On the First Night of Chanukah: Two Tunes by P. Grancowa

As a collector and student of klezmer, there are two types of recordings that make my heart race with excitement: discs that contain tunes that I’ve never heard before, and those that introduce me to different versions of tunes I already know. During this holiday, we’ll be hearing both types, but to start things off, here is a Syrena Grand disc that includes two earlier European recordings of tunes we know from American releases.

The record features an orchestra under the direction of P. Grancowa. There doesn’t seem to be any information available about him, who he was or where he came from, and apart from a listing of 8 discs on the Syrena Grand label in Michael Aylward’s discography of European Jewish recordings and a sighting some number of years ago of several of these in an EBay listing, the recordings have remained a mystery.

The first side of this rare record is a tune entitled “Du zolst nit geren vus di mame vet dir zugen,” which translates roughly to “You won’t like what your mother will tell you.” The orchestra, which was recorded in June 1910, has prominent brass, a high clarinet and piccolo and intermittent clapping and is clearly working off an arrangement. But what is most interesting is the tune itself. An identical tune was recorded in New York in April 1913 on the Columbia label.

The Columbia recording featured Abraham Elinkrig’s ensemble, and the title was given as “Ich bank nach Odessa” (I long for Odessa). Elinkrig’s ensemble actually has a much less arranged sound than its European predecessor. While both feature prominent brass and woodwinds providing color, the musicians don’t play the same phrases and embellishments every repeat of the melody. And the person clapping is replaced with a snare drummer. However, both arrangements do share the dramatic break at the end of every chorus.

Having an earlier version of the Elinkrig tune was interesting, but what really made my heart beat faster was the other side of the Syrena disc, a tune entitled “Amerika”. One of my favorite tunes to play is Mishka Ziganoff’s “Odessa Bulgar” (Columbia 8019-F, recorded in New York, in February 1920. It’s a lively, two-section tune in the freygish mode.

When I first heard the Syrena recording, the tune was instantly recognizable, but the first half of the A section was in straight major rather than freygish, which was mind-blowing to me. Again, the ensemble is clearly playing a written arrangement, but that pales in comparison to hearing the transformation of that first section. There is also a very prominent snare drum which seems to drive the beat from the normal 2/4 square feel almost to a feeling of 6/8 dotted rhythm.

This is the first of three records of P. Grancowa’s ensemble that you’ll get to hear over the course of this holiday. But tomorrow, look forward to hearing a Syrena Grand recording by a Romanian Orchestra that is NOT Belf.

Khag sameaKh.

**Chanukah art from screen shots of the Menorah iPad app by RustyBrick, Inc.

TUNE OF THE MONTH: Mlody Bortnik

This month's tune is something a little bit different.  For one thing, there are no other recordings of it for comparison.  It's not even, strictly speaking, part of the Yiddish repertoire. But I think it will be very interesting for a number of reasons.

Let me begin by admitting that I have a certain fondness for polkas. When I was nine years old and wanting to sign up for band, my mother's cousin Seymour, who had played clarinet in an army band in WWII, took out his horn and played the Clarinet Polka for me, and I was mesmerized. It sounded like water splashing down a waterfall, and I knew I needed to be able to play like that.

"The Clarinet Polka" actually does have a Yiddish connection. Under one of its Polish titles, "Dyadushka,", Dave Tarras recorded it in the late 1950s with Murray Lehrer on volume 3 of Freilachs in Hi-Fi. The text on the sleeve says about this tune:

"The Clarinet Polka is a showpiece for Tarras' very live licorice stick. He has played it often under its original -- Dyadushka Polka (Grandfather's Polka).  If the granddads to whom it is dedicated can dance this breath-snatcher, more power to them and to Dave Tarras too, who though a granddad himself, can blow down many a younger man.  The trumpet's darker tones outline the Pierrot-like agility of the clarinet...."

That description of Tarras's playing applies equally to this month's tune, a polka that he wrote and recorded in 1920 called "Mlody Bortnik" (the Young Boarder). This was an exclusively Polish release on the Victor label. Tarras made a number of Polish releases, all billed as Instr. Kwartet Tarasiewicza.

What is special about this polka, and the reason that I chose to highlight it here, is that unlike most such tunes, its melody is modal rather than major in tonality, and it moves in very interesting ways between C freygish and F harmonic minor.

