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Jews in Uzbekistan, a History of millenia

10th July 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

 And we travel to Uzbekistan, one of the places of the world where I have felt more tolerance and peaceful coexistence of religions, with an old recording of a love song, made in 1957

When I made this edition of MBS, I already talked about Deben Battacharya and his recordings in Israel in 1957, and we listened to a piece of music by Yemenite Jews. Visit it if you didn’t read it before, as his work there was outstanding, a real legacy to teach and please us today. His portrait is also linked.

At that moment I was already considering to come back to these recordings to listen some of the Uzbek pieces and here you are!I hope you are well! I want to ask you something.

 

If you like this, please share it with your friends. It really helps me to keep this initiative going on week after week, to see that it reaches more people with these musics that capture the History of civilizations.

 

Jews in Uzbekistan, a History of millennia

I have had the luck of visiting Uzbekistan twice, for the Sharq Taronalari – International music festival in Samarkand (thanks to the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Madrid), as a journalist in 2017 and with the band I manage, Vigüela, in 2019. The people there is really warm and caring. One of the most enjoyed moments for us was to share the table with Muslims of Persian background, Orthodox Christian Russians and Tajiks.

Following my obsession of searching for the synagogues whereever I go, we searched for the one in Samarkand. It was not easy, but finally we found it, as well as the Jewish quarter. Samarkand is not only the outstanding Registan square and the big avenues full of flowers, it is also little and tidy streets, with little shops, little mosques, kind people doing their lifes. That is the kind of street where the synagogue is. This picture is by Oleg Yunakov in Wikipedia.

But the main city for Jews in Uzbekistan is Bukhara, with which I have a pending subject to fullfill! In the country there are around 13.000 Jews and Bukhara has two synagogues. They are recognized as a native group.

The presence of Jews in the land is documented for more than 1000 years and some historians state that Jews are settled in Bukhara since the time of the King David. In 538 aC, the Persian king Cirus the Great (VI century aC) liberated the Jews that had been deported to Babylon and welcomed them in his empire, that spanned from all the current Turkey to the river Indo at the East and to the Aral sea at the North. The religion of the Persian was the Zoroastrianism but Ciro the Great allowed big religious freedom. The current Jews of Central Asia could be descendents of those released from Babylon.

This outstanding picture of Bukharan Jews is from the very recommendable web Enlace Judío:

Until the Middle Ages, Bukhara was the biggest settlement of Jews in Central Asia (Mizrahi Jews, practitioners of Sephardic Judaism). Nowadays, the youngest speak mainly Russian but the older ones keep the bukhori language, that is based on classical Persian, seasoned with words from Hebrew and languages from the surrounding countries.

From the mid of XIX century, the emigration of Jews from Uzbekistan to Israel has been constant. The Bukharian quartet from Jerusalem took shape at the end of XIX century. The Soviet Regime didn’t make things easy, specially in terms of religious practices, so many Jews emigrated to Palestine. The Holocaust made that many Askhenazi searched for shelter at the URSS, and many ended in Bukhara. Waves of mass emigration would happen mainly in 1972 and after the fall of Sovied Union.

About todays, Uzbekistan is a secular state of Sunni Muslim majority and with 16 different faiths. There are around 13000 Jews. I invite you to watch this short and nice video about the current Jewish community in Bukhara. I hope they will be able to develop their lifes and keep their faith and practices without fear.

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What about the music?

The true is that all this is fascinating but what took us here is the music: the recording by Deben Battacharya made in 1957 in Israel, from a group of Bukharan, lead by Menahem Eliezacoff. I have chosen a love song, consisting of a series of verses in Persian called shair. The instruments are chang (harp), kamancha (bowed string instrument), tambur (plucked string instrument) and doiras (frame drum).

This recording is included in the compilation released in 2014 by ARC Music under the name of Music of the Oriental Jews from North Africa, Yemen & Bukhara. You can find more info about this compilation, here.

