Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday November 22, 2022: Songs for Holocaust Education Month

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs was recorded and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/58421.html

Theme: Songs for Holocaust Education Month.

November is Holocaust Education Month and in these times of rising antisemitism and other forms of racism and hatred, it’s important for us to pause and remember the lessons of the Holocaust when Hitler’s Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered 6 million Jews – about two-thirds of the Jews who lived in Europe.

John McCutcheon- Second Hand

Leap! (Appalsongs)

Janis Ian- Tattoo

Best of Janis Ian: The Autobiography Collection (Rude Girl)

Tom Paxton- Train for Auschwitz

The Best of Broadside 1962-1988 (Smithsonian Folkways)

Rod MacDonald- Auschwitz

The Man on the Ledge (Shanachie)

Meghan Hone- No Art

Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles in Song (AlmondSeed Media)

Lenka Lichtenberg- Waiting at the end of an alley

Thieves of Dreams (Six Degrees)

Lee Oskar- Never Forget

Never Forget (Dreams We Share Productions)

Art of Time Ensemble featuring Sarah Harmer- Dance Me to the End of Love

Songs of Leonard Cohen Live (Art of Time Recordings)

Chuck Brodsky- Warsaw in May

Them and Us (Chuck Brodsky)

Aviva Chernick & Payadora Tango Ensemble- Silent Tears

Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango

Lenka Lichtenberg & Payadora Tango Ensemble- A Victim of Mengele

Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango

Olga Mieleszczuk & Payadora Tango Ensemble- Vi Ahin Zol Ikh Geyn/Buried Underground

Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango

Brendan Nolan- Kissing the Wall

Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles in Song (AlmondSeed Media)

Dave Curley- Mr. Sugihara’s Eyes

Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles in Song (AlmondSeed Media)

Tim Grimm- Anne in Amsterdam

The Turning Point (Cavalier)

Psoy Korolenko- Babi Yar

Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (Six Degrees)

Sophie Milman- Tulchin

Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (Six Degrees)

Frank London & Cantor Sveta Kundish- Minutn fun bitokhn

Ghetto Songs (Felmay)

Adrienne Cooper & Zalmen Mlotek- Yid du partizaner (Jew, Partisan)

Ghetto Tango (Traditional Crossroads)

Michael Alpert, Lauren Brody, Adrienne Cooper, Irena Klepfiz, Henry Sapoznik, Jeff Shandler, Lorin Sklamberg, Josh Walensky, & Alan Zemel- Zog nit keyn mol (Never Say)

Partisans of Vilna (Flying Fish)

Next week: Remembering Jack Hardy.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Various Artists – Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II

Various Artists

Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II

Six Degrees www.sixdegreesrecords.com

(A version of this review was published in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

During the Second World War, ethnomusicologists at the Kiev Cabinet for Jewish Culture set out to preserve the new Yiddish songs documenting the experiences of Jews fighting the Nazis in the Red Army, as well as those working on the home fronts, and songs reporting on such atrocities as the massacre at Babi Yar. Following Stalin’s post-war anti-Semitic purge, these songs were thought lost. However, the lyrics of many of the songs were rediscovered in the 1990s in unmarked boxes found in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine. Yiddish Glory:The Lost Songs of World War II is an extraordinary album – featuring five singers and a group of superb instrumentalists – recorded in Toronto that documents some of those songs.

Among these fascinating songs are “Shpatsir in Vald (A Walk in the Forest),” sung by Sophie Milman, in which a young woman and a young soldier about to go off to fight Hitler’s army say their farewells; “A Shturemvint (A Storm Wind),” sung by Psoy Korolenko, a lyric that promises to keep fighting until fascism and Hitler are defeated; and “Babi Yar,” also sung by Korolenko, based on witness accounts of the 1941 massacre of more than 33,000 Jews.

An extensive booklet includes an essay about the project, notes on all of the songs and the lyrics in Yiddish with English translations. Yiddish Glory is certainly one of the most powerful albums of Jewish music released in recent years.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

The Brothers Nazaroff – The Happy Prince

THE BROTHERS NAZAROFF
The Happy Prince
Smithsonian Folkways
facebook.com/thebrothersnazaroff

(A version of this review was published in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

Not much is known about Nathan “Prince” Nazaroff, a Russian-Jewish musician and singer who immigrated to the United States in 1914. Apparently, he worked as an accompanist to the Russian Ballet Theater in New York and recorded a couple of songs for a 78-rpm record in 1928.

Nazaroff, who sang and played accordion and octofone (a variation of the mandolin), recorded 11 more songs, nine of which were released by Folkways Records on a 10-inch LP called Jewish Freilach Songs in 1954. This obscure album of Yiddish folksongs, including the familiar “Tumbalalaika,” showcased an exuberant performer whose energy and enthusiasm for the songs would influence performers like poet and singer Tuli Kupferberg, who co-founded the Fugs in the mid-1960s, and had a tremendous impact on the klezmer revivalists who discovered it in the 1970s and later.

About six decades after the release of Jewish Freilach Songs, some of today’s most accomplished klezmer musicians – including Michael Alpert, Daniel Kahn, Bob Cohen (not to be confused with Bob Cohen, the Canadian guitarist), Psoy Korolenko, Jake Shulman-Ment and Hampus Melin – gathered as The Brothers Nazaroff to record The Happy Prince, a joyous tribute album to Nazaroff.

The album begins with the nine songs from Jewish Freilach Songs, played in the same order as on the 1954 LP, followed by two more songs Nazaroff recorded at the time, but which didn’t make it onto the album, and finishes up with the two songs Nazaroff recorded in 1928.

From the opening bars of “Vander Ich Mir Lustig (While I’m Happily Walking),” it’s quickly obvious that this CD will be fun to listen to. Though the song is a list of the troubles that have befallen the protagonist – cold, rain, no mill, no cow, no wife – he’s in a happy mood celebrating life.

Other highlights include “Arum Dem Feier (Around the Fire),” a song popular in Jewish socialist circles, and “Fishalach (Little Fish),” usually known as “Fisherlid,” a moody piece written by the Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt who was the mother-in-law of legendary American folksinger Woody Guthrie and grandmother of Arlo Guthrie.

Perhaps the most curious song is “Krasnoarmeyskaya Pesn (Red Army Song).” One of the songs recorded by Nazaroff in 1928, and sung in Russian, it’s a tribute to the Bolsheviks who overthrew the cruel Russian czar in 1917.

The Happy Prince is my favourite album of Jewish music for 2015.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif