh, and Columbia Records, collaborating with many celebrities of contemporary Jewish music such as Naftule Brandwein, Abe Schwartz, Louis Gilrod, and Clara Gold.
Oscar Zehngut was an Austro-Hungarian violinist, Yiddish theatre arranger and recording artist. He was one of a handful of violinists to record klezmer music in Europe before World War I, as well as a number of discs where he accompanies Yiddish theatre singers.
Clara Gold was an American Yiddish theatre actor and recording artist. She recorded more than twenty Yiddish theatre music and comedy discs between 1917 and 1929, usually with comedic partner Gus Goldstein.
Jacob "Jakie" Hoffman was a Russian-born American Klezmer and orchestral musician, recording artist, and Xylophone player. He played and recorded with Harry Kandel, Philadelphia klezmer bandleaders of the interwar era, and was the father of Klezmer percussionist Elaine Hoffman Watts and grandfather of Trumpet player Susan Watts.
Max Yankowitz (1875–1945) or Yenkovitz was a Romanian-born American Klezmer accordionist and recording artist. He was one of the first musicians to record Klezmer music in the United States, making a handful of recordings for Columbia Records in 1913; he continued to record sporadically until around 1929.
References
- 1 2 Spottswood, Richard K. (1990). Ethnic Music on Records, a Discography of Ethnic Recordings Produced in the United States, 1893 to 1942; Vol. 3 - Eastern Europe. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. pp. 1299, 1305–1306, 1335, 1362–1363, 1464, 1472, 1483, 1525. ISBN 0-252-01718-8.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Sapoznik, Henry (2010). Klezmer!: Jewish Music from Old World to Our World. Schirmer Trade Books. ISBN 9780857125057 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Corporations". The Brooklyn Citizen. Brooklyn, New York. July 8, 1904. p. 7 – via newspapers.com.
- 1 2 Sutton, Allan (2021). The International Record Company Discography (PDF) (2 ed.). Mainspring Press. p. 13.
- ↑ Andrews, Frank (2005). Hoffmann, Frank (ed.). Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. Taylor & Francis. p. 2222. ISBN 9781135949501.
- ↑ Sapoznik, Henry (1988). "From Eastern Europe to East Broadway: Yiddish Music in Old World and New" (PDF). New York Folklore. Vol. 14, no. 3–4. p. 122.
- ↑ Ethnic Recordings in America: A Neglected Heritage. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. 1982. p. 45. ISBN 0-8444-0339-3 – via Google Books.
- ↑ Miller, Malcolm (2001). The Accordion in All Its Guises. Harwood Academic Publishers. p. 137.