Clic the picture to listen to the love song Tulkum by Menahem Eliezacoff Group:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

MBS with a legend in music, by John Zorn

3rd July 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And on this occasion we will come back to our todays with the super productive creator John Zorn and one of his pieces I love the most: Sippur, played by Masada String Trio

John Zorn does many different things. I have only seen him once, in a concert with Mike Patton, the singer of Faith No More, Fantômas or Mr. Bungle and who is one of his many collaborators. But, before that, I started to really appreciate Zorn’s work thanks to his work with the record label Tzadik. In this occasion we will enjoy his work as composer, in which the Jewish history and symbols have a strong pressence.

Sippur, a legend made music

· At the bottom you’ll find the video with the music piece ·

 

Sippur, in plural sippurim, is a legend, a story, usually with a moral lesson. There are many Hassidic sippurim in which the protagonists are rebbes. My very dear Igal Gulaza Mizrahi noticed me about the many sippurim by and about the founder of Hassidism, Baal Shem Tov. After watching some videos with rebbes explaining tales, I found this one, made with stop motion, very nice to share.

 

And here on the right you have the cover of a book of 1888 by Jakob. B. Brandeis, a historic publisher from Prague. This book is available digitaliced, here. Sadly for me, it is in German and I haven’t found a translation to English. But you can read many little Hassidic sippurim, in English, for instance in Chabad.org.

 

But what about the music!? This is “Music Before Shabbat”

But as you understand, music is a door that opens the curiosity about many other captivating facts about Jewish people, history, traditions… The true is that, while doing this MBS, I felt tempted to talk about the fortress of Masada and about Issachar, son of Jacob and Leah, but I will leave them for another edition.

This picture by John Zorn is the profile picture from his Facebook page, credited to Nick Ruechel. He was born in New York 66 years ago. His main instrument is alto saxofon but that is not the most meaningful thing to explain about him as a musician. His work as a composer and a producer is super prolific and very diverse: from a nice delight like the one we have here below, to some things I could not even call music, like this.

I have chosen the live version of Sippur recorded in 1999 in Warsaw (where I should have been in April…) by the Masada String Trio, composed by Mark Feldman (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello) and Greg Cohen (double bass). The studio recording is in The Circle Maker, disc 1: Issachar. You can listen that version here.

John Zorn, through his label Tzadik and, above all, the Radical Jewish Culture series, has launched the works by artists like Frank London, David Krakauer (our protagonist of this MBS) or Naftule’s Dream (that will show up here at MBS soon). He really deserves a prominent place as the disseminator of Jewish contemporary music and this is a little tribute to him.

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Click the picture to listen Sippur:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

The brave blind girl who turned into more than a little queen: Reinette l’Orainese

26th June 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And on this occasion we will enjoy the outstanding singer, composer and oudist Reinette l’Oranaise, born in 1918 in Tiaret, Algeria.

I discovered this artist while learning more about my much appreciated singer and pianist Maurice El Medioni. He has collaborated with Reinette on many occasions. About Maurice, and also about his uncle, Saoud l’Oranaise, I will come back in future editions of MBS, as they are also benchmarks of the Jewish music from the North of Africa. In this meantime, it is the turn for this superb artist that I think deserves a prominent position in the Olympus of music.

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The brave blind girl who turned into more than a little queen

Reinette’s life could have had the same destination as Saoud’s: she could have ended her days in Sobibor. But no. Her fate was another. Her life continued until she died in Paris in 1998. In this picture, from the blog Ben Zaken Descendance, Maurice El Medioni is with her. He is alive and 91 years old.

· At the bottom you’ll find the video with her voice ·

Reinette, whose real name was Sultana Daoud, was born in 1918 in Tiaret, 220 kms to the East from Oran, in Algeria. She was the daughter of a Morrocan rabbi.

The infection of smallpox made her blind from 3 years old. But it did not prevent her study music with the mentioned Saoud El Medioni. According to Gharamophone, Maurice sais the little Sultana was Saoud’s first pupil.

The young Sultana learnt to play darbouka as well as oud  that, at that time, was an instrument exclusive for male performers. She also learnt also many pieces from the Arab Andalousi legacy, of which she is considered one of the referential keepers, without whom many pieces would just have got lost. This is especially thrilling for me, as the land where I am settled and from where I am writing to you now was that Al Andalus, that land where that music took its first shape, the music she would play and sing five centuries after the Moorish and the Sephardic Jews were expelled from.

