Tag Archives: Jako el Muzikante

World Music Central interviews Jako el Muzikante

Check the comprenhensive interview by Ángel Romero with Jako el Muzikante and learn how the Galician artist Xurxo Fernandes incarnates the historic character of the hustler of the café aman.

The interview unveils all what is behind the work Ven al Luna Park, with statements like this:

The Sephardic identity is based on their language, a language in danger of extinction. My fascination with Ladino is linked to a feeling of debt to the community from which I learned so much, and publishing this work in that same language is an acknowledgement I want to give.

Read the complete interview here.

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

 

Music Before Shabbat. A story of family love with Ramzailech

1 May 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And finally tomorrow we can go out and have a little walk in Spain! Dance with me and celebrate with Lidiya Freilech by the fresh klezmer rock band Ramzailech. This is a story of family love.

After 7 weeks of strict confinement in Spain, finally tomorrow we will be able to go out for a walk, in 1 km around our houses. I can made an appointment with my parents in the middle of the way and say hello without hugs and with masks. Our houses are 1,8 kms far, how lucky! I wish the situation of the whole world will improve little by little soon and we can recover our lifes.

In the meantime, join me in the joy. In 2012 my Facebook friend Hava Rabach-Mascarenhas sent me the link to the video of Lidiya Freilech by the Israeli band Ramzailech. Find it below. The piece has a superb evolution, it is a continuous surprise, enjoy its more than 5 minutes of much more than klezmer.

The band is active and I have just asked them what is this piece about. So, Lidiya is the mother of the clarinetist of the band, Gal Klein (in the picture, without glasses, the other man is the co-founder, Amit Peled). He made the piece for her 50th birthday.

Lidiya’s family is from what is today Ukraine and, what at that time, was the URSS. From 1945 to 1970 they were refused by the government to go to Israel. Finally they got to move and she is settled in Israel nowadays. Gal was born there. I am so thankful for all this background about the piece! In another MBS we will listen his other project, Di Gasn Trio.

Before ending, I want to announce the initiative of the restless team of Sephardic Stories: Sephardic Collection, in which they are producing new contents and interviews, that you can find in their Youtube channel. Don’t miss a thing: follow their FB page to be updated. Next Thursday they will have a live interview with the band Al’Fado.

 

Clic the picture to enjoy the music of Ramzailech:

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

Jako el Muzikante – Madam Gaspard

17 Abril 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Jako el Muzikante and a piece about the everydayness, hoping to recover ours soon: Madam Gaspard and her visit to the market. 

I hope you have had a great Pesach, despite the situation. Here we are in confinement for 5 weeks now and, even though we can go to the grocery stores, the feeling of everydayness, with the latex gloves, the masks and the extra spacing, has gone.

The song for this occasion talks about Madam Gaspard who goes to the market and buys many animals. The lyrics are cumulative, as you will feel, and talk about this:

Madam Gaspard went to market.
She bought a dog:
a dog that says “wua wua wua wua”,
a cat that says “nya nya nya nya”,
a parrot that says “pa pa pa pa”,
a cock that says “ku ku ku ku”,
a chicken “ki ki ki ki”.
Do you know, my good-wife,
how much did she pay?

 

This song is included in the album “Ven al Luna Park”, by Jako el Muzikante, alter ego of Xurxo Fernandes. He learnt it from the collection of Victor Besso, researcher born in Salonica in 1905. According to the booklet, Yakov Algava learnt it from the Constantinoplian singer Karakesh Efendi and he recorded it in two different records in 1909.The mentioned animals can be more, as many as the imagination of the singer allowed. In the booklet of the album it is explained one occasion in Izmir in which it lasted one hour. It is a big challenge for any singer and Xurxo makes it wonderfully in this live shot.

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

Kolberg po żydowsku

6 March 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Polish Jewish music from the work Kolberg po żydowsku, by Foundation Muzyka Odnaleziona, after research by Andrzej Bieńkowski. 

Some Music Before Shabbats ago (specifically in this one) I mentioned the album Kolberg po żydowsku, that collects the recordings made by Andrzej Bieńkowski from old musicians who learnt the pieces from Jewish neighbourgs, played in Jewish weddings or listened Jewish bands in their youth. The oldest recording is from 1986.

I have chosen the wild piece that opens the album: Taniec żydowski. This piece was recording in 1992 in the village of Jasionowo, that belongs to Powiat Suwalski (Northeast of Poland, near the border with Lithuania. The musicians are Franciszek Racis (born in 1922), first violin, Sylwester Jaśkiewicz, second violin, and Zbigniew Racis in the bębenek drum.

Click the picture to listen the piece:

This album has been a present from Janusz Prusinowski, to who I am very grateful, who participates in the album too, in the second part, where a younger generation of musicians play pieces known as Jewish, learnt from their masters.

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.

Jako el Muzikante – letter from Hadrianopolis

28 February 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Sephardic music from Hadrianopolis, by Jako el Muzikante

Xurxo, the real name of the artist that incarnates the character of Jako el Muzikante, explained to me that this song was written by a poet from Hadrianopolis (Enderne in Ladino, Edirne in Turkish) about who it was rumored that was dead.

The responsible of that rumour was Hayim, another man, mentioned in the song. The poet answered with this humour and grace to announce that he was alive. I have translated the lyrics into English. Enjoy!

CLIC THE PICTURE TO WATCH THE VIDEO
Esta letra vos eskrivo:
I write this letter to you,
to tell you that I am alive
and to prove that I am healthy
I write to you with my hand.

 

Thanks to God,
my health got strong,
ah, it became so good
that I make hold in the floor where I step.Hayim, my dear,
I always try to give you joy.
I would never leave
without your permission.

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 email with… …. this button to sign up: send it to your friends

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.

Jako el Muzikante – rebetiko

14 February 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Sephardic music.

Roza Eskenazi is one of the benchmarks of the rebetiko and the referential female singer. Her mother’s languaje was djudeo-espanyol. All the productions we have from her are sang in Greek but Xurxo Fernandes, alias Jako el Muzikante, translated this sad tune about despair and lost love, into the languaje of the Oriental Sephardic. Enjoy the original rebetiko piece and his rendition. Find the lyrics below.

CLICK THE PICTURES TO SEE THE VIDEOS:

Γιατί Φουμάρω Κοκαίνη
Maldicha kokaina

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it. Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

May you always find the light in your path.
And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist. To know more about our artists, click here.

Janucá con alegrías – Jako el Muzikante

[NOTE: this message was sent before Shabbat of Hannuka of 5780/2019]

Jako el Muzikante and Mapamundi Música wish you

Janucá 5780 en alegrías! Hannukah 5780 with joy!

May you always find the light in your path. 

Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

 

Hannukah Shabbat 5780

[NOTE: this message was sent before Shabbat of Hannuka of 5780/2019]

Shabbat Chanukah is almost here

and we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist. Click the picture to listen and, to know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory