Recent Posts

The Progressive Musical Benevolent Society was a mutual aid and burial society for New York City klezmer musicians and their families. It was founded in the early 1910s, hit its peak in the interwar and postwar years, and declined by the 1970s. It was formally dissolved in around 2010, but by then the remaining members… Read more: Some thoughts about the Progressive Musical Benevolent Society

This past spring, I stopped by Montreal for a few days on my way back to Vancouver. Josh Dolgin, better known as Socalled, invited me to his office at McGill University to look over some Yiddish choral scores he inherited when the former Montreal Arbeter Ring (Workers Circle) building was being emptied out. The boxes… Read more: Josh Dolgin on the Montreal Arbeter Ring Choir

Originally presented as a lecture at Klezcadia festival in Victoria, B.C., June 2024. The Zimro Ensemble was a short-lived chamber music sextet of conservatory-trained Russian Jewish musicians which left on a world tour from Petrograd in 1918. Crossing Russia, Siberia, China, Southeast Asia, and the United States over 3 years, they disbanded in New York… Read more: The Zimro Ensemble in the Dutch East Indies (1918–19)

This summer, I’ve been continuing to research the small-time immigrant Jewish bandleaders who played for landsmanshaftn in New York City in the early 20th century. This is a topic which I was researching at YIVO this past spring, and I photographed a lot of names in archival documents which I still haven’t done a deep… Read more: Music and Britshaner mutual aid societies in New York, c.1905–45

My first post on here two years ago was about where to find old klezmer music in the U.S. Library of Congress collection. Back when I was trying to get a handle on what is out there, I came across a lot of references to 1920s Ukrainian music which was copyrighted by immigrant Jewish musicians… Read more: How to order old Ukrainian music scores (or other heritage folk music) from the U.S. Library of Congress

While I was in New York this spring, I visited the Tamiment Library at NYU and photographed a lot of American Federation of Musicians Local 802 directories, of which they have an impressive collection starting in 1922. The directories list all the active musicians in the New York area by year, which instrument they play,… Read more: Jewish cimbalom players of the A.F.M. local 802 directory, 1922–50

In a previous post, I mentioned that the YIVO archive has a few collections of scores which would be of interest to klezmer musicians. These include RG 1360 Records of the Al Glaser Recording Orchestra, RG 1280 Papers of Dave Tarras, and RG 1330 Joseph and Lara Cherniavsky Papers. I’m sure there are others which… Read more: Are these original Bucovina & klezmer dances by Al Glaser?

Connoisseurs of old New York klezmer may be familiar with the two 1927 discs on Brunswick Records by Abe Katzman’s Bessarabian Orchestra:  Ismaelover Bulgar/Simchas Torah in Kishenev and Erinerung From Kischenev/Kishenever Bulgar. Abraham Katzman (1868–1940) was a notable presence in the New York Jewish music scene in the 1910s and 1920s, appearing in dozens of… Read more: Abe Katzman and the Kishinever Sick Benevolent Society of New York, Inc.

I’m currently in New York where I’ve come to do some research at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research about old NY immigrant klezmers, their life trajectories, families and professional connections. I received the Fellowship in East European Arts, Music, and Theater with the general topic of “Immigrant Klezmer Musicians during the Golden Age of… Read more: The Start of my Research Fellowship at YIVO in New York

This past week I was finally writing a Wikipedia biography for violinist Jacob “Jascha” Gegna (1879–1944), and in the process I came across a few old newspaper articles that gave more context to his well-known 1921 recording אַ תפלה פון מענדעל בייליס=A Tfileh fun Mendel Beilis. I had heard this piece many times over the… Read more: Jacob Gegna’s composition “A Tfileh fun Mendel Beilis”

I may update this over time. Here’s a table of various copyright scores and links to commercial recordings by the Philadelphia klezmer clarinetist and bandleader Harry Kandel. (Also: this is the kind of thing that would eventually be great to have in a more dynamic framework like the Klezmer Archive, but for now a table… Read more: A mixed list of scores and recordings by Philadelphia klezmer Harry Kandel

Sam Young is one of those names I was vaguely aware of from the old New York klezmer recording industry, but I couldn’t have said anything about who he was or what he recorded. I’d seen him listed in books among other minor artists of the time, but hadn’t even heard any of his three… Read more: A look at Sam Young, Galician klezmer in 1920s New York

I may update this over time. Here’s a table of various copyright scores and links to commercial recordings by the klezmer bandleader Israel J. Hochman. (Also: this is the kind of thing that would eventually be great to have in a more dynamic framework like the Klezmer Archive, but for now a table will do.)… Read more: A mixed list of klezmer scores and recordings by Israel J. Hochman

These are some copyright scores by cimbalom player Joseph Moskowitz which I got from the US Library of Congress back in 2023. In a way, these scores were how I first realized that the LOC had a much larger collection of handwritten klezmer copyright scores which they hadn’t posted online, as I mentioned in my… Read more: 18 Klezmer, Romanian and Tango pieces by Joseph Moskowitz (1921-40)

I recently received another batch of digitized klezmer copyright scores from the U. S. Library of Congress. (You can see the whole batch here on google drive, which includes some other scores by I. J. Hochman.) I was pleased to finally get 15 of the 16 scores by Isidore Moscovitz, a klezmer from New York.… Read more: 15 Klezmer pieces by Isidore Moscovitz (New York, 1925-27)

Today is January 1st 2024, and I was inspired by all the Mickey Mouse memes I was seeing online to take a look at which classic American klezmer works have newly entered the public domain. I don’t think copyright has been as much of a concern for the klezmer world as some other parts of… Read more: Public Domain Day 2024 in American Klezmerland

The name Israel J. Hochman is familiar to many klezmer musicians and fans today because of the recordings he made during the the golden age of American klezmer in the 1910s and 1920s. He released around 25 instrumental 78 rpm discs on Victor, Emerson, Brunswick, and other contemporary labels in the New York area between… Read more: Who was Israel J. Hochman?

Since the mid-2010s, the U.S. Library of Congress has become a recognized source of klezmer music scores, although primarily among a niche audience of researchers, professional musicians and teachers. This is because of their Yiddish American Popular Sheet Music collection, which (as of 2023) contains roughly 1300 public domain scores of klezmer, Yiddish theatre, and religious music. (See… Read more: Golden age American klezmer copyright scores in the Library of Congress (1917-28)