This picture is from the same blog as the one above –>

Reinette and Saoud were inseparable. She was his taliba, his pupil, and she used to sing in his cafe in the Derb, Oran’s jewish quarter. In 1938, with the shaykh, the master, she moved to Paris, where he was going to set up a cafe in Montmartre. But he would send her back to Algeria very soon, encouraging her to make her name in her country. He did well. In January 1943 the German army, after the Operation Torch, made a roundup of Jewish in Marseille’s port and deported Saoud and his 13 years old son Joseph to Drancy camp and later to Sobibor, where they would be murdered.

If you want to know more about the Jewish musicians from the North of Africa, check the work Jews, Music-Making, and the Twentieth Century Maghrib, by Christopher Benno Silver.

What happened with Reinette back in Algeria?

Back in Algeria, her popularity started to rise. She would perform regularly in Radio Alger, she joined the female orchestra of Meriem Fekkai and she would collaborate with the most relevant musicians at that time. But in 1962, after the independence of Algeria, as well as more than one hundred thousand Jews, she had to leave the country and moved to France. There, she performed for the Jewish community from the North of Africa.

Only 23 years after her exile in France, she would get some attention from the media. According to the beautiful obituary by Philip Sweeney, some journalist from the newspaper Liberation realized about her. This would rekindle her sweetest moments. She would perform again in great theatres, she would be admired and she would end her days recognized as a cultural ambassador of her country, Algeria. 

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Click the picture to listen to Reinette l’Oranaise:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

MBS with a super star of the Yiddish films from the 30s

19th June 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And in this occasion we will enjoy the voice of one of the best singers of the History: Moishe Oysher, spellbinding both in popular music and in liturgical singing.

I hope you are well! I learnt about this artist when I started to search for cantors and I come back to listen him again and again: he is Moishe Oysher. 

While searching for facts about his bio, I realiced that I consider Moishe Oysher as a star but that his niece Marilyn Michaels may be even more famous. The Oyshers came from a family of at least six generations of cantors. Apart of Moishe and his niece Marilyn, his syster Fraydele, Marilyn’s mother, was also a recognized singer. You can listen the ladies here. 

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Poignant cantor, Yiddish cinema star and ‘Kosher heart throb’

Moustache is often a good idea. With this outfit, that defiant gaze and that outstandingly passionated way of singing, I can understand why Moishe became popular.

 

· At the bottom you’ll find the video with his voice ·
This picture is from the film Der Zingendiker Shmid (The Singing Blacksmith), directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, based on the play Yankl der Shmid, by David Pinski. Find here a very interesting documentary about the film.

Moishe was born in Lipcani in 1907, that nowadays is in Moldava. But at the time of his birth, Lipcani was part of Khotin district of Bessarabia guberniya of Russian Empire. With the birth of the state of Moldava, the river Prut that bathes the city would be the natural border with Romania. The border with Ukraine would be also very near, few kilometres to the North.

Today, Google Maps shows in Lipcani the place of the church of the Seventh-day Adventists and also of the Jehova Witnesses. The pressence of Jewish is kept thanks to the thrilling project of repair and documentation of the Jewish cemetery, started in 2013. Before the II World War, many of the inhabitants of the city were Jews. In 1941, they were deported to Brichany and Transnistria. Clic the picture if you are interested in a documentary about Lipcani with testimonies of survivors. In 1952, the Lipcani quarter would be buildt in the city of Ramat Gan, at the East of Tel Aviv.

But the young Moishe wouldn’t have to experience the terror. His destiny was another. From a very young age, he was captivated by the magic of the stage and started acting in theatre as soon as possible. In 1921, a 15 years old Moishe travelled to Canada to join his father, who emigrated to America when he was a kid. He was left in Lipcani, where he would get the spell of the music from both of his grandfathers.

Once in Canada, he joined the Actors’ Union in 1924 and started to work. The following years, he would move to USA, he would marry Florence Weiss, who would be co-starring some films with him (watch them singing together, here), he travelled to Latin America with his own company and, after his return in 1932, all the shows at the theatres had already done the castings. He was finding no job… but the time of the High Holidays was coming: he was luckily hired as chazan for the High Holidays at the First Roumanian-American congregation. His style keeping the prayers of Bessarabia, would enchant the public, as he does nowadays.

