tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45055095305115561652024-03-12T22:03:16.712-04:00The MamboniksA repository for articles and artifacts regarding the intriguing history of Jews in Latin music.
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THE MAMBONIKS began in 2001 as research for a book that remains unpublished. I hope that sharing my interviews and materials will help broaden the understanding of this unique moment in Jewish cultural history.
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All material copyright Mark Schwartz, 2006Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-2244430641944628382010-08-11T10:49:00.005-04:002010-08-11T11:07:32.106-04:00Players' Club, Pt. 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKHjNN_vyiprQF8VDFg_d41IghuOdjCeJGPcY4y_l0QPnxp9VM5n_psvZgLEIOIe-ea2vW-1C7irNYFvQeFGvcTo9nbnPhCVcfhkxL5Oo-Hewzi2mjACV9M5n-waG-XaDW6nUB_GhE1w24/s1600/LaPlata+album+cover.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504167367428102418" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 244px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKHjNN_vyiprQF8VDFg_d41IghuOdjCeJGPcY4y_l0QPnxp9VM5n_psvZgLEIOIe-ea2vW-1C7irNYFvQeFGvcTo9nbnPhCVcfhkxL5Oo-Hewzi2mjACV9M5n-waG-XaDW6nUB_GhE1w24/s320/LaPlata+album+cover.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Players' Club<em> is a remix, or oral history if you like, of mambonik interviews I've done. It appeared in its entirety in the quarterly</em> <a href="http://www.guiltandpleasure.com/index.php?site=rebootgp&page=gp_home">Guilt & Pleasure</a>.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Dramatis Personae: </div><div><br /><strong>Rae Arroyo</strong>: Bronx born Latin music DJ and entrepreneur from a Turkish Jewish family<br /><strong>Steven Bernstein</strong>: New York based trumpet player and leader of Sex Mob<br /><strong>Larry Harlow</strong>: “El Judio Maravilloso,” bandleader and piano and keyboard player and salsa producer, director of the legendary Fania All-Stars<br /><strong>David Hersher</strong> : Bass player with Orchestra Broadway and Eddie Palmieri’s groups, alongside his brother, Ira, on piano<br /><strong>Charlie Hersh</strong>: Reed man with various New York bands, including Alfredito’s<br /><strong>Andy Kaufman</strong>: Owner of New York’s Birdland nightclub and Latin music record producer<br /><strong>Don Kellin</strong>: Palladium habitué and mambo dancer<br /><strong>Charles Klaif</strong>: Piano player with the orchestras of Alfredito, Xavier Cugat, Tony Norvo, Joe Quijano, Emilio Reyes, and others<br /><strong>Stanley Lewis</strong>: Partner with George Goldner in Cotique Records<br /><strong>Vincent Livelli</strong>: New York dancer and Latin music enthusiast<br /><strong>Eddie Palmieri</strong>: Latin music piano maestro and leader of the legendary La Perfecta<br /><strong>Schep Pullman</strong>: Saxophonist with Tito Puente’s orchestra<br /><strong>Art Raymond</strong>: Pioneering Latin music DJ, later hosted the long-running Jewish music programs “Raisins & Almonds” and the “Sunday Simcha”<br /><strong>Howard Roseff</strong>: Partner with Sidney Siegel in Seeco Records and Tropical Records<br /><strong>Jimmy Sabater</strong>: Vocalist with the Joe Cuba Sextet, native of Puerto Rico<br /><strong>Pete Socolow</strong>: New York pianist and reed man with dozens of Jewish bands, including those of Dave Tarras and the Epstein Brothers.<br /><strong>Mike Terrace</strong>: Dance instructor at the Concord and other Catskills hotels<br /><strong>Norby Walters</strong>: Nightclub owner and later Hollywood impresario<br /><strong>Dan Weinstein</strong>: Latin music reed man in Los Angeles<br /><strong>Adele Zeretsky</strong>: Wife of bandleader Al “Alfredito” Levy and Catskills habitué</div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Charles Klaif: Every affair -- a wedding, a bar-mitzvah, a retirement dinner -- always had live music. No one would ever think of having any type of affair without live music. That was the first thing, who’s the band? As a matter of fact, I played bar-mitzvahs where it was Emilio Reyes, Tito Puente, and Duke Ellington – at a bar-mitzvah!<br /></div><br /><div>Eddie Palmieri: You used Jewish musicians, or you didn’t have a band! They did the show bands, everything. </div><br /><div><br />Charles Klaif: In those days, Latin piano players weren’t as well versed as they are today with playing jazz and American music. They really did one thing, which was being a good Latin piano player. That’s why I had the advantage over them… We could play the music authentically, we could read, and we could fake American music.</div><br /><div><br />Eddie Palmieri: They became quite astute as Latin players…. So if you wanted quality from your timbre, your attack, your intonation, then you had to go for the American players and they were mostly Jewish who ran the ballgame. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Dan Weinstein: Where there’s plenty of dancers, there’s always gonna be musicians learning to play that music because there’s work. Because of the job. That’s what’s important. Apart from the artistic affinity for something. It’s a job skill, you better learn it if you wanna make a living.</div><br /><div><br />Eddie Palmieri: Jewish players wouldn’t stay with any band steady. You booked ‘em. Except a steady band, for a while they’d stay -- Tito Puente had his four trumpets for a while. But in general, they were all doing one-nighters. Club dates is what they called them. You went to the union hall on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays and you booked everyone you could find. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Pete Sokolow: Unfortunately, Jewish musicians didn’t respect the masters of their own thing. Jewish musicians did not. It was, “Eh, who wants to play this garbage.”</div><br /><div><br />Schep Pullman: I got a call to play for permanent with Tito Puente.….. I was in heaven, man. I walk into this big auditorium at the Malibu, and that was my start with Tito. The beginning of nine years of nothing but sex and good times.<br /></div><br /><div>Steven Bernstein: You could make a living playing in Tito Puente’s band. He had four trumpets back then, four trombones and three saxophones. Those cats were making a living. They would play Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and playing doubles and triples on weekends. The thing about Latin bands is they employed large amounts of musicians.</div><br /><div><br />Schep Pullman: From ’57 we did the Palladium, ballrooms in Manhattan, ballrooms in Brooklyn, ballrooms in the afterhours clubs in the Bronx. We were working seven days a week, and Saturdays we’d do four jobs before Saturday night into Sunday afternoon when we’d work again. I’ll give a schedule: From 9-1 we’d work at Riverside Plaza on 71st St, we would go from 1-3 at the Hotel Taft Grill, then at three o’clock we’d go up to the Bronx and play an after-hours till six. In the Bronx it was after-hours clubs. They were in lofts, most of them probably were illegal. Then you’d go back to Manhattan and have to be up for a 3 o’clock matinee at the Chateau Madrid and in the evening back to the Palladium. We were working a steady Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night at the Palladium. Seven nights. