Recent Posts

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)