And what about the song?

There are many recordings by Moishe Oysher available. I selected this one of a cantorial melody that talks about the reconstruction of the Temple. It was composed by another chazan, Israel Schorr, born in 1886 in the Polish Galitzia, about who I will talk longer in a future MBS issue.

Oysher’s rendition of Sheyibaneh Bet Hamikdash is a 6 minutes joy of dynamic development in which his voice and creativity scale the greatest heights of artistry. Enjoy.

Clic the picture to listen Sheyibone Beit Hamikdash by Moishe Oysher:

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I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Magazine #24 June 2020 | Life returns, mini interviews, joint ventures and more

June 2020 | Life returns, mini interviews, joint ventures and more

How are you? I am quite ok. After more than one month of post transplant without growing at all, I thought it was dead… But no, my little avocado tree started to produce new leaves ?

Life came back. And it seems we can have some hope about retaking our activities. WOMEX is announced and even though the virus is still worrying, the pandemic seems to be more controlled, at least here in Spain (but the news from Latin America and about new outbreaks are dreadful).

I preview very hard times for our community of world music for at least the next two years, what do you think? Particularly in countries like mine, where the circuit of world music is supported almost in its entirety by public money, and cuts in the budgets for culture will be sure. That’s one of the reasons to join forces with Spain is Music (apart from the mutual understanding and shared passion for music), of which I have talked previously. Learn more below.

Find below also two more interviews with directors of festivals included in the project MOST, as well as some more useful initiatives.

Remember that you can send any suggestion of content for the next editions. And if you like this, tell me. And share it and let your friends know. 

And once more here you have our playlist to accompany the reading –>

Thanks for your attention.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82 

Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends if you like it. Subscription is available here.

Summary: 

· Recent news and calls. Please, consider to sign.
· Union means strength: joint venture with Spain is Music
· Mini interviews with festival managers: Dragoș Rusu from the Outernational Days and with Mirza Redzepagic, from the World Music Fest Zeman
· In the next edition…

RECENT NEWS AND CALLS, IN SHORT

  • Uphold culture in the EU budget. By Culture Action Europe. You can sign to support this call: “Ahead of the European Council meeting on 19 June, we call on the Member States to:
    • Double the budget of Creative Europe, as the core programme for reinforcing European cultural cooperation (#Double4Culture).
    • Make sure that the additional funds stemming from the Next Generation EU initiative, such as REACT-EU, reach cultural operators.”
  • TWMC Festivals Award 2020 is cancelled. By Transglobal World Music Chart. “A festival award doesn’t make sense without festivals. Many of the applicant festivals for this year’s edition have been cancelled. Many others that would have applied, haven’t finally done it, in this situation of uncertainty. Even if some live music acts were possible in Autumn, most of the Spring and Summer festivals aren’t taking place until 2021.
    We have been receiving the news about the cancellations and postponements with grief and we wish that all the organizers will overcome this fateful year with enough strength to resurge in 2021.” 
  • WOMEX 2020 is announced. I think many of us were waiting for this news. At least for me, this is very symbolic. It will be like recovering the life and the strength. The preparations for WOMEX are always exhausting as well as stimulating. Learn more about the insights of the responsible people in this online conference. 

Do you want to share any useful news for the community of the world music in the next edition? Let me know!

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA JOINS FORCES WITH SPAIN IS MUSIC

In the edition #8 of this magazine I introduced Pablo Camino’s brand, Spain is Music, a travel agency specialized in cultural trips and, specifically, in trips in which the music has a very relevant place and the public is an active participant of the popular art.

In previous occasions, Mapamundi has been provider for Spain is Music and now, the crisis of the pandemic, has serve us to reflect on how to reinforce our synergic relationship. Together, we are creating touristic packages, like From Quixote to Almodovar the biggest stories from Castilla-La Mancha. And also new shapes of events, like Folk Camp Spain. One of our main needs is to find tour operators in other countries, that had the marketing tools to reach the clients. The concept, production and customisation are our responsibility. As the Spanish we are, superb food, enchanting artistic patrimony and joy of life are guaranteed.

