<\/p>\n
I look<\/strong><\/span> for my musical roots wherever I can.\u00a0My grandmother played piano at a Baptist church in Yazoo City, Mississippi.\u00a0Not bad. Not\u00a0good, either: 1) it was a white church and 2) she was reading sheet music. My Mississippi bubbe, <\/em>Ida Kassoff Zalk, had a brother, Earl Kassoff, in Cleveland.\u00a0Earl was a drummer, xylophonist and house painter.\u00a0He led bands in Cleveland under the name Earl Castle.<\/p>\n Because I\u2019m a musician, people sometimes ask me, \u201cDid your parents play?\u00a0Is your family musical?\u201d\u00a0Not particularly.\u00a0That\u2019s why I looked so hard for lineage. I couldn\u2019t find much info on Earl. I talked to a couple relatives.\u00a0Earl didn\u2019t leave behind sheet music or tune books.\u00a0He died in 1969. At a gig, an elderly musician\/guest and I schmoozed, and I asked him if he remembered Earl Kassoff. The schmoozer was Harold Finger, age 77. He, himself, had played clarinet and sax professionally during the 1930s and 1940s.<\/p>\n I went <\/span>to Harold\u2019s apartment in Lyndhurst and interviewed him in 1992. He said there had been \u201cfour or five bands that got the Jewish work back then.\u201d I asked him what bands. He didn\u2019t remember any names.\u00a0\u201cWhat were the most popular Jewish tunes?\u201d I asked. He said, \u201cThe Kammen book. That was the big thing.\u201d The\u00a0Kammen book was the Kammen International Dance Folio, published in 1924, and it is still around.\u00a0The book is for musicians who don\u2019t know many Jewish songs and have been asked by clients, “Can\u2019t you play something besides \u2018Hava Nagila\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n Uncle Earl\u2019s <\/strong><\/span>band did mostly \u201cdance work\u201d — American music, Harold said. Earl had worked the downtown theaters, as well as the Golden Pheasant — a Chinese restaurant where Artie Shaw started out. Harold said he, himself, didn\u2019t stick to the melody all the time. He did some \u201cfaking\u201d (improvising).\u00a0Now he played clarinet in a community orchestra. \u201cI don\u2019t do much jobbing anymore,\u201d he said. Jobbing was gigging.<\/p>\n Harold died three years after the interview. Harold\u2019s wife was on the interview tape, teasing Harold about how he loved his saxophone and clarinet more than her.\u00a0Harold said, \u201cI quit playing music for you!\u201d<\/p>\n Recap: I come from a piano-playing grandma in Mississippi and a house-painting xylophonist great uncle\u00a0in South Euclid, Ohio.<\/p>\n