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-55558316279488590062010-05-09T21:35:00.003-04:002010-05-09T21:38:10.457-04:00Meanwhile, Back at the Park Plaza....It may look like this blog is dead, but it's just resting. In the intervening couple of years, I have been helping veteran rumbero and world traveler Vincent Livelli present his memories of Latin Music to the world. Check out <a href="http://www.salsalivelli.blogspot.com">www.salsalivelli.blogspot.com</a>. Que viva Chango...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-46481009463492713912007-11-01T15:53:00.000-04:002007-11-01T16:11:07.933-04:00Mambo at the Raleigh<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVmw9xktb5slthrThfmRqylB4bU_GZxzccescNoh-KkzcDIDc6toyeLDJW7i57tHC-iR6ThUU-VJ-qUvS3xX3_9SZ5Qbc7IaK0cUgyAr-azJS0AQBQ5OFPUqM55o3SXYKUuawXEzUM3lvD/s1600-h/raleigh+brochure.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVmw9xktb5slthrThfmRqylB4bU_GZxzccescNoh-KkzcDIDc6toyeLDJW7i57tHC-iR6ThUU-VJ-qUvS3xX3_9SZ5Qbc7IaK0cUgyAr-azJS0AQBQ5OFPUqM55o3SXYKUuawXEzUM3lvD/s320/raleigh+brochure.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127966678997633586" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">The <span style="font-weight: bold;">Raleigh Hotel</span>, in South Fallsburg, was one of the better-known resorts in the Catskills. While not as large as the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Concord </span>or <span style="font-weight: bold;">Grossinger's, </span>The Raleigh was well-known for music, which, in the '50s and into the '60s, was Latin. The hotel was sold in 2005, reopening soon after under the management of the Bobover Chassidic sect. </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">David Hersher</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> grew up in the Raleigh, and became the bass player in the popular charanga <span style="font-weight: bold;">Orquesta Broadway</span>.<br /><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal">I was born in <st1:place st="on">Brooklyn</st1:place>, 1941, my brother [Ira] is three and a half years younger.<span style=""> </span>That’s where we grew up, and because of the Raleigh Hotel affiliation that’s really what gave us the background in Latin music.<span style=""> </span>All the hotels in the Catskills in those days -- we’re talking about the ‘50s and ‘60s -- all had a Latin house band along with the so-called American band which was really a show band — the band which played for the shows and played not a lot of dance music.<span style=""> </span>Tito Puente was at, I think, the President Hotel or one of those…Machito was the house band at the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Concord</st1:place></st1:city>… Alfredito was also a Jewish guy.<span style=""> </span>I think he was at one of the hotels as well, but every hotel had a house band.<span style=""> </span>The Raleigh Hotel—it was called the Ratner Hotel to begin with, the name was changed in the early '50s to the <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Raleigh</st1:city></st1:place>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>That was the name of my grandparents' partners in those days.<span style=""> </span>It was the Ratner family and my grandparents.<span style=""> </span>No longer after that, I’d say the late ‘40s, it was the Ratner family, then it was my family alone. The <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Raleigh</st1:place></st1:city> hotel had a mambo show, a late night mambo show, on Thursday nights in those days which started at about 1 or 2 in the morning.<span style=""> </span>All the Latin musicians from all the other hotels in the Catskills would come into the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Raleigh</st1:place></st1:city> Thursday nights after they had finished playing their night at their respective hotels. And there was a mambo show late night dance show at the Raleigh and the La Playa Sextet would do the reception, and then all the other Latin musicians would sit in.<span style=""> </span>So it turned out to be a 10-15 piece jam session.<span style=""> </span>Along with whomever the dancers brought. There were a lot of non–Latin people and Latin people involved in these dance teams.<span style=""> </span>Characters such as Millie Donay, the Mambo Aces (those were 2 Puerto Rican guys), the Cha-Cha-Taps — they were Cuban teens. There were lots of Latin dancers.</p>Actually the highlight of those mambo shows was in the August of 1960, when an <i style="">orquesta</i> arrived from <st1:country-region st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>, played at the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Raleigh</st1:place></st1:city>. Aragón.<span style=""> </span>That was probably August of 1960, and that was eight months after Fidel came in, New Year’s Day of ‘59. Andy Vasquez who was one of the dancers in the Mambo Aces, he brought Aragón. They would play in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city> and other places, and he brought them up here for one of the Thursday night late mambo shows.<span style=""> </span>Everybody who was into Latin music in NYC was up here at the Raleigh Hotel that night.<span style=""> </span>That night is a legend! And it was my brother’s and my first experience with Cuban music.<span style=""> </span>We knew of Latin music, but we didn’t know much about the Cuban bands.<span style=""> </span>That was our first experience with a Cuban band and we taped it, actually.<span style=""> </span>We still have five or six tunes on tape from 1960, that night. Yeah it was a fabulous night!<span style=""> </span>I mean if you run into any one of these people now,<span style=""> </span>of course they are now in their 50s and 60s, and who were there that night, will remember that night fondly.<span style=""> </span><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-8681958110471802482007-11-01T11:56:00.001-04:002007-11-01T12:02:08.175-04:00Cugat and the Jews<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7laIkliD1NBxUwbSXmrx4anR27-njEUJNuO8ca2jfpA7VC8Cv3oDxb9P57ZEYoQiuaeU6hYv83rTp6fVCbgvcuTi12m8mxei4U21TszMhtRfB7gJIE9zfYu-d4jyppcWhJlaOHkj8Q2Q/s1600-h/cugat+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7laIkliD1NBxUwbSXmrx4anR27-njEUJNuO8ca2jfpA7VC8Cv3oDxb9P57ZEYoQiuaeU6hYv83rTp6fVCbgvcuTi12m8mxei4U21TszMhtRfB7gJIE9zfYu-d4jyppcWhJlaOHkj8Q2Q/s320/cugat+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127901786336758306" border="0" /></a><span style=""><span style="font-style: italic;">Mambo, to paraphrase Madonna, made the people come together. Not just Jews and Latinos, but also Italians, Greeks, Irish, Blacks, and the occasional Protestant. But the decades prior to the ‘50s, while marked by the occasional outbreak of Latin rhythm among non-Latinos, were generally less inclusive. Language barriers, racism, and a general lack of cultural understanding about the people and cultures of the Caribbean and Latin America created a rift between Latin music as it was performed by and for Latinos and the exotic fare that was offered to white Americans, primarily by </span><st1:place style="font-style: italic;" st="on">Hollywood</st1:place><span style="font-style: italic;"> musicals.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">The man who made his mark with the latter but eventually earned the grudging respect of the former, went by one name: Cugat.