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

As mentioned in the previous issue of this magazine, thans to the MOST project I got to know about some festivals from the Balkans that I didn’t know before. Find below the little interview with Dragoș Rusu from the Outernational Days (Bucharest, Romania) and with Mirza Redzepagic, from the World Music Fest Zeman (Novi Pazar, Serbia).

MINI INTERVIEW WITH DRAGOȘ RUSU FROM THE OUTERNATIONAL DAYS (BUCHAREST, ROMANIA)

The Outernational Days festival started in 2016 in Bucharest. The previous editions have took place in several venues in the city. This year, they will produce an online event, as Dragoș explains below.They defined Outernational “as a place positioned outside of history; as a shapeless world that has been developing at the periphery of the International sphere. What makes Outernational music so distinct is its lack of exposure in mainstream and non-mainstream media, for reasons that are usually linked to ethnical biases.” 

 

  • MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 

DR: Originality and substance.

  • MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
    DR: To promote the Outernational concept. It is developed here.
  • MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
    DR: The main issues are related to insufficient funds and the unreliability of the Romanian government to support independent cultural activities.
  • MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
    DR: The main challenges are related to convince the audience to engage in consuming the cultural products (concerts, panels, lectures) that we propose through our festival.
  • MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
    DR: Outernational is a memorable and unique festival experience, one that will open your mind and offer a new understanding of the concept world music and the Balkan cultural heritage.
  • MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart from postponing this year’s edition, if so)? 
    DR: For 2020, we wanted to move the festival out from Bucharest into the middle of nature, in a remote village in North East of Romania (Vaslui county). However, due to the coronavirus pandemia, we won’t be able to do the festival with audience for this year, therefore we decided to do a special edition, only on online – Outernational Virtual Festival will take place between July 25 and 26, there will be several concerts streamed live on our Youtube and Facebook channels.
Pictures’ credits:
  • Profile picture of the festival’s Facebook site
  • Dragoș Facebook profile picture

MINI INTERVIEW WITH MIRZA REDZEPAGIC FROM THE WORLD MUSIC FEST ZEMAN (NOVI PAZAR, SERBIA)

World Music Fest Zeman is a world music festival, born in 2018, that takes place in the City Park under the open sky of Novi Pazar. The idea of ​​the festival is to gather artists from different parts of the world who will present themselves with their art, in front of the local audience at Novi Pazar. The festival consists of concerts by world music scene artists, diverse music workshops and lectures, as well as competition for singers/vocal performers of Balkan music.

  • MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 

MR: Zeman Fest crew, consisted of musicians, is always looking for artists who can provide good musical experience as well as good show. Since the festival is happening in region which is at the border between different Balkan countries and culture, we are trying to provide different musical experience to the audience as well a positive cultural experience to the guest artists.

  • MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
    MR: Our idea is to bring good music to Novi Pazar and that’s the primary goal for which we started with the festival in 2018. Our objectives for the future are to put this festival at the spotlight of serious artistic events in region and in Europe, as well to provide great experience to the audience and the artists too. Since our town, Novi Pazar is officially the youngest town in Europe where 50% of the population are younger than 35 it has a great potential of developing the platform of cultural, artistic education and experience.
  • MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
    MR: As far as now we really haven’t had any big difficulties organizing the festival since we have full support by the local authorities with whom we have fair cooperation at any field of organization and that so we consider us really happy having that all. The small issues (logistic stuff etc.) is something that is part of the work so there’s no need to mention it.
  • MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
    MR: My personal opinion is that those challenges depends of the place. Most of the festivals are struggling with the finances because the funds for the culture are lesser every year and it it makes the job difficult for the organizers. Our main challenge is to gain the audience since this kind of happenings are not often in our town, but we are really optimistic about it since it is a natural proces of growing. With the good music you’re getting good audience.
  • MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
    MR: Young beautiful people, great energy, rich town history and a perfect venue with great music, that is Zeman Fest.
  • MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart from postponing this year’s edition, if so)? 
    MR: At this moment we are still waiting to see what is going to happen in the next few weeks with the country regulations about the mass gatherings and public events. We are working on preparations of plan B and even plan C. Definetily the festival is going to happen, in which form we still don’t know but we are prepared and optimistic.
Pictures’ credits:
  • Profile picture of the festival’s Facebook site
  • Mirza portrait provided by himself

IN THE NEXT EDITION

Many things will show up but, for now, there are two contents that I have quite clear.

