{"id":33412,"date":"2025-07-16T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=33412"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:57:10","slug":"well-play-whatever-we-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/16\/well-play-whatever-we-want\/","title":{"rendered":"WE’LL PLAY WHATEVER WE WANT!"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nThe mayor\u2019s assistant told us not to play any klezmer music \u2014 \u201cnothing ethnic,\u201d she said.\u00a0Just American.<\/p>\n

No klezmer? Why did the Orange Village (Ohio) mayor hire Yiddishe Cup for their city\u2019s summer concert series?<\/p>\n

This was 11 years ago. All forgiven now. By the way, Yiddishe Cup plays at the Cleveland Heights Rec Pavilion this Friday (July 18, 2025), 5:30-7:30 pm. Free. And well play whatever we want! (Part of the Coventry PEACE Pops event.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the Orange Village concert, our contract rider stipulated a fruit platter, bottled water and colas. A good gig, food-wise. But what were we going to play?<\/p>\n

I said to the mayor’s assistant,<\/strong> \u201cYou don\u2019t want to alienate anybody with ethnic music?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s the mayor\u2019s thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much non-ethnic music do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll or mostly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you give me a percentage?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNinety percent American music,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Yiddishe Cup played \u201cDock of the Bay,\u201d Motown, Beatles, \u201cHang on Sloopy\u201d and \u201cOld Time Rock And Roll.\u201d A Chinese woman liked \u201cMy Girl\u201d so much we played it twice.<\/p>\n

I told the crowd that Yiddishe Cup started out as a deli — as opposed to a band — on Kinsman Road, then moved to Cedar Center, and ultimately wound up on the far East Side. I kept up that quirky patter throughout because \u201cMy Girl,\u201d the second time through, wasn\u2019t doing it for me. An Orange councilman asked where Yiddishe Cup had been at Cedar Center. I didn\u2019t answer because I didn\u2019t know. I should have said, \u201cBetween Abbey\u2019s and Solomon\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

We snuck in \u201cMiserlou,\u201da Greek tune. We did a Macedonian tune. We did an Israeli tune!<\/p>\n

Think ethnic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The mayor\u2019s assistant told us not to play any klezmer music \u2014 \u201cnothing ethnic,\u201d she said.\u00a0Just American. No klezmer? Why did the Orange Village (Ohio) mayor hire Yiddishe Cup for their city\u2019s summer concert series? This was 11 years ago. All forgiven now. By the way, Yiddishe Cup plays at the Cleveland Heights Rec […]<\/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-33412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33412"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33453,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33412\/revisions\/33453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}