</span><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeo was not a Jew. But so beloved was the Gironese violinist by <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Manhattan</st1:city></st1:place>’s mamboniks that the rumor persisted. (That his third wife, <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Abbe Lane</st1:address></st1:street>, was a curvaceous Jewess many years his junior is beyond reproof.) Cugat was, however, the link between Jewish movie moguls and Jewish mambo maniacs. He grew up in <st1:country-region st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region> and found his fortune in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hollywood</st1:place></st1:city>, selling millions of records from the ‘30s through the ‘60s. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Cugat began performing in films early on with a nattily dressed orchestra. He almost always played himself. Films that featured his occasionally saccharine outfit include <i>Ten Cents a Dance</i> with Barbara Stanwyck (1931) and the Mae West vehicle <i>Go West, Young Man</i> (1936); he was the star of the first musical short ever produced, <i>Cugat and his Gigolos</i>, for Warner Brothers. In addition to his film and music career, the bandleader was also a talented caricaturist whose drawings appeared in the Los Angeles Times: his skill at exaggeration cannily played up Latin stereotypes in dramatic, impressionistic works. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">In 1935 he had three hits on the pop charts: “The Lady In Red,” "The Cocoanut Pudding Vendor," and “Begin the Beguine,” the latter written by Cole Porter, with assistance from Cugat himself. Soon thereafter he began a lengthy residence at the Sert Room in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>’s Waldorf Astoria. Demand grew so great that Cugat was turning away gigs: the band simply couldn’t be everywhere at once.<span style=""> </span>So, in 1937, Cugat established “Xavier Cugat Orchestras” in five cities. To lead the <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Miami</st1:place></st1:city> franchise, he hired a white Cuban vocalist, Desi Arnaz. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Meanwhile, Cugat’s appearances in a spate of B-grade MGM films in the ‘40s – ten in all -- made “Cugie” the face of Latin music for mainstream America until the arrival of Perez Prado in the 1950’s. Jewish musical comic Mickey Katz noted his appeal to Jewish grandmothers and others in his “Yiddishe Mambo,” with the couplet “Her kugel is hot / For Xavier Cugat.” He teamed up with Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian star, who had become an American sensation at the same time, in 1948’s <i>A Date with Judy.</i> The pair became king and queen of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Hollywood</st1:place></st1:city>’s tropical kitsch. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Cugat’s watered-down versions of Latin rhythm – often with English lyrics that denigrated Latinos – was uniquely American: it was more pastiche than anything else. He famously described his rationale thus:<span style=""> </span>“Americans know nothing about Latin music. They neither understand nor feel it. So they have to be given music more for the eyes than the ears. Eighty percent visual, the rest aural. To succeed in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, I gave the Americans a Latin music that had nothing authentic about it. Then I began to change the music and play more legitimately."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>Indeed, Cugat’s relocation from <st1:city st="on">Hollywood</st1:city> to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>, and competition in the hot-house of Afro-Cuban jazz, invigorated his anodyne arrangements. For a while, Miguelito Valdez, a true Cuban rumbero, fronted the band (it was he who hit first with “Babalú,” before Desi Arnaz’s more pallid rendition).<span style=""> </span>Bands that emulated Cugat’s brand of cocktail Latin music became popular with the Jewish community, including Pupi Campo, Jose Curbelo, Noro Morales, and even the Jewish bandleader Alfredo Mendez (born Alfred Mendelsohn).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p></o:p>Cugat’s canny marketing (girls, <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Chihuahuas</st1:place></st1:state>, and then music) and his willingness to jump on any trend, from tango to rumba to mambo to cha-cha-cha, insured his popularity for decades, until a stroke forced his retirement in 1971. Despite the treacle of his best-known work, Cugat must be credited for opening American ears to Latin sounds. Nor was his band anything to snicker at: In addition to Miguelito Valdes, Cugat worked with Tito Puente, the vocalist Tito Rodriguez, Machito, and, er, Charo (his fourth wife). He died in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Barcelona</st1:place></st1:city> in 1990.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-90612594767680399652007-11-01T11:42:00.000-04:002007-11-01T11:44:32.044-04:00Sephardim in Harlem<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">One observer of Jewish Harlem in its brief heyday was the Puerto Rican activist Bernardo Vega. An early migrant who reached New York in 1916, he notes in his memoir a restaurant called La Luz. “We were attracted by the Spanish name, although the owner was actually a Sephardic Jew,” he writes. “The food was not prepared in the style that was familiar to us, but we did notice that the sauces were of Spanish origin.” It’s a rare outsider’s reference to East Harlem’s other Jewish community.<span style=""> </span>New York’s Sephardim – mainly Jews from the Eastern Ottoman Empire, some 40,000 strong in the 1920s, were descended from Spanish exiles of Columbus’s day. They spoke Ladino, a mixture of medieval Spanish with Hebrew, Turkish, Italian, Greek, and Portuguese, and wrote it with Hebrew characters. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Individual Sephardic families – the Hayses, Hendrickses, and Peixottos -- some with roots in New York dating to the 1600s, made up a Jewish aristocracy in the 19th century. They had little to do with a second migration from Turkey, Cyprus, and other Mediterranean ports, who swelled the community’s numbers and added spice to Jewish Harlem. Relations between the Sephardim and their Eastern European brethren were often fraught. For their part, the Eastern European immigrants were baffled by these Jews who didn’t speak Yiddish, looked Hispanic, and prayed in such strange accents. At times, the Sephardim found a warmer reception from their Spanish-speaking, non-Jewish neighbors. Caribbean immigrants could communicate somewhat with these Jews in their medieval Spanish tongue, and intermarriage was common enough that Sephardic newspapers warned gravely against it.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-82350181866255309642007-11-01T11:35:00.000-04:002007-11-01T11:40:53.387-04:00Sidney Siegel and Seeco Records<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQGts9M587Rn7hmjHGn2xM-O1Z-DWPvJrOJaUCaZ687S9XBzCSw0MnShtS3OQ5mfg-iBomijEQxuOEh9KL4bTZtga6OgHkBymyV0K-BIn0W6IUI6ybo3IPyLrwlAYTAY2ydLCNa56su60/s1600-h/Sid+and+Celia+Cruz.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuQGts9M587Rn7hmjHGn2xM-O1Z-DWPvJrOJaUCaZ687S9XBzCSw0MnShtS3OQ5mfg-iBomijEQxuOEh9KL4bTZtga6OgHkBymyV0K-BIn0W6IUI6ybo3IPyLrwlAYTAY2ydLCNa56su60/s320/Sid+and+Celia+Cruz.