  • Interview with Béla Pap for the Challenges for Festivals series (portrait below, provided by himself). I know him for so long. I met him in Without Borders, the meeting in Bulgaria organized by Yasen Kazandjiev, the first time I attended. Béla directs Alt Productions. His Heritage World Music Festival is also participant in MOST.
  • Naxos Music Library. Ina Schroeder (portrait below from her Linkedin) will kindly answer some questions about this initiative that joins the complete catalogues or selected recordings of over 800 labels.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 46 stations in 17 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com. And we lead also the Asociación para la Difusión de los Estilos.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook. 

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Forward it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.

MBS with a piyyut sang by Yemenites in 1957 in Israel, recorded by a Bengali ethnomusicologist: Deben Battacharya

12 June 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And in this occasion we will enjoy a mesmerizing old recording of a Yedid Nafshi, dating from 1957, from the recordings made in Israel by the Bengali ethnomusicologist Deben Battacharya.

I hope you are well! I want to ask you something. If you like this, please share it with your friends. It is all I could want with this, to reach more people with these musics that captures the History of our civilization. Under the video you have a button to sign up.

In the last edition we payed attention to a contemporary artist, David Krakauer, and we talked about current events. But I can’t hide my addiction to the old music. That’s why I feel so thankful to people like Deben Battacharya. In 1957, he spent 2 months in Israel, recording the different people that gathered there from so many origins. In Yish’i, between Jerusalem and Ashdod, he meet the Yemenite community.

The recordings by Deben Battacharya in Israel 1957

This portrait of Deben is from the booklet of a collection of 4 albums with those recordings, that was released by Westminster in 1959 under the name of “In Israel Today“. This recording of Yedid Nafshi is also included in a much newer and easier to find compilation, released in 2014 by ARC Music (whose work of re-editing and disseminating Battacharya’s work is also outstanding), under the name of Music of the Oriental Jews from North Africa, Yemen & Bukhara. You can find more info about this compilation, here. It contains more outstanding beauties so I might come back to this album in the future.

In website The World Jukebox, you can also find information about the different albums released with those recordings as well as a brief information about Deben and his trip to Israel. And if you want to know more about Deben Battacharya, there is a large interview made by his friend Kevin Daly, here.

The recording of Yedid Nafshi is accredited to Nissim Matari (even though you’ll hear two different singers) of whom there are no references apart of this recording. But the booklet of the edition of 1959 explains that Yish’i “was founded in 1950 to house some of the Yemenites who had arrived to Israel during one of the largests airlifts in the world, known in Israel as “magic carpet”“. Deben met the settlers at the end of their day’s work. Then they moved to the village hall, where all the inhabitants, of all ages, men and women, gathered. Deben would edit 6 pieces in the collection of 4 albums, with the recordings of that evening. Let’s enjoy the result.

Clic the picture to listen Yedid Nafshi by Nissim Matari:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

MBS. David Krakauer’s special voice message for you + 3 minutes of musical spell

5 June 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And in this turbulent times, we are together to reflect and enjoy. Today, Mr. David Krakauer, the wondrous clarinetist from New York, provides us an amazing tune and a heartfelt message, specially for us as recipients of Music Before Shabbat. 

I feel so thankful to David that took a moment in this turbulent moments, specially for USA and for his city, New York, to send us a special message of good wishes and solidarity against racism.

The inspiration that a black musician provided him for creating an amazing composition is even more meaningful in these days. 

Listen David’s message, here

David Krakauer’s Klezmer à la Bechet (feat. Nicky Parott in the bass) 

I love the clarinet in klezmer. How not? A good clarinetist of klezmer makes the instrument talk, laugh and cry in an unpredictable flow that caresses your soul. 

The “à la Bechet” refers to Sidney Bechet, a black composer, clarinetist and saxofonist from New Orleans, born in 1897 with an innate talent for music that would develope from a very young age. He is widely known, but if you want to learn more about his biography, check for instance this. And you can listen him playing clarinet here. David Krakauer calls Bechet his “teacher he never met”, as he explains in this interesting interview.

