Music From The Yiddish Radio Project

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The dual assault of TV and rock & roll in the 1950s caused many casualties, among them swing music, radio, and a vital Yiddish-American culture. This wonderful project (and its companion 10-part National Public Radio documentary series) celebrates a time when those three institutions joined together to form a powerful force of their own. Producers Henry Sapoznik and Yair Reiner re-create Yiddish radio's golden age of the 1930s through the 1950s with a combination of klezmer music, 'Yiddish swing,' and commercial jingles culled from vintage 78s as well as radio transcriptions (once the property of longtime TV host Joe Franklin). It's a fascinating story of a time when Jewish culture thrived in its new home, but within is buried a different story: one of assimilation. The once-beloved traditional klezmer sounds of Eastern Europe (represented here in the work of Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein) were slowly replaced by 'Yiddish swing,' a mostly successful attempt to update traditional Jewish pop and folk songs in the fashionable swing style--or, as Sapoznik puts it, 'playing downtown Jewish music in an uptown style.' The need (or perhaps desire) for acceptance is revealed in both performer names (the Bagelman Girls became the Barry Sisters) and in 'nonethnic' product spots for essentially 'ethnic' products. Tellingly, it was the Midwestern Andrews Sisters' 1937 hit reading of 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen' (originally from a Yiddish play) that set off an explosion of Yiddish and American cultural cross-pollination. It represented the peak of Yiddish cultural influence in America--and as it turned out, the beginning of that culture's demise. For most, Music from the Yiddish Radio Project will be an endearing and enlightening history lesson, but for many others, it will be a bittersweet nostalgic journey through a time that remains so vivid in memories, yet feels like 1,000 years ago.