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127897079052601874" border="0" /></a><span style=""><span style="font-style: italic;">Sidney Siegel parlayed a ghetto jewelry store into one of the largest independent Latin record label of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Promising “The Finest in Latin American Recordings” on every disc, Seeco Records delivered stars including Celia Cruz and La Sonora Matancera not only to the </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;" st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;">, but to </span><st1:city style="font-style: italic;" st="on">Puerto Rico</st1:city><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;" st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;" st="on">Guatemala</st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;"> and </span><st1:country-region style="font-style: italic;" st="on"><st1:place st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-style: italic;">. It all began in a bombed-out building at </span><st1:street style="font-style: italic;" st="on"><st1:address st="on">115<sup>th</sup> St</st1:address></st1:street><span style="font-style: italic;">, in the Spanish Harlem that until recently had been the second largest Jewish community in the country. </span><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Siegel’s father-in-law gave <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Sidney</st1:place></st1:city> a building at <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">1393 Fifth Avenue</st1:address></st1:street> as a wedding gift. Once one of the tonier areas of the neighborhood, it had fallen on hard times. The upper story, an apartment house, was condemned. But the ground floor was perfect for a shop, and <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Sidney</st1:place></st1:city> opened Casa Siegel -- the House of Siegel -- in 1941. The store stocked low-cost furnishings, as well as jewelry, radios, and records. Howard Roseff, Siegel’s younger cousin, worked alongside him in the store as a child, and eventually became <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Sidney</st1:place></st1:city>’s right hand in Seeco.</span><span style="line-height: 200%; display: none;font-size:8;" > </span><span style="line-height: 200%;font-size:8;" ><span style=""> </span></span><span style=""><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Casa Siegel’s clientele was mostly Puerto Rican, and returned often to purchase music from the shop’s selection of 78s, which included island music as well Argentine tangos, Mexican music, boleros, and Cuban rumbas<i>.</i><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">The early ‘40s were a time of upheaval for American recording companies. First, a broadcasters feud with music publishers sparked a scramble for publishing rights, as hundreds of folk, blues, and international music compostions were bought up by American houses. Then, the American Federation of Musicians went on strike, resulting in a recording ban that kept the best bands out of the studios for over two years. When the United States entered World War II in December of 1941, non-essential industries, record manufacturing among them, all but shut down. Remembers Howard Roseff, “Part of the rationing was that one of the components of making records, shellac, was necessary for ammunition.” In fact, the War Production Board cut shellac production by 70% in April of 1942 and suspended the production of phonographs.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Seigel was keenly aware of the resulting music shortage, but also noted how the Latin music he sold from his shop had an insatiable market. When major labels began to release their Latin stars from contracts, Seigel snapped them up. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><span style=""> </span>“All these recording stars in the Spanish world were out of work,” Roseff remembers. “<st1:city st="on">Sidney</st1:city> knew who these popular artists were because he used to sell their records on RCA and Decca and <st1:city st="on">Columbia</st1:city>….He couldn’t get the records manufactured here, so he had the bright idea of manufacturing in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>,” his cousin remembers. He signed stars that would include Mexico’s Los Panchos, Cuban composer Miguel Matamoros, vocalist Vicentico Valdes, Spanish singer Lola Flores, and La Sonora Matancera,<span style=""> </span>“and the next thing you know,” says Roseff, “he gave up the jewelry business, gave up the furniture business, and stuck with records.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Seeco began recording in 1944. Some of the earliest sessions were with Pupi Campo and Noro Morales, two Barrio bandleaders who specialized in Xavier Cugat-style music. Campo in particular wooed the Jewish crowd, and when television hit, he was a regular on Jack Paar’s show. But by and large, Seeco catered to the tastes of Spanish Harlemites first. “Our market was Harlem,” Roseff recalls, “but we did a lot with Puerto Rico and <st1:country-region st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>, and then we eventually wound up in <st1:country-region st="on">Guatemala</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Panama</st1:place></st1:country-region>.” Such practices were common for major record labels, but for an <st1:place st="on">East Harlem</st1:place> independent, Siegel’s ambition was notable.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s and into the ‘60s, Seeco and its subsidiary Tropical, manned by Howard Roseff, specialized in a wide variety of Latin music, including tangos, Mexican rancheras, Dominican merengue, Spanish flamenco, and more. In 1954, Seeco pressed the first Latin twelve-inch LP, while 10-inch 78s would continue to be a staple of the Latin market into the ‘60s. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">While Latin jazz was simmering in <st1:state st="on">New York</st1:state>, Siegel’s tastes ran to the folkloric, and he traveled to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Cuba</st1:place></st1:country-region> monthly. Eventually, Seeco carved a niche with Cuban recordings, from the boleros of the Trio Matamoros to the fiery big-band sound of La Sonora Matancera and its young vocalist Celia Cruz. Vicentico Valdes, who was briefly the vocalist in Tito Puente’s band, made Seeco the most successful Latin label for a decade. Siegel was known as a straight shooter, telling artists, “You aren’t going to make any money with Seeco…However, I will put you on the map.”<span style=""> </span>Roseff adds that “<st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Sidney</st1:place></st1:city> allowed the artists to do what they wanted to do. They would pick their own repertoire…we did singles at the very beginning, and you cut four sides at the session. The artists themselves would pick the numbers.