Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

OFFICIAL OLD GUY

I’m an official old guy. An arts agency made a documentary about roots music in Ohio, and a bunch of baby-boomers, including me, was the subject. We were the old fogies on the porch, picking away at authentic instruments. The guys in my “old guy” pantheon are all dead: Muddy Waters, Dave Tarras, Mickey Katz.

I saw a 92-year-old piano player. He isn’t dead.

I still get nervous when I play. I’m not dead.

I once played an “old guy” record-release party at Nighttown, a local club. Something like my 1,028th Yiddishe Cup gig. I played a Moldovan folk piece in 7/16 and stopped halfway through. Man, I must have been playing it in 9/16 or 10/16. I was so ahead of the game. I was freaked out by my fellow musicians in the room.

Me and nervous go way back. My first recitals at Victory Park School in South Euclid, Ohio, were debacles. I had memorized my tunes and then forgot them. Let’s take it from the top again, shall we, Bert? Worse, a violin prodigy always followed me. Philip Setzer. He wound up in the Emerson String Quartet.

I just bought a ticket to see Setzer next month at the Cleveland Institute of Music. I also wrote him a fan letter, including the tag “you want to meet for coffee?” I’d say there’s a 50-50 chance that’ll happen.

I really botched “Theme of Exodus” one year at Victory Park. Phil probably followed that with some slick Mozart concerto. Both Setzer’s parents were violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra. I have no idea why they lived in South Euclid. They were total Heights profile, right? If I meet up with Phil, I’ll ask him, “Why did your parents live in South Euclid?”

Yiddishe Cup plays a free concert tomorrow (7 p.m. Thurs. Aug. 18) at Walter Stinson Community Park, 2301 Fenwick Road, University Heights, Ohio. Bring a chair or blanket.

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1 comment

1 Kenneth Goldberg { 08.17.22 at 9:51 am }

The important factor is WHERE they lived in South Euclid. The community has always had a few pockets of cultured (or at least vaguely cultured) types. I played the theme for “Exodus” for my piano lessons at 12. Still have the sheet music, of course….

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