VA - Yikhes - Early Klezmer Recordings 1911-1939 (Trikont)

"Yikhes. Frühe Klezmer-Aufnahmen von 1907-1939 aus der Sammlung von Prof. Martin Schwartz", was published in German in 1991 and was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize in 1992. The album has been made from old 78 rpm records, most of which were recorded acoustically (before the invention of dynamic microphones).

The first of three volumes in Trikont's klezmer series puts to shame the ones issued by Yazoo and Music & Arts. These early recordings of Naftule Brandwein, Dave Tarras, Josef Solinski, Leon Ahl, Abe Schwartz, Joseph Moskowitz, and many others on this 18-track retrospective reveal the deep and ancient roots of the Lineage Stammbaum. Culled from the personal collection of klezmer historian Dr. Martin Schwartz, the music presented here traces the movement of Jewish music around Eastern Europe from 1911 to the Shoah, Stalinism, and dispersion of Jews to other parts of the world where political forces and cultural assimilation all but destroyed this great music until the 1970s when it was recorded again. 

What took place before this time is part only of cultural memory; what happened between 1939 and the '70s is horrific. The Klezmorim were musicians. Klez, translated, means musician. Mer means song, and this we have klezmer music as the musician's song. The recordings here bare out why the definition is important; these are rigorous instrumental workouts, full of improvisation and tempo and mode changes, they are dizzying. What is also so notable about the first volume is how the reputations of Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras prove, even in these early pieces, not to be the stuff of myth but even more substantial than the accounts would have us believe. One listen to "Rumenishe Doina" by Brandwein, with it's stop and go rhythm and searing clarinet solo, is enough, but then Tarras' "A Rumenisher Nighn" is a ride through the mountains of Romania on a fast horse as his clarinet triple times the violins keeping rhythm. 

All the tracks here are notable, the previous two standouts, along with Josef Solinski's "Romanian Fantasy, Pt. 4," where the plucked violins begin to create a rhythm and another a melody, seemingly out of the air. Minimal parsed phrases between the two violins gradually elongate into a modal rondo where they drone against each other in now long, mournful lines before evolving into the fancy-free gypsy fantasy it becomes and reaches dizzying heights of improvisational fury. 

Make no mistake, some of these recordings are a bit dodgy due to their age, but most of them are well preserved. The musicianship and selection of the material, however, are first-rate by any standard, assembling this the best collection of early klezmer in the world.


Tracklist:

1 Naftule Brandwein - Rumänische doina
2 Yenkovitz & Goldberg - Yoshke furt avek
3 Naftule Brandwein - Vi tsvey iz Naftule der driter
4 Josef Solinski - Rumänische Fantasien
5 Naftule Brandwein - Naftule shpilt far dem rebn
6 Max Leibowitz - Yiddish Hora - a heymish freylekhs
7 State Ensemble of Jewish Folk Musicians - Jüdischer Tanz
8 Belf's Rumanian Orchestra - Yikhes
9 Naftule Brandwein - Heyser bulgar
10 Dave Tarras - A rumenisher nign
11 Leon Ahl - Doina
12 Joseph Moskowitz - Buhusher khusid
13 Mishka Ziganoff - Galitsyaner khusid
14 Abe Schwartz - Nationale Hora - Teil I
15 Harry Raderman’s & Beckerman’s Orchestra - An europeyishe kolomeyke
16 Naftule Brandwein - Der ziser bulgar
17 Belf's Rumanian Orchestra - Simkhas toyre
18 Naftule Brandwein - Naftule, shpil es nokh amol


VA - Yikhes - Early Klezmer Recordings 1911-1939 (Trikont)

(320 kbps, cover art included)

Track 18 - New York, April 1925