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">The momentum kept the label near the top of the heap through the mambo era. In 1953, Variety ranked Seeco second behind the giant RCA in the surging Latin music market. But Seeco couldn’t keep up with the New York Latin sound being created by Tico and other competitors, and lost Celia Cruz and Vicentico Valdez in 1965. At the same time, Seigel was named in a series of royalties-related lawsuits. Says Roseff, “Paying royalties at the time was not too important to people who were just concerned with getting the project out…Not to besmirch Sidney, but he was a businessman and you try to get away with whatever you can, and when you get caught, you pay.” Siegel sold the business in the late ‘60s only a short time before he suffered a fatal heart attack. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">The Seeco example inspired others in a golden age of independent Latin record labels. Alegre, Verne, Mardi Gras, Tico, <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ansonia</st1:place></st1:city>, SMC, and Fania were just a few of the players in the Latin biz who took their cues from this dapper Jew. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-1860137430048157392007-11-01T11:25:00.000-04:002007-11-01T11:34:34.607-04:00Rumberos on the Radio: Jewish DJs<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXf1Hb94d4XDvDfRSkp7QUeNAD10FrBAY0NoFsj6WkPQxjbsGsPkSCuB80ngUBCKt4U6gtNSc-dzJtGXGgt-8b5ALk39l2GYslwU8IDjFEtJCWTYV3q88uj913-fgp12mR-8PT6ZBqttyL/s1600-h/art+raymond+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXf1Hb94d4XDvDfRSkp7QUeNAD10FrBAY0NoFsj6WkPQxjbsGsPkSCuB80ngUBCKt4U6gtNSc-dzJtGXGgt-8b5ALk39l2GYslwU8IDjFEtJCWTYV3q88uj913-fgp12mR-8PT6ZBqttyL/s320/art+raymond+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127895236511631874" border="0" /></a><br /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">In <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York City</st1:place></st1:city>, the first radio hosts to play Latin music on English-language radio programs were Jewish, as was a significant portion of their English-speaking audience. That surprising demographic may have had something to do with the fact that these Latin music shows ran on the "ethnic" radio stations that also catered to Jewish audiences. While Jewish mothers and fathers would listen to Yiddish music and talk programs in the afternoons, the same station might suddenly yield to Spanish music in the evening. As one writer remembered his tenement youth in the '40s:<span style=""> </span>"The songs of Yiddish star Molly Picon and the words of Molly Goldberg, our own Jewish TV sitcom sage, spilled out of the living room to compete with the music of Arsenio Rodriguez, La Sonora Matancera, and Conjunto Casino de la Playa."</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">The pioneering Latin deejay Art “Pancho” Raymond shared just such a childhood. Today, Art Raymond is known as the dean of Yiddish radio, thanks to 35 years behind the long-running shows “Raisins and Almonds” and “Sunday Simcha” on New York’s WEVD. But at the start of his career, Raymond’s musical signature was Latin. He was drawn to the similarities between Latin and Jewish music. “A lot of it was written in a minor key, as is a lot of Jewish music, and I had a love for Jewish music since I was a young kid,” the 82 year old says. “It sounded almost like Jewish music, many of the songs.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">It was in 1943, at the height of World War II, that Raymond began his radio career at WPAT in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Paterson</st1:city>, <st1:state st="on">New Jersey</st1:state></st1:place>. “One day I was asked to do a half-hour Latin-music program in the middle of the day, around 12:30. Xavier Cugat was number one at the time. He was what they called ‘commercial Latin music’ – it appealed to the American audience. So while I’m doing this program, playing Cugat, I started using a Spanish accent. Using my high school Spanish, I began the program with “Muy buenas tardes, queridos amigos, <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">como</st1:place></st1:city> están Ustedes?’ The station manager heard me and called me into his office. He said, I want you to the show every day. Use the accent. It’s cute.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Raymond called his show “Tico Tico Time,” after the song popularized by organist Esther Smith in the film “Bathing Beauty,” and along with his occasional addresses in Spanish, he also gave some Latin dance instruction over the air. It was, if not the first, one of the very first Latin-music shows to be aimed at a non-Spanish speaking audience. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Deejays such as Raymond and his direct competitor, Dick “Ricardo” Sugar, educated their non-Latin audience as well. For this crowd, the whitewashed sound of Xavier Cugat opened the door to the gutsier, more authentic rhythms of musicians such as Machito, Noro Morales, and young kid named Tito Puente. The end result was that, in neighborhoods such as <st1:place st="on">East Harlem</st1:place> and other communities, Jews and Latinos were listening to the same music. Before long, Raymond, Sugar, Bob “Pedro” Harris, Matty Singer (“The Humdinger”), and later “Symphony Sid” Torin, Joe Gaines, and Roger Dawson could count on a vast Jewish audience for their radio programs and dance parties, and Latino musicians – local and even touring bands from Cuba – found a white audience for the music in Jewish enclaves of New York, Philadelphia, Miami, and elsewhere. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">A case in point: April 21, 1946 – Easter Sunday – a day of infamy for Latin music in <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>. It was the culmination of a serious of white-hot dance matinees at the Manhattan Center on 34th St., promoted by Art “Pancho” Raymond and Gabriel Oller, the Puerto Rican proprietor of the Spanish Music Center record shop.<span style=""> </span>Five bands were booked, including Machito’s Afro-Cubans and the orchestras of José Iznaga, Juan “El Boy,” Luis Del Campo, and José Budet.<span style=""> </span>Doors opened at 1 p.m. for dancing that would last until 1 a.m. Just two hours into the event, the New York City Fire Department closed the doors; 5000 revelers were inside. Although no ethnic profile of the crowd exists, its not hard to imagine that an Easter Sunday dance matinee would attract a largely Jewish – or at least skeptical – crowd. The mix of bands certainly appealed to both a Barrio audience and non-Latino fans who were familiar with Machito from the Afro-Cubans’ residencies at downtown clubs such as the Beachcomber and La Conga. By eight p.m, the bar was tapped out, and jokers in the balcony began tossing bottles on the dance floor. Police retaliated by firing warning shots into the ceiling of the cavernous space. “When music stop,” Gabriel Oller told the contemporary jazz critic Marshall Sterns, “everyone punch everyone; when music start, everyone dance.” And so the music kept going, throughout the chaos. Four dancers were sent to <st1:place st="on">St. Vincent</st1:place>’s hospital, and a police officer’s scalp was sliced open by a flying chair. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-57055043568683600472007-01-11T15:27:00.000-05:002007-01-11T15:58:19.399-05:00Word for Word: Rae Arroyo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqQ6XVLi_HpjatJ_BZbirzItsKbD0qiR10kjZBngk937UoqOfRc7xTkPRZnq2PuJZUGZLn6b2LZ7BFEC6g3R9vhOGSEFdxaNAWg2FJcpIETZuvkxchyphenhyphen_ARkK-UceGtIwLVAvpQp2v1YcgN/s1600-h/Rae+and+Tito.