And David Krakakuer? Well, he is also a master, composer and clarinetist, recognized as one of the best clarinetists on planet Earth, with a strong career both in modern klezmer and in classical music.

David was born in 1956 in New York, where he lives. I mentioned him in this edition, related to Meshuge Klezmer Band and David’s initiative Music from the winery. So, apart of his own career, David provides dissemination of the work of other artists too.

David started in classical music and recovered the music of his ancestors in his early 30s, when he became curious about his ancestors. His grandparents arrived to the USA from Eastern Europe at the end of XIX century and, after the religious prosecution they had suffered, they decided to leave all that behind and to talk only English.

Two generations after, as David explains in this other interesting interview, that tradition was lost at the USA, but the people started to want that music for weddings, that music that the old people of that time had listened when they were kids. That was the beginning of the revitalisation of klezmer. You can check David’s website for more details about his career and projects.

Clic the picture to enjoy the outstanding David Krakauer with this piece from the album A New Hot One:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Music Before… Shavuot! ? With nouba Raml Maya

28 May 2020 – Shavuot is almost here

Yes! This week this message reaches you one day before because Shavuot begins tonight. Let’s start to create the atmosphere for this time for study and reflection with a piyyut sang on nouba Raml Maya.

In this occasion I have to thank once more the team of Darké Abotenou as the piece that accompanies us today is from their Youtube channel.

Once again the Sephardic legacy has the lead role in this diggest. Not the Eastern one, but the North African, with a piyyut sang on the nouba or makam?Raml Maya.

What is a makam? Very basically, in the Arabic, Persian, Turkish… music a makam is a scale, like a guide for performance, that defines a mood.
And what is a nouba? A nouba is a collection of chained pieces, like a suit with different parts and those parts are called mîzân.

The concept of nouba (also written as nawba) is deeply related to the Andalusi classical music and to Ziryab, musician in the court of Abd al-Rahman II in Cordoba in the IX century. He came from Persia and he put the seeds for this music to develope during the following centuries. The noubas developed in the North of Africa and nowadays there are kept eleven noubas in Morocco and sixteen in Algeria. In the web site Hazanout.com, dedicated to the hazanout in Morocco, they are mentioned 16 and the terms of makam and nouba are both used without further clarification.

? Special announcement: later today, 28th of May at 17h (Central European Time), Yan Delgado and me will make an interview with Jako el Muzikante, who will talk in Ladino and I will translate into English. Check here in advance ?

Where does my turmoil comes from? Let me explain. 

The Raml Maya is a nouba of which you can find many renditions of its parts (note that a complete nouba with all its parts can last six or seven hours) by artists of Andalusian music, like this or this. This recording that we will listen today is named Makam Raml Maya and you can listen at the beginning of the recording how Shavuot is mentioned and the piece is announced as “makam”. So my inference is that in the last years the terms of makam and nouba are been used indistinctly at least in the context of the sang piyyutim. Any further clarification about this would be really appreciated! In the meantime, let’s continue with what is clear like water: Shavout starts tonight and we have this beautiful piyyut (the lyrics are from the Machzor) to listen to warm up. 

Clic the picture to enjoy the piyyut for Shavuot:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shavuot sameach

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Music Before Shabbat, with Jako el Muzikante. Yearnings that you will, or will not, share ?

22 May 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Love, love, love… that tearing feeling that drives us so crazy, is again the topic of today’s piece. A song about the quest to find the lady of his dreams, sang by Jako el Muzikante

In this occasion we will enjoy a very recent recording with Jako el Muzikante, that will take us back to Izak Algazi’s time before he moved to France (check the previous MBS, here).

As announced previously in another MBS, the friends from Sephardic Stories, that lead the Gibraltar World Music Festival, during the lockdown started the initiative Sephardic Collection, to support the work of the artists in this difficult time. In this frame, last Thursday it was premiered the video of this issue of MBS, that you can see below. ?? 

