Coming Now: Yiddish
15 March, 2007This language became one of my favourites because of the music closely connected with it…
This actually means that I am a fan of the so-called World Music. Though I am well aware that just about anything can be sold as world music nowadays, I still love it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the concert Huun Huur Tu gave in Ljubljana (Kapelica). Or Kroke in Tübingen (Sudhaus).
Klezmer… One can’t help but love it.
But I was going to talk about Yiddish this time. No theory yet, though, not today. Let us have an excerpt from a world-famous book instead.
- Ikh hob keyn moyre nisht far keyn tigers, ober a tsugvint shrekt mikh zeyer. Hot ir nisht keyn paravan?
- “Shrek far tsugvintn … dos iz shlimazldik far a flants, hot bamerkt der kleyner prints. Di blum iz beemes komplitsirt …”
(translated by Shloyme Lerman)
To be continued…
mmmm. nice. i recently heard about jewish/yiddish tango music (tangele), got immediately interested and started searching the web. the only contemporary musician i could find though, is lloica czackis (www.lloicaczackis.com). do you know something more, by any chance?
zay gezunt.
A gutn morgn!
I found out tangele was invented by your lady, the German sites offer no other musicians (so far). But things will change, I’m sure.
Lloica’s self promoting manner and her pronunciation are irritating. I don’t want to see her anymore. Adrienne Cooper the first sang yiddish tangos. Jenny Levison discovered them by herself in the mid1980 and sings them still. There are a lot of Argentinian youngest talents in Argentina who are using and arraging the same material in yiddish. The Jewish Music Institute presented recently Mor Karbasi who is Ladino singer, this singer is more sensitive than Lloica Czackis.
To add one more remark.
Tangele is the name of Czackis’s group, but it doesn’t signify THE yiddish tango. It is absolutely inadequate and ungrateful to identify these two things, in regard of the still yiddish spoken people and ALL yiddish language artists. I cannot admit that such an imposture as Lloica’s one, might have suceeded, even in terms of publicity.
Thank you!
@willy: Hey, a sheynem dank for the info.
Hm, Ahim: do you speak Yiddish?
Hey, just bluffing
Always liked it though, it’s certainly on my list of wanna-learn-someday languages (along with Portuguese…). Your posts made my mouth water. Was just wondering today if I am (or should I better be) too busy with French at the moment, or should I give it a shot right now…
Do you?
No, just bluffin’, too. And I can’t French, either
I did hope to catch someone to write a post in Yiddish, that is why I was asking.
I am also happy that you got some more information about tangele
hey! delayed…but i have something more to say. i was in a concert of yiddish songs of lloica czackis two days ago. i didn’t expect too much, but it was great. you have to *see* her singing. she’s enchanting. she really blows her soul into the songs. nicenicenice.
Ahima: OK, will remember. Thank you.
Ahim, i seriously believe you are commissioned by Czackis & Co to write that. Her “carrier” let me suppose she is capable of that… I agree with Willy.
Hi, i believe so too. It’s a kind of 2006 french miss universe remade as a simply jew by jewish media. like a newly born jewish tourist in poland nowadays (where i live). artificial. no matter of identify, it’s all business & politics. but who cares? Bonne rencontre. Gut shabe.
Mrs. Czackis will be again trying to get associated to Argentina Embassy in London… She is “irritating” as singer yes, but definitely a good diplomat, even if her diplomacy conceals some problems for us, social historiens since before global age. Yiddish “ripostante” tango and institutions do not nevertheless matich together. Every self-observing artist in yiddish should keep this fact in mind. Lloica’s “self-promotion” targetting always institutions of european and south-american countries, goes against this principle and seems to be in essence harmful to the very identity of yiddish tango. I’m life long yiddish music collectionner, I can say that. Before A. Cooper, Zully Goldfarb sang these tangos with great intensity. Jenny Levison of course in the 1980s. And Karsten Troyke at the same time… They didn’t need any institutional propaganda, or internet communitiies, or jewish fake families, to reach out directly to the public… to make their own public around the world… Thus they held this music in its own dignified minority, rarerity, close relation to poor immigrants’ (of now and then) real lives. If an artist tries to summerize and appropriate the fruits of these people’s long efforts, this artist should be truly good. Unfortunately Lloica’s understanding and capacities do not seem to deserve it. She is rerely minor but with an enormous globalizing ambition such as spoiled girles in wealthy material life of 1990s could have. Someone said that she was just tired of being always in chorus so she conceived her project around her “identity”… maybe, why not, if only she was good enough and self-reliant not to spend her time to apply credit to institutions! I’d like to talk about it with authentic yiddish tango holders. But how?
Michael: While I do understand your misgivings, it seems to me Mrs. Czackis is on her way to spread Yiddish tango worldwide, in a way that is definitely effective in our modern society: with constant and elaborate PR measures. Though she is thus obviously not (I don’t know anything about her, I am just reacting to what every one of you wrote on my blog) spreading the “real thing”, she may contribute to the popularity of it, albeit in the false, commercial way. And there is always only a limited number of people who are interested in the real thing. Even more, this should stay so.
I have since checked out her website, which was also the only possibility to hear her singing. I decided almost immediately that I didn’t like tangoed interpretations of what I perceive as traditional Yiddish songs at all, and I think it may not be only due to her singing, but more general. I don’t know, though.
@raf: of course, i’m part of the conspiracy, LOL.
anyway, these sudden passionate and severe allergic reactions really got me interested about what’s behind this lloica story. but most of all i’m glad that michael dropped some names that can lead my way on the quest for some interesting music. tant mieux if it’s better than lloica, heh-heh…
But ahim, it’s you who restarted. Of course it’s utterly interesting as phenomenon. Because without internet she wouldn’t be there now. But all others would still be. It means the public of the virtual yiddish theatre is not any more the same than those who were. Tradition has been cut off. Maybe is it that young people look for through fake celebrities? Of course, we are simply their advertising instrument. I know. But cannot help trying to say the yiddish culture is not in that, in what she is doing for instance. Terribly sad.
Michael, Ahim: It is funny that the debate should run here… I don’t know as much as I would like to about Yiddish music, either. But Ahim is right, Michael: thank you for supplying information on other musicians…
I Know Lloica Personally and since she was a kid… i cant believe what i read here… Lloica & Co? Get Associated with embassies? i think many people here should go to see a doctor… she’s just a singer, she can be good or bad, i can accept those kind of opinions, but other words are obviously from people who just sit on their computer and think they’ll get a pulitzer for speaking about other people and saying “Ive heard Mor Karbasi” and he/she (i don’t know) is better, or about the name “Tangele”… get a life, you vinegars…