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqQ6XVLi_HpjatJ_BZbirzItsKbD0qiR10kjZBngk937UoqOfRc7xTkPRZnq2PuJZUGZLn6b2LZ7BFEC6g3R9vhOGSEFdxaNAWg2FJcpIETZuvkxchyphenhyphen_ARkK-UceGtIwLVAvpQp2v1YcgN/s320/Rae+and+Tito.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5018880122670443330" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Known for her radio show "The Latin Connection," the late Rae Arroyo was a Bronx-born Sephardic Jew with a grand passion for Latin music. (She actually grew up speaking Ladino, the ancient language of her Turkish-Jewish ancestors.) Rae was just 13 years old when she first stepped foot in the famous Palladium dance hall, in 1951, and by the late '60s, she had become a professional Latin dancer. In 1979 she first took to the airwaves, remaining on the air for over twenty years.<br /></span><br />Born and raised in the Bronx, I began my love affair with Latin music at the age of eight. I started collecting Latin jazz and salsa recordings at about that time and I've been collecting ever since. Of course, the music wasn't called salsa at the time, just Latin music. The DJ's I listened to were Art "Pancho" Raymond and Bob "Pedro" Harris. Up in the Catskills, it was Willie and Ray out of Liberty, New York. Later on it was Dick "Ricardo" Sugar and then Symphony Sid. My dad loved music and to a certain extent, so did my mom.<br /><br />In my home as a child we could go from Caruso to Glenn Miller to Tito Puente and Jose Curbelo. We also had a great collection of tangos, congas and rumbas. You name it, we had it.<br /><br />By the time I was 13 years old, we were so into Latin music that my dad started taking me to the Palladium ballroom on 53rd Street and Broadway and known as the home of the mambo. That was back in 1951. That's when I first met Tito Puente. We remained friends to the end. In fact i had been on the phone with him for at least two hours talking about music the day before he entered the hospital.<br /><br />Although prejudice and bigotry existed everywhere else at the time, it did not exist in the Palladium. Black, white, brown and any shade in between, young and old, rich and poor, gay or straight, who cared? As long as you could dance, preferrably on clave. Great music and dancing. That's what it was all about. People dressed to kill. Men in three piece suits, women in sharp sexy outfits. The atmosphere was great and so were the people. The three house bands were Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, and Machito, but many other bands played there as well.<br /><br />We moved to southern California in 1968 and discovered a lack of this particular type of Latin music on radio in our area. Highly frustrated that I could no longer hear the music I grew up with and shocked that others had not even heard of this type of music, I approached a local jazz station and with that I became a guest on the show, was given a one hour spot of my own which eventually became a six hour show and subsequently the most popular show on KSBR 88.5 fm in Mission Viejo. That was back in 1979. In 1984, I started another show out of Long Beach KLON and for a short time i also did a show out of San Clemente. I called all three shows The Latin Connection. I wanted to make sure the music got out there for all to hear.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Rae Arroyo passed away on March 29, 2006 in Las Vegas.</span><br /><br /><ul><li>Do you go back with Rae? Leave a comment:</li></ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-34369695679406927922007-01-02T15:07:00.000-05:002007-01-02T15:58:32.696-05:00Jewish Harlem Pt. 2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiA6Nipzs2gQqVOATZq1RqGPeKeAQ3-saMMb3qhOZ1etkbaRSWt93mDXYlCuc1V2xMAULmG8e-soHzEYIrP5FV839wYC0WeLz0TVp0If8jAFkdEIyudORyMZsqyfbTafavZPho-gO6hHjl/s1600-h/harlem+museum+city+of+new+york.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiA6Nipzs2gQqVOATZq1RqGPeKeAQ3-saMMb3qhOZ1etkbaRSWt93mDXYlCuc1V2xMAULmG8e-soHzEYIrP5FV839wYC0WeLz0TVp0If8jAFkdEIyudORyMZsqyfbTafavZPho-gO6hHjl/s400/harlem+museum+city+of+new+york.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5015539635071742306" border="0" /></a><br />The Jewish presence in Harlem dates back to the years after the Civil War, when the future Barrio was a semi-rural village both geographically and psychically distant from <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">New York City</st1:city></st1:place>. Its eastern reaches were crisscrossed by streams originating from the <st1:place st="on">Harlem River</st1:place>, and rocky promontories, lowland marshes and wide-open fields contributed to the remove. Wooden shanties pockmarked the area, as seen in this ca. 1890 photograph of Fifth Ave between 116th and 117th Streets. In time, a commercial strip developed along <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Third Avenue north</st1:address></st1:street> to <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">125th Street</st1:address></st1:street>, populated with single-story shops and homes. A group of German Jews began to set up small stores. Twelve members held the first Sabbath services in <st1:place st="on">Harlem</st1:place> in 1873.<p><br /> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>The Harlem pioneers were cut off from the more substantial community on the (lower) <st1:place st="on">East Side</st1:place>. They formed their own synagogues, Jewish schools (<span style="font-style: italic;">cheders</span>), and social groups, including the Harlem YMHA and B’nai B’rith, but it was the railroad that insured the survival of <st1:place st="on">Harlem</st1:place>’s Jews. The <a href="http://www.east-harlem.com/images/ehtrain.jpg">Second <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">and Third Avenue</st1:address></st1:street> elevated trains</a> were completed by 1880, making the arduous trek to <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Delancey Street</st1:address></st1:street> a 45 minute commute.<span style=""> </span>Real estate speculators launched an unparalleled construction boom that filled over half of <st1:place st="on">East Harlem</st1:place> with private homes, tenements, and brownstone apartments. Established German Jews moved to <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Fifth Avenue</st1:address></st1:street> and its environs, while more utilitarian buildings to the east and south gave shelter to the Irish and Italian rail workers. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Waiting to fill the rest of newly developed Twelfth Ward was the first wave of the largest migration of Eastern European Jews In history. Many were fleeing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom">Russian pogroms</a> in 1903 and the growing chaos of the Bolshevik revolution. Their sheer numbers – nearly 800,000 in 1910, or 41% of all new immigrants -- changed the character of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">New York City</st1:city></st1:place>. The storied <st1:place st="on">Lower East Side</st1:place>, with its peddlers, piecework, and vibrant Yiddish press, became a cradle of Eastern European Jewry. Its narrow tenements were filled to bursting with strivers from <st1:country-region st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region st="on">Poland</st1:country-region>, <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">Lithuania</st1:country-region></st1:place>, and nearly every other nook and cranny around the world that Jews once called home.