Re: Isle of Klezbos Review

[HNetsky <HNetsky...>]

You can go crazy getting caught up with authorship and titles in this music.  
I think I remember the title for that Cm tune on "Dukes" as "Bubbe's Freylekh 
(can't find the LP)," but when it came time to record it I asked Max what to 
call it and he suggested "The Epsteins."  he credited the tune to Peshe 
Melnick, the father of his old piano player.  On the other hand, just last 
week (when in London) I saw the first two sections of the tune in what Isaak 
Loberan (a wonderful musician from Chisinau, Moldova who was active in 
Keshinev and now lives and teaches in Vienna) said was a collection of old 
Ukranian and Bessarabian klezmer tunes.  As for the tune that Julie calls 
"The Epstein's Theme," Max personally took credit for that one, and may very 
well have made it up, although the second section is also in Bessarabian 
collections.  On the other hand, maybe the Epsteins' tunes simply got into 
the public domain really quickly.   

Regarding the first tune, this is the style that my uncle Jerry used to call 
a "New York Bulgar," the name he use to use for Bulgars without triplets 
(motivically more like a freylekhs or what Zev Feldman calls the "core 
repertoire").  The term might be a Philly thing; I never heard a New Yorker 
use it.  --Hankus

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