Re: Hazanim in NYC w/ tradl Nusach

[Joe Kurland <ganeydn...>]

A khazn af probe (Chazzans on trial), an 11 minute Yiddish film, 
starring Cantor Leybele Waldman, made in 1931 with outstanding music 
by Sholem Secunda.  Waldman plays the narrator as well as three 
different khazonim trying out before a disrespectful search 
committee.  First he plays an old fashioned Eastern European ba'al 
tfile, second a German Operatic Cantor, and finally, an American 
dandy who, in the words of his manager, can " give you a Kol Nidre 
mit a two-step melody, who'll say Haleyl mit a ragtime melody; he'll 
daven Unesane Toykef mit a Charleston melody." While the first two 
khazns sing, the committee members smoke, make faces, look bored, 
though at least one committee member is totally enthralled by the 
performance.  But when the third khazn throws some boop-boop-be-doops 
into Yismakh Moshe, the committee members all get up to dance with 
him and sign the deal.

The film is available on videotape (I think you can get it from Ergo 
Media) as an intro to another, full length, movie about a radio 
advisor that is unremarkable except for Waldman's incidental 
appearances as a khazn who performs on the radio.


L'shono toyve,

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204
http://www.WholesaleKlezmer.com


At 3:19 PM -0400 9/10/02, Allen Davis wrote:
>My father (Ben Davis) was a yontoivim chazzan, with interviews and 
>auditions every year at small, semi-starving shuls in South Phila. I 
>accompanied him to some of these, and young as I was, I still 
>remember the shameful way he was treated. I watched as he forced 
>himself to smile through the abuse and insult (and praise, almost 
>simultaneously!).
>
>If "Chasendl oif Shabbes" is the positive view in song of this 
>auditioning process, does anyone know whether there is a negative 
>view featured in Yiddish song?
>
>Allen
>
>
>>Cantors in NY have not often had a golden age.  My uncle, Dr. Samuel
>>Margoshes (who is best known for his dailty front-page column in Der Tag),
>>was a co-editor/author of a book that described in detail the Jewish
>>community in NYC in 1917, when all but 2-3% of the synagogues were Orthodox.
>>A chapter by a cCantor is sad.  He described how it was the regular practice
>>to ask Cantors to audition for a position, without pay, and repeat this
>>weekly for as long as months before hiring one, who they might then fire in
>>less than a year.  It is no wonder that those who could took their talents
>>to the theater.
>>
>
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>