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Russian peddlers and tailors joined American-born Jewish merchants, small businessmen, successful bankers, and other white-collar professionals. German Jews, clean-shaven and reform-minded, shared the sidewalk with <a href="http://jeru.huji.ac.il/jeru/pic9.jpg">bearded, shawl-draped immigrants seemingly plucked from the Middle Ages</a>. By 1910, East Harlem was home to over 90,000 Jews and dozens of synagogues of varied denominations, from small shuls of former shtetl neighbors to the grandiose Ohab Zedek, one of the largest synagogues in turn-of-the-century New York, home to the famous cantor <a href="http://www.jolson.org/works/film/js/jazzbanw.jpg">Yossele Rosenblatt</a>. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on">Harlem</st1:place>’s success would be its undoing. The neighborhood that had been a pressure valve for the teeming <st1:place st="on">Lower East Side</st1:place> began to swell itself. The land speculation led to overcrowding and neglect; conditions only worsened as the nation plunged into World War I. All non-essential construction ceased. Rents climbed skyward and buildings fell into disrepair. Mention of “<st1:place st="on">East Harlem</st1:place>” began to take on the desultory tone that it bears to this day. Jews with any savings began to eye the wider spaces of the Bronx and <st1:city st="on">Brownsville</st1:city>, <st1:place st="on">Brooklyn</st1:place>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p>Within a generation, the community that had risen to sophisticated heights was a ghost of its former self. The Jewish population of <st1:place st="on">Harlem</st1:place> spiraled downward, losing nearly 100,000 members in 1923 alone. The Federal Immigration Acts passed a year later shut off <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">New York</st1:state></st1:place> to Eastern European Jews entirely, and the community simply dried up. The poorly-maintained apartments were swallowed up, abusive rents and all, by African-American migrants from the south, whose neighborhood choices were far more circumscribed than that of the Jews. Along with them came another hardscrabble American minority, the Puerto Ricans.</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.brorson.com/maps/NYC/NewHarlem_1903/NewHarlemLevel1.html">Navigable map of Harlem, ca. 1903</a><br /></li><li><a href="http://www.jolson.org/works/film/js/yossel/rosenblatt.html">More on Yossele Rosenblatt and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Jazz Singer</span></a></li><li><a href="http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/harlem_history/jewish.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">When Harlem Was Jewish, </span></a><span><a href="http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/harlem_history/jewish.html">by Jeffrey Gurock</a><br /></span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-86915319144235667892006-12-29T14:08:00.000-05:002006-12-29T14:25:02.364-05:00Jewish Harlem Pt. 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg172ZKHddG3GU7dUl2wD6OwEwjWcI62QV6hP63IYAeunUZeBp-_-GB5tnzR4J0Sb-Bx5zR-hoYXdgzgOx1Bzqd5l-K2DnDA7yUtZ0dR_eAxXsWL1v2whsYzLqH1kwSX5KTrKuPA1S7bx1y/s1600-h/ethiopian.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg172ZKHddG3GU7dUl2wD6OwEwjWcI62QV6hP63IYAeunUZeBp-_-GB5tnzR4J0Sb-Bx5zR-hoYXdgzgOx1Bzqd5l-K2DnDA7yUtZ0dR_eAxXsWL1v2whsYzLqH1kwSX5KTrKuPA1S7bx1y/s400/ethiopian.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5014031323706781634" border="0" /></a>Before there was Spanish Harlem, there was Jewish Harlem.<br /><br />The eastern edge of Manhattan, from Fifth Avenue to the East River between 96th St. and 142nd St., is today New York City’s Latin heart, “El Barrio” to over 50,000 residents of Puerto Rican and other Latino ancestry. Walking around these streets, where salsa music streams from tenement windows, it’s hard to imagine that this was once the second largest Jewish community in America. But scratch the surface of today’s Barrio, and another ghetto emerges. It’s hard to miss, for instance, Mt. Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852 as Jews’ Hospital, on 100th Street across from Central Park. But only city records recall that the immense Baptist Temple on West 116th Street, was once the home of Ohab Zedek, one of the largest Jewish congregations in New York at the turn of the century. Between the two, at the foot of West 110th St., stands La Hermosa Church, formerly the Jewish-owned Park Palace catering hall, one of the hottest Latin dance halls from the ‘30s to the ‘50s. Even the Grace Aguilar branch of the New York Public library on 110th St. between Lexington and Third Avenues, which would seem to be a proud Puerto Rican institution, is named for the English Jewish poet and novelist of Spanish extraction. <br /><br />In Harlem, Jews and Latinos struck up a musical relationship. Jewish entrepreneurs sold and recorded Latin music to Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Spanish speakers. They rented out dance halls and social clubs to Puerto Rican revelers, encouraging the local music scene. They were among the first devotees of a tropical music that grew right in their backyards, that wasn’t just the sombrero-topped Hollywood facsimile of Latin rhythm. Harlem’s Jewish businessmen in the ‘30s – the owners of the Park Plaza, the proprietor of <a href="http://www.bsnpubs.com/latin/seeco.html">Seeco Records</a>, Sidney Seigel – saw the neighborhood change into a thriving Caribbean community.<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-85452507044757176542006-12-20T15:09:00.000-05:002006-12-21T08:22:26.466-05:00Bagels & Bongos<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAX42dNKUBhzJXX-GVJlBXEumO8tr7AFwv9DNMdoM-sqcxYMhPij6MgfwkPv2I9O0oR7MSeKfSZCe076Z-7aYlrApjYj0kgEUoTHJHk_76lkrxmFWo-IfW7ntTkW6E3URiuKp0r-vEwP-2/s1600-h/IrvingFields_BagelsandBongos.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010704390499692450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAX42dNKUBhzJXX-GVJlBXEumO8tr7AFwv9DNMdoM-sqcxYMhPij6MgfwkPv2I9O0oR7MSeKfSZCe076Z-7aYlrApjYj0kgEUoTHJHk_76lkrxmFWo-IfW7ntTkW6E3URiuKp0r-vEwP-2/s200/IrvingFields_BagelsandBongos.jpg" border="0" /></a>In 1961, a cocktail jazz pianist named Irving Fields went into a Boston recording studio with a mission. After decades of performing his romantic brand of Latin jazz – he had written a hit for Xavier Cugat, “The Miami Beach Rhumba,” and “Managua, Nicaragua” for Guy Lombardo -- Fields wanted to put his stamp on the music of his youth: Jewish music. He grew up on New York’s Lower East Side, and was a child actor in the Yiddish theater. It felt perfectly natural for him to take classics such as “My Yiddishe Momme” and “Belz” and give them a little Latin zest; and he was sure that his audience would go for it, too. This was the heyday of the mambo and cha-cha-chá, after all. Taking a break for lunch at a local deli, the composer was contentedly jawing a corned beef sandwich when inspiration struck and all the ideas crowding his head fell into place. The title, of course, would have to be <a href="http://www.rebooters.net/rebootstereophonic/bagelsandbongos.html"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Bagels and Bongos</span></a>. (Check out the Reboot Stereophonic reissue!)