The polka begins with a four-bar intro that sounds like someone took a typical dance hall intro and klezmerized it.  

The cadence at the end of this intro, C maj - Bb minor - C major, is classic freygish, but when the actual tune begins, it is clearly in F harmonic minor.  It is an amazing, virtuosic melody that is pure Tarras, and classic F harmonic minor.  And he plays it purely, his notes clean and articulate, as befits a good polka.  Interestingly, despite the modal nature of the tune, Tarras's style includes none of the ornaments that give his Jewish playing its yidishn tam (Jewish flavor)

The second section again rests briefly in C freygish before moving back squarely into F minor.  The third section, a typical "trio" in F minor's relative major, Ab, offers no surprises but provides a nice contrast to the Eastern European modality of the main polka melody.

Tarras's exceptional playing contrasts rather dramatically with that of the the accordion player, who tends to express a somewhat simplified version of the melody and at times fumbles some of the modal runs.

 All in all, Mlody Bortnik would make a fine addition to any klezmer repertoire.

Downloadable versions of the complete chart and the Tarras recording can be found in the Resources section.

TUNE OF THE MONTH: Bardichiver Nigun

September's tune will bring back memories of the early days of KlezKamp for those who were there.  The long-running Yiddish Folk Arts program, which began in 1985 as a project of the YIVO institute in New York, was the first event to bring together, annually, those who were passionate about Yiddish culture.  I first attended in 1987, knowing almost nothing except how much I wanted to learn.  

In those early years, participants had the good fortune to hear and learn from the few remaining old masters of klezmer, Yiddish song and Yiddish theater, and first among those treasured elders was Sid Beckerman.  The son of Shloimke Beckerman, a clarinet player who had recorded a number of 78 rpm discs for Emerson in the early 1920s, Sid was an incredibly sweet man who had lips of steel; especially in those early years, he would sometimes play for well over an hour without pause.

When I walked into the tantszal  (ballroom) for the dance party on that very first Sunday night, I was blown away by the music.  It was endless, it was exciting, and I knew I had found my place in the universe.  One of the tunes that was being played that evening, among the first I heard and frequently repeated throughout the week, was a simple, two-part tune that seemed to hold within its 32 bars everything I already loved about the music.  Here is a recording that I made that night using a portable cassette recorder.

I never learned the name of the tune or where it had come from; unlike many of the other freylekhs and bulgars I heard and played that week and in subsequent years, no one ever provided an original source recording.  As far as I knew, it was just one of the tunes in Sid's repertoire.

Last week I was doing some systematic listening to the digital transfers of recordings in my collection, and imagine my delight when I came upon a soundfile of this very tune!  It was Victor 25-5030, recorded in 1940 by Abe Ellstein's orchestra with Dave Tarras, and it was called "Bardichiver Nigun."  The recording is interesting for a number of reasons.  First, Tarras begins playing the first A section in the low register, something which, I can say from my own experience, is much more challenging to do expressively than playing in the usual clarinet register two octaves above.  The second time through the tune, the trumpet, which has been almost a commentator on the melody,  takes the lead for the second time through the A section.

It is, however, the melody itself which is most interesting.  While both versions are clearly playing the same basic tune, they differ in some significant ways.  

In the first half of the A section, the Beckerman version, notated in black, ends the first phrase at the third tone of the mode, while the Tarras version, in blue, stays at the tonic.

This pattern is repeated in the second phrase, in which the two versions end on the fifth and the third, respectively:

The second half of the section diverges more dramatically, with the Beckerman version (top staff) continuing for an additional two bars:

The B section exhibits similar disparity.   In the Beckerman version, the first phrase is two bars long, with the second two bars representing a kind of elaboration upward, while the Tarras version again stays rooted firmly below, with the second phrase essentially restating the first:

And in the second half of the section, the lengths again do not match up, though in this case it is the Tarras version which extends the phrase, by repeating the cadence used at the end of the A section.  This variation also involves a significant change in the harmony, with the Beckerman version going to the Fm cadence chord in the penultimate measure of the tune, while Tarras moves to Fm at the beginning of this section of the melody.

While I'm very happy to have heard the Tarras version of this tune and thrilled finally to know what it is called, the Beckerman version, heard at so many KlezKamps, is the one that I will always think of as the "original."  I have, however, provided charts for both versions, along with the sound files, in the Resources section.