Re: Hazanim in NYC w/ tradl Nusach

[Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan...>]

Yosl,

That's the one I was thinking of!  I've never seen it, but I've heard it!

Lorele

Joe Kurland wrote:

> 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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