digitized "field recording" of European-American khazn

[Seth Rogovoy <rogovoy...>]

At http://www.kahle.org/peretz/default.htm, my family has posted links to
two large MP3s, digital files of a home recording that my grandfather,
Bernard Peretz, made of himself some time around 1975.

It is our hope that by making these recordings available to the public, we
can learn more about the material on the recordings and about Ben's
background as a khazn.

Here is some more background info:

Baruch Lazar Peretz (1908-1981) was a self-trained khazn (cantor) born and
raised in Novidvor, a small shtetl near Minsk on the Belarus/Lithuania
border, one of approximately a dozen children. He immigrated to New York in
the mid-1920s (his immigration documents identify him as a Polish national
at the time). For most of his life, Ben Peretz worked only sporadically as a
free-lance cantor, mostly on the High Holy Days, all over New York (his main
occupation was owning and managing a series of candy or "fountain" stores).

This informal "field recording" was presumably made by Peretz himself in his
apartment in Elmhurst, Queens, some time in the 1970s -- probably in the
mid-'70s, when he was about 65. It is several generations removed from the
original source, which may have been a reel-to-reel tape recorder, or a
small, portable cassette deck, but the quality is still pretty remarkable.

We have not yet identified everything on this recording, which includes
liturgical melodies, festival prayers, and at least one Yiddish folk song
("My Yidishe Mame"). We would greatly appreciate any and all assistance in
helping to identify the contents of the tape, as well as any information
that can be divined from the style of Ben's singing and pronunciation and
his choice of melodies.

Thanks for any and all assistance you can lend,

Seth Rogovoy
www.rogovoy.com

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+