<br /><br />Fields, born Irving Schwartz, had been performing such material for years on cruise ships, in hotels in Florida and New York, and in the Jewish resorts known as the Borscht Belt. In fact, beloved Jewish artists from the Barry Sisters to Mickey Katz had gone Latin from time to time. There was even an ode to kosher wine called “Mambo-shevitz.” (Man oh man!) But none shared Fields’ flair for Cuban boogie and Yiddish schmaltz. When he brought the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Bagels and Bongos </span>tapes to Decca Records in New York, they were ecstatic. The album was a smash, inspiring a string of recordings, and is today a highly sought-after collector’s item.<br /><br />Fields had tapped into a Jewish affection for tropical music that was at its apex by the start of the ‘60s. Thousands of Jewish resort-goers spent summers learning to dance rumba and cha-cha-chá. Weddings and bar-mitzvahs from New York to Miami to Cleveland to Los Angeles were punctuated by mambos and conga-lines, and had been since the late ‘40s. While few remember it today, in the postwar years the cha-cha-cha was known as the Jewish National Dance. Young Jewish fans of Tito Puente and Xavier Cugat called themselves “mamboniks” – which was Yiddish for mambo-lovers – and they were active in every aspect of Latin music: as musicians, dancers, record producers, club owners, concert promoters, radio broadcasters, even the first mass-produced bongos were designed by a Jewish drum-maker.<br /><br />In making mambo their lives’ soundtrack – so soon after the war in Europe ended and its horrors began to sink in -- the Mamboniks chose to tell their story over again, to a different beat. <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Bagels and Bongos</span>, for instance, took a lugubrious history, full of despairing Yiddish chronicles and plaints, and made it swing. Fields’ music is by turns romantic and sentimental, traditional and hip, surprising and familiar. At first blush it sounds like the cocktail music tinkling at a yacht club function, but the meter and melodies would never have been heard at a WASPy society ball. It was Jewish music, and distinctly American Jewish music, Latin beat and all.<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.rebooters.net/rebootstereophonic/rsirvworld.html">A recent and abbreviated interview with Irving</a></li><li><a href="http://www.tzadik.com/">Irving Fields & Roberto Juan Rodriguez on Tzadik Records</a><br /></li></ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-11974456017566490962006-12-19T19:33:00.000-05:002006-12-20T11:22:02.672-05:00Word for Word: Norby Walters<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEige7CFjs2iKpPJ1QCsRODuOztxbkUAFRwYRF0HNnIJn7G55rPj8DFas2uBgYn7lFQ2X1a0NtSHM-l1MqRVQHRVeTOTDVSYkVaxAFJPlW3uvh5_APKg_R9Y5Zm6J3Mtc85LWTtg2So17czA/s1600-h/norby-walters-edit.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEige7CFjs2iKpPJ1QCsRODuOztxbkUAFRwYRF0HNnIJn7G55rPj8DFas2uBgYn7lFQ2X1a0NtSHM-l1MqRVQHRVeTOTDVSYkVaxAFJPlW3uvh5_APKg_R9Y5Zm6J3Mtc85LWTtg2So17czA/s200/norby-walters-edit.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010640648890052498" border="0" /></a><em>Norby Walters opened the Bel Air club in 1953, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, on <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=sutter+ave+and+junius+street+brooklyn+ny&ie=UTF8&amp;amp;amp;amp;z=15&ll=40.667261,-73.904858&spn=0.02181,0.059137&om=1">Sutter Ave. at Junius Street</a>. A regular at Latin dances at the Palladium in Manhattan, Walters owned a series of clubs and restaurants that catered to Brooklyn's large postwar Jewish community. He later became a notable Hollywood agent.</em><div><em></em> </div><div> </div><div><em></em><p></p></div><div> </div><div> </div><div>My interest in the music began as an early be-bopper in the '40s. As a kid in school. A lot of people were into the big swing bands, and I was into the early be-bop sounds in the early '40s -- Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, people like that. And I moved from the be-bop sound into the Afro-Cuban sound, which was the sound of Machito. Dizzy Gillespie got very much enthralled with Latin music and I kinda followed him along right to that as my own tastes changed.<em></em><br /><br />The mamboniks of '49 and '51 was a big gang of Jewish boys and girls from all boroughs who used to converge on the Palladium on Wednesday nights. In 1949 I was 17 years old, all the young people, well hundreds or literally thousands were mamboniks. A mambonik was a <em>trombenik </em>who loved mambo. "Trombenik" being a <em>yiddishe</em> word for a bum. A knockaround guy.<br /><br /><em>When did you first hear that term?</em><br /><br />I guess around 1950 or '51. We considered ourselves mamboniks. It was a badge of who we were, you know? There was really thousands of people into it, but there were a couple hundred core faces. You'd see them all the time. Wherever the dances were. And when I opened up the club, hundreds of them came to my club. I kinda knew everybody, I was part of that clique.<br /><br /><ul style="color: rgb(153, 153, 0); font-weight: bold;"><li>Do you go back with Norby? Leave a comment:</li></ul></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4505509530511556165.post-47932260773820524832006-12-19T15:24:00.000-05:002006-12-19T17:00:59.245-05:00What's a Mambonik?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTZKt45SecmFAh6QmYiPjrwbTb-JzN4NlIwdJ3fZ4bJAwydIWxOjsOQ9z1wE4KWzl-BnLmnBgo76yU_smkvEJxq8LTB5glPozswt05XGRblp_kkxRHY31HpuI5TNQPsueI38DTAeu6v_2/s1600-h/art+raymond+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJTZKt45SecmFAh6QmYiPjrwbTb-JzN4NlIwdJ3fZ4bJAwydIWxOjsOQ9z1wE4KWzl-BnLmnBgo76yU_smkvEJxq8LTB5glPozswt05XGRblp_kkxRHY31HpuI5TNQPsueI38DTAeu6v_2/s320/art+raymond+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010336848673337170" border="0" /></a>"Mambonik" was the name for a certain kind of young Jewish kid in the '40s and '50s who was nuts for Latin music -- mambo, cha-cha-chá, rumba, and the like.<br /><br />The root, of course, is <span style="font-style: italic;">mambo</span>, that most delirious precursor to salsa. But the suffix says it all -- in <a href="http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/">Yiddish</a>, --<span style="font-style: italic;">nik </span>denotes a partisan, an aficionado of, or a member of a group. <span style="font-style: italic;">Beatnik, peacenik, refusenik, no-goodnik </span>are other cognates. As the Yiddish <span style="font-style: italic;">--nik </span>modified the Afro-Latin <span style="font-style: italic;">mambo</span>, so did Jews find in mambo a raw material to remake as their own.<br /><br />"Mambonik" also rhymed with the Yiddish <span style="font-style: italic;">trombenik</span>, a no-good troublemaker. As one proud member of the gang told me, "A mambonik was a trombenik who loved mambo."<br /><br />"<a href="http://www.descarga.com/cgi-bin/db/10272.10?ITGZcnx3;;329">Mambonik</a>" (or "Mambonick") was also a 1950 Seeco side cut by Pupi Campo, a theme song for the Puerto Rican bandleader's considerable Jewish following. Campo also delighted the kosher crowd with a rumba version of the Yiddish novelty song "Joe and Paul" (both were arranged by a young <a href="http://www.spectropop.com/tico/Gallery/Tito%20Puente%2013.jpg">Tito Puente</a>).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0