The Medusa Fora

one klezmer band to try out is called KLEZMATICS--you guys might enjoy!

'Coney Island' is probably one of the best songs ever - the lyrics, the percussion that sounds like bundles of bamboo being thwacked on something, the asides, the backing vocals, the theme, the imagery, the singing - always on the cusp of hilarity or something, as if life were good and a real laugh, if you know what I mean, which it is, when you hear a song like that, sung the way they sing it.

I had the pleasure of coming across, in a chain record store, where the Low and Sweet Orchestra were to do an instore appearance, a record called Kosher Hebrew Classics - with Perry Como singing 'Sunrise, Sunset' and someone else singing 'Shtetele Beltz', and the Purple Fog (you know, I can't remember, at the moment, his real name), it might have been, singing 'Oh My Papa' and Regine singing 'Mein Yiddishe Mameh' in Yiddish. That's all - some crap in there, but the Barry Sisters and Regine are unbeatable.

Frank Whatsisname, from the Klezmatics, came up to us in the rather gory dressing room at a bullring in Madrid, to introduce himself. I never heard any of his, their, stuff, but I should.

I had a record once, which I lost on a tour bus, of new york jewish radio bigband stuff. Anyone know anything about something like that? I wish I still had that tape, but, well, I don't, and it's a loss.

New York Jewish radio bigband.... ask Woody Allen, maybe. You know a computer does come in handy for research. Type in subject & hit search.

JamesFearnley wrote:I had a record once, which I lost on a tour bus, of new york jewish radio bigband stuff. Anyone know anything about something like that?

You know anything more about it? Who was on it? That kind of thing?

Klezfest in Ukraine, August, 19 2004, Kiev
Live records, so quality is corresponding
(But absolutely official stuff, so feel free to download)

My favourite - Kiever Tramvai in Yiddishe/Russian Kiev dialect

And Barry Sisters' greatest hit (OK, one of the greatest) - Channa From Havana

Don't know DZM what it was called, but it was from the forties, and I'm going to do what Goya suggests and google it and see what comes up.

I picked up a clarinet a few years ago, to have a go (and even managed to play it on Waiting for Herb, on Darryl's song, whatever that was called, which was fun) and learned a couple freilach licks otherwise, and had a lesson or two from a guy on Southampton Row, but then the clarinet's been in its case pretty much since then, except when I went up to Dermot's house - the cello/mandolin player in Low and Sweet Orchestra and the Cranky George Trio - to muck about musically for an evening, because he'd just bought himself a baritone horn, like a euphonium or something, smaller than a tuba - and we played Abide With Me together a few times, because I've always loved the hymn and particularly Thelonius Monk's version of it (the hymn written by a namesake, that's partly why he recorded it) on a double album I have of Monk and Coltrane, phew, that's a long series of subordinate clauses.

Philip, I remember, came on tour with a clarinet once, and there was something less than calming of an evening, to hear him sitting in his hotel room window, playing the damn thing into the night air.

Thelonius, now that's damn classy.

Could also try vintage music dealers/dealerships.
And if you're persuasive/persistent enough, certain radio stations that cater to bigband sounds also have been known to rifle through their archives.

There are those who treasured my clarinet playing. Artie Shaw even quit playing and turned to novel-writing in despair.

So did I.

Do you still write novels James, and if so ever thought about an autobiography or biography of your experiences with the nips and the pogues and life after the pogues etc. (You were talking about past novels you were writing about on the 'completely pogued' documentry I know it was 15 od years ago but..........................)

Ah, jesus, yeah, I still spend an awful lot of time doing that, but am yet unpublished (would help if I sent stuff out), but even after fifteen years I'm still knocking the words out.

Often sparred with the idea of autobiography. I'll get round to it one of these days.

JamesFearnley wrote: and we played Abide With Me together a few times, because I've always loved the hymn

Is is just me, or didn't they used to sing that at the beginning of an FA Cup final - or at Englangds Rugby 5 nation games. I can imagine it at the FA Cup at Wembley. Have I just totally made this memory up??

'To be a Pilgrim' is a similar tune to Abide with Me, bit more uplifting though...starts of "He who would valiant be, 'gainst all disaster". Ah, memories of class asembleys come flooding back.

Anonymous wrote:

JamesFearnley wrote: and we played Abide With Me together a few times, because I've always loved the hymn

Is is just me, or didn't they used to sing that at the beginning of an FA Cup final.

Yeah, they still sing it before the FA Cup final. Even now that the old Wembley Stadium is no longer.