![\"klezmer](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/klezmer-eggs-easter-300x205.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI got into klezmer in 1980, when I first heard the record Mickey Katz Plays Music for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and Brisses<\/em>. (Reissued in 1994 as Simcha Time<\/em>.) My mother was from Yazoo City, Mississippi, but we weren’t blues people — for sure. We didn\u2019t listen to much music around the house. My sister had a handful of 45s. I bought one record growing up: \u201cSmall Sad Sam,\u201d a parody of “Big Bad John.” The lyrics were \u201cHere\u2019s a tale of a man who was puny and weak, stood four-foot-six in his stocking feet.\u201d (Phil McLean, 1961).\u00a0 I’ve always favored comedy.<\/p>\nMy freshman year at college, I bought The Greatest Hits of Miles Davis<\/em>, The<\/em> Greatest Hits of Thelonius Monk<\/em>, The Bebop Era,<\/em> and Bechet of New Orleans<\/em>. I bought the records from a sewing-machine store owner — a friend of my father. I bought the albums after reading Blues People <\/em>and Black Music<\/em> by Leroi Jones.\u00a0 I wrote music reviews for the Michigan Daily<\/em> my sophomore year, and I was a macher<\/em> at the first Ann Arbor Blues Festival.<\/p>\nAt college<\/strong><\/span> I heard Texas blues man Mance Lipscomb\u00a0 and was overwhelmed by his\u00a0 down-home, salt-of-the-earth presence and his music. Mickey Katz became my Jewish Mance Lipscomb. Bonus points for Katz; he was<\/span> funny. Katz: \u201cMy kugel is hot for Xavier Cugat.\u201d<\/p>\nIn South Euclid, Ohio, at Jack Saul’s house, I heard many Katz parody records. Jack lent out his recordings to the Kleveland Klezmorim in the early ’80s, when klez recordings were hard to come by. Jack had Lee Tully\u2019s Seltzer on the Rocks<\/em>, the Barton Brothers, Belle Barth, Leo Fuchs and Eli Basse. Jack had multiple copies of most albums. He even had a record by Sam Liberman, a klezmer musician from Argentina.<\/p>\nYiddishe Cup started in 1988. Enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mother taught me the cha-cha, not the hora. We were very assimilated. We hung stockings at Christmas. No tree though! I got into klezmer in 1980, when I first heard the record Mickey Katz Plays Music for Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and Brisses. (Reissued in 1994 as Simcha Time.) My mother was from Yazoo City, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22880"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24091,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22880\/revisions\/24091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"klezmer](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/klezmer-eggs-easter.jpg\")
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