Re: Piaf/Montand/Aznavour

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:

> Oh, there are so, so many examples of this.   The same applies to other
> fields as well, for example, Romanian architecture (forgot his name) or
> Russian ballet (forgot her name too) or Russian classical musicians
> (Feltsman).  After I wrote what I wrote, I went downstairs and found a
> biography on Charles Aznavour playing on the Bravo cable station, but I
> missed the first half.  I can't remember the info I once knew about him and
> Edith Piaf, but wern't/aren't at least one of them Jewish too

Not Piaf.You may be thinking of another of her many proteges, the
aforementioned
Yves Montand (Real name: Yvo Levi).
Piaf writes in her biography that, first thing she did when the Nazis occupied
Paris,
was to take a Jewish lover...

Aznavour is Armenian.  (Real name: Aznavourian). I have never read /heard
anything about him being Jewish, but who knows?
Yiddish singer Dave Cash (Presente Ses Fantaisies Yiddish) sings a Yiddish
version of
Aznavour's "La Mamma".

Wolf


> That
> documentary in fact, spoke about several great French performers who were
> the chief exponents of French music in the 20th century, including Jacque
> Brel (who was Jewish) and what in their backgrounds propelled their
> phenomenal ambitions to become who they became.   Aznavour credited severe
> poverty as the factor that propelled him, but as I say, I missed the whole
> beginning where full backgrounds of the stars were given.

> Reyzl
>
> ----------
> From:  Paul M. Gifford[SMTP:PGIFFORD (at) flint(dot)umich(dot)edu]
> Sent:  Wednesday, July 07, 1999 1:32 PM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant
> Subject:  RE: Julio Inglesias Jewish?
>
> Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl (at) flash(dot)net> wrote:
> >
> > Assuming that he is really Jewish (as opposed to having a little Jewish
> > blood in him), what is interesting to me in all of this is that here we
> > have another Jew who aims for the best of the popular music of his
> country,
> > a la Striesand in America, Yves Montand in France, Emil Gorovitz in
> Russia
> > before emigrating to Israel (then America), I forget the name of the
> singer
> > in Egypt, and a whole slew of other Jews too numerous to mention who
> worked
> > very hard to become the chief exponents of their country's music.  This
> > goes for performers, composers, record producers, etc.
>
> To add to this list, there is Gica Petrescu, now about 80, who is
> Romania's best-known popular singer (folk music, tangos, a little bit
> of everything).  Dorel Livianu, another similar singer, recorded a lot
> there in the '30s and emigrated to Israel in the early '50s. A friend
> of mine who played a lot with Petrescu in the '70s told me this,
> although he probably changed his name to hide his origins. Maybe
> it wouldn't have been possible in Romania to have such a career with
> a Jewish name.
>
> Paul Gifford
>



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