? Special announcement: next Thursday at 17h (Central European Time), Yan Delgado and me will make an interview with Jako el Muzikante, who will talk in Ladino and I will translate into English. Check here in advance ?
The song about the quest of the perfect lady

In the lyrics of this song, Onde que tope una ke es plazyente? (where would I find a pleasant one), a man wonders where would he find the woman of his dreams, one that he liked, slim, graceful… and that thinks before she speaks! He will wait for her many years.

According to the book-CD “Ven al Luna Park”, by Jako el Muzikante, Jak Mayesh “on the 8th of September of 1942 he recorded his voice for this song for a record of the “The Jack Mayesh Phonograph Record Co. label, accompanied on the oud by K. Bozajain.”

The book-CD also explains that Mayesh recorded the song again in 1948 and that it exists also a version of this song in the oral tradition, sang by Roza Berro. “Ven al Luna Park” includes also some brief biographical infos about Jak Mayesh, who was born in Kushadashi in 1899, a city by the Aegean sea, that now belongs to Turkey. He moved to USA in 1929, served as a singer in the most important Sephardi synagoges and also stablished a business of wholesaling flowers. What happened with this business? You can learn it in the book-CD ?

The recording in which Jako el Muzikante is based for his rendition is in an album from the collection of Jakob Michael and it can be found in the mentioned book-CD, Ven al Luna Park, by Jako el Muzikante, available nowadays in most of the online shops and digital platforms.

And I know this song is specially appreciated by my friend Fernando, who will receive this message in Krakow, that I hope to be again soon, when all this awfulness ended!

?One more announcement: if you understand Spanish, you can listen the interview with Jako, done by Marcelo Benveniste for Radio Sefarad and Radio Jai. Listen here ?

Clic the picture to enjoy Onde que tope, by Jako el Muzikante:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Music Before Shabbat, with Izak Algazi Efendi. A declaration of crippling love ?

15 May 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Izak Algazi, born in Izmir in 1889. Let’s listen his “Reina de la Grasia”, queen of the grace, a recording from 1929, that is a declaration of a crippling love.

I first learned about Izak Algazi from Jako el Muzikante, who told me about this hazzan after a conversation about Izak Maçoro, who was our star some MBSs ago. 

So, after three editions with klezmer, I return to the Sephardic heritage and to some old music. Izak Algazi was mentioned quite recently in Ladinokomunita, a fascinating email group with participants discussing in Ladino, some natives of the languaje and other people that have learnt it, many of them quite devoted to the continuity of the languaje. They mentioned the presence of a street called Algazi in Izmir, name in his honour.

Izak Algazi was very recognized for his artistry during his life. He was the son of another well-known hazzan from Izmir, Salomon Algazi. Izak had a brilliant career in Turkey, he made many recordings for several record companies and even Mustafa Kemal, before becoming Atatürk, gave him an autographed Quran as a present.

Algazi left Turkey in 1933, as the chances for a Jewish to develope any position in public life started to dissapear in the process of turkification. He settled in Paris for 2 years to complete his rabbinical studies and moved to Montevideo in 1935, because he was invited to join the Sephardic Synagogue. Professor Edwin Seroussi, who knows his biography from at first-hand, has helped me to understand a bit better the situation that caused these events, so I thank him very much.

You can find a list of his recordings on SephardicMusic.org, website, where it is mentioned that he recorded this song in 3 occasions: 1909, 1912 and 1929. Below you can hear the last one. In this same link you can read a brief bio.

And what about the song of crippling love?

By the way, I have to thank Joshua Cheek for helping with the term of “crippling” and  some more tips of the English languaje. And I said it is a song of crippling love, because of the lyrics. And it is curious because Izak Algazi’s wife’s name was Reina!!! And reina means queen. The questions is that the lyrics say:

Reina de la grasia
Madre de la bivez
Onde ke te tope
Por verte otra vez.
Vo murir, vo murir
Si tu mas non te vez
 Queen of the grace
Mother of the life
Where could I found you
to see you once more.

I’m going to die, I’m going to die
if I don’t see you again

I wonder if Reina made him a lot of “love sorrows” before getting married and having their three kids. Anyway, with sorrows or not, let’s enjoy the amazing voice and the almost unbelievable melismata of Izak Algazi:

Clic the picture to enjoy Reina de la Grasia,
by Izak Algazi:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory