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REN 130CD
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In conjunction with the Music Archive Finland, Renair Records announce another disc in their series exploring the history of Jewish recorded music. Until its destruction during the War, Warsaw, together with Berlin, was at the cultural and intellectual intersection of East and Western Europe. Known as the Paris of the East, its musical, literary, artistic, and theatrical flourishing was in no small part due to its extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity. Most traces of this period vanished in the devastation of the 1940s but thanks to the survival of some precious recordings made in this period you can hear echoes of that rich culture. The Syrena (Mermaid) label covered all aspects of musical activity in Poland between 1909 and the end of the 1930s. All human life is on this CD. You will hear people arguing, soldiering, going bankrupt, and praying. They also dance to Klezmer bands, meet the devil, fail to have sex, complain about modern girls, and of course, eat. The package is completed by a richly illustrated and informative 28-page booklet. Features Kenig, Norski, Feld, Sirota, Belf, Brajtman, Kupfer, Feinstein, Oppenheim, Fenigstein, Sibiriyakov, Anon, Kusewicki, Roitman, Kaniewska And Brajtman, Feinstein and Lindenfeld, Fenigstein, Lerman, and Neroslawska.
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REN 129CD
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In Anton Chekhov's last play, "The Cherry Orchard," which Chekhov finished in 1903, just a few years before the Gramophone Company made these recordings in Odessa, Ukraine (mostly), the character Leonid Andreyevich Gayev hears off-stage "our famous Jewish orchestra. You remember, four violins, a flute and a double bass." In this period, klezmer music was venturing beyond its original role as Jewish wedding and celebratory music. It was proliferating in secular settings, sometimes disreputable, even underground. In The Odessa Tales (1923-'24), Isaac Babel mentions a bar with a house band of "old Jews with dirty beards playing Romanian and Jewish tunes"; and klezmer would have been the soundtrack of the local brothels, pretty much all Jewish-owned. (One track here celebrates a new treatment for syphilis, Preparation 606... even lavishing a trumpet on proceedings.) Tangy, precious, exuberant, life-affirming music, high and low, mostly for dancing, featuring virtuosi like violinist Jascha Gegner and clarinetist Titunshnayder, presented with excellent notes. Also includes performances by Jewish Wedding Orchestra, Giter's Kharkov Orchestra, Czernowitzer Civilkapelle, A.S. Olevsky's Orchestra, Veinbren's Orchestra, Stupel's Vilna Orchestra, and Oscar Zehngut.
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REN 128CD
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Julian Futter and Mike Aylward together with Renair Records are proud to announce the launch of a new album -- Wandering Stars, the story of Gimpel's Lemberg Yiddish Theater. In 1900, Lemberg was one of the most important cities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a population of 160,000, of whom a third were Jewish. The Lemberg theater was the first permanent and most important Yiddish theater in Europe. Leading Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem visited in 1905 and based his novel Wandering Stars on his experiences there. In 1910, Franz Kafka was profoundly affected when he saw members of the troupe perform in Prague. Joseph Roth and Mark Chagall were hugely influenced by what they saw as well. The theater gave birth to a unique form of musical drama that to a significant extent shaped popular American culture. Thanks to the efforts of a small band of record collectors and discographers operating worldwide, many of these records have been documented and copies located to make it possible for the first time in over 100 years to give a voice to this silenced civilization, whose destruction has been rigorously documented, but whose achievements have so far been largely unexplored. Listen to songs about weddings, wild women, drinking, the original "Yidl mit sein Fidl," a Hatikvah recorded in 1909, an out-of-control Simchas Torah and, of course, sex. The recordings are accompanied by a richly illustrated, full-color, 40-page booklet which places the theater in its historical context, provides full biographies of the artists and detailed information on all the recordings.
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REN 126CD
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Originally released in 2008, this anthology presents for the first time on CD the greatest of the Iraqi Jewish singers in historical recordings from the1920s. This reissue, the first in a series of historic Jewish recordings by Renair Records, makes available, in carefully remastered sound by Duncan Cowell (well-known for his work for labels like Ace, Soul Jazz and Soundway), echoes of two millennia of tradition. In the 1920s, nearly all instrumental performers in Iraq were Jewish. The Jewish tradition in Iraq goes back to the time of the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile to Babylon some 2,500 years ago. This unbroken tradition finally ended during the mass immigration of 125,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel in the early 1950s. Although some recordings were made in Israel by Iraqi singers, this anthology allows us to hear the authentic sounds of Iraq without later influences. Shbahoth -- or Songs of Praise -- are sung on the Sabbath and on other important holidays, such as Sukkoth or the Feast of the Tabernacles (Selim Daoud's "Sukkah Welulab" and Shlomo Mouallim's "Sukkah Welulab") or pilgrimages to the tombs of Ezekiel or Ezra (Yishaq Maroudy's "Suri Go-Aliyyah"). Although sung by the abu shbahoth or "Master of Praises," he would be joined by the community in singing and clapping, as can be heard on Daoud's "El Eliyyahu" and "Eres Ha-Quedoshah." Also included are recordings by the abu shbahoth Hagguli Shmuel Darzi and two rousing performances by Israelite Choir. Following a chance discovery by Julian Futter of the original 78s (which included unissued test pressings), Julian and Sara Manasseh, the distinguished music scholar whose family came from Iraq, decided to make these records available again. Manasseh's illuminating sleevenotes place the music in its religious perspective and make it accessible to the non-specialist listener.
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REN 127CD
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Shir Hodu is Hebrew for "Song of India." It also means "Song of Praise." This anthology, the second in a series of Eastern Jewish singers, presents for the first time on CD the most famous of the Indian singers from Bombay, in historic performances from the 1930s. Until the release of this CD, it had been taken for granted that no recordings of Jewish music had been made in India and that the only echoes of a tradition that was centuries old were recordings made by their descendants in present day Israel. Over the course of more than 5 years of searching and following leads for these long-lost recordings, Renair was able to produce this extraordinary compilation of recordings, some of them privately made, in the 1930s in Bombay. Among the performers are a shofar (ram's horn) blower who was born in the 1850s and a hazzan (cantor) known as "The Butcher." A musical link with the past has been brought to life by the memories and photos of the descendants of these singers and instrumentalists, gathered from across the globe and collected here, in a copiously-illustrated 24-page booklet. Several of the instrumentalists featured on this CD later played on some of the most evocative Bollywood films of the 1950s including Shree 420, Boot Polish, Awaara and even Mera Naam Joker from 1970. There is shouting, instrumental breaks and a real sense of excitement, which comes through loud and clear on these authentic sound portraits of a tradition that is now part of Indian and Jewish history. Sensitive remastering makes it possible to hear these recordings as they have never been heard before.
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