YIKHES

 
There were several klezmer dynasties in Eastern Euorpe. In America, too. Even in the late-20th century, some baby-boomer klezmer musicians brandished serious yikhes (prominent lineage). Hankus Netsky’s uncle was a klez big shot in Philly, and Henry Sapoznik’s father, who was a cantor, worked in the Catskills alongside clarinetist Dave Tarras.

In Cleveland, the klez-band scene in the past 70 years has been Seaman, then Selker, then Stratton. (There are a lot of S’s in the yiddishe velt. My shul’s yahrzeit list doesn’t hit stride until the S’s. And the Z’s are zippy: Zweig, Zwerdling, Zwick.) My former rabbi used to mix “Stratton” up with “Seaman,” as in “Morrey Seaman” — a 1940-60s bandleader.

My great uncle Earl Kassoff led the Earl Castle Band. This was in the 1930s and 1940s. He was a drummer, xylophonist and house painter.

Morrey Seaman owned a dry-cleaning business. I, in case you don’t know, am in the real estate biz. Bandleader Greg Selker went into the executive-search business. Selker founded the Kleveland Klezmorim in 1983 and folded the group in 1990. The Kleveland Klezmorim wouldn’t play “Hava Nagila”; Yiddishe Cup would, so we got all the simcha work.

In 1992 I interviewed a local klezmer musician, Harold Finger. I can’t remember what his day-job was. He described his clarinet playing as “faking”(improvising).  When I met him, he was in a community orchestra. “I don’t do much jobbing anymore,” he said. (“Jobbing” was gigging.) Harold died several years after the interview.

I thought Harold’s kids would want a copy of the interview tape. I called a son and left a message, and didn’t hear back. The son should have called me. Harold’s wife was on the tape, too, badgering him about how he loved his axe more than her. Harold said, “What? I quit playing music for you!”

Coda: Another macher on the Cleveland Jewish music scene in recent decades was bandleader Barry Cik (pronounced “chick“). He had yikhes to-the-nth-degree. He’s from a family of Hungarian Jewish musicians. In the 1990s Cik’s son Yehuda was quite prominent on the national Orthodox Jewish music scene, and Barry wouldn’t shut up about it. When I played with Barry’s band as a sideman, I thought to myself What about your own band, Barry? The one I’m playing with right now! But Barry preferred to talk about his son’s band.

I get that now.

Yikhes (pronounced YIH-khiss).