Ethan Crenson @ 78RPM : X-ray TANGO Zebra

78rpm enthusiast Ethan Crenson presents Tangos and alternate flipsides, revealing both Argentinian dance themes and 

trans-national variations. 

***

Los Ochos stepped across the frontier with the push/pull of the bandoneon.  From Rio del Plata to the backstreets of Buenas Aires across cafes to Paris.  Echoing on radios beyond the ballrooms of Europe to entwine the globe.  Dancing through landmines as economies collapsed. 

A selection of songs from the the "Golden Age" reflecting the hope and desperation of star-crossed lives as the world marched into the oblivion of the second World War.

Shellac discs representing the fraught state of trans-Atlantic relations amid the horror of mid 20th-century global political culture.

Bravado, but also many sudden turns and hearts bursting with blood.

***

El Gaucho Con Guittaras
   Hacedlo Por La Vieja {tango}
   Que Pena Me Da {tango}
   [verne V-0305-A]
  (El Gaucho = Eduardo Duran)


Orchestra Argentin Bachicha
  Viejo Poncho {tango}
  Romantica Mujer {tango}
  [odeon 279-708] {1941}


Eduardo Biancho et son Fameux Orchestre Argentin
  Malevaje (avec chant por Carlo Americo) {tango}
  Leyenda (solo de guitare por M. Sorrosal)
  [odeon 185-752]
 (Violinist, composer and conducor acclaimed for synthesizing
  new styles during the Parisian wave of the 1920's)


Luciano Tajoli
  Lucia (orch. dir. M.O. Maraviglia) {tango}
  Souvenir (vibraphone) {no tango}
  [odeon H 18420]
 (Self-taught Italian singer and actor.)


Kessler + Martha Mumenthaler (mit Orchesterbegleitung)
  Kehr Zurück {tango}
  Ein Blümlein Sah Ich Blühn {waltz}
  [elite 2028]

Barnabus von Géczy mit seinem Orchestar
  Bei Zärtlicher Musik {tango}
  Puszta {foxtrot}
  [rca-victor 25-4049]
 (Hungarian violinist and Romani folkorist
  who later conducted in Berlin.)


Malando and his Tango Orchestra
  Porque Te Vas {tango}
  Vida {tango}
  [philips P17041]


Tetos Demetriades
  Ela Na Niosis (let us enjoy) {tango}
  Zoi Trelli (crazy life) {foxtrot}
  [victor V58051]
 (Greek Rebetika singer who also penned "Misirlou",
  later to be adapted by surf guitarist Dick Dale)


Sestetto Cannata
  Notte D'Amore {tango}
  Notte Stellata {waltz}
  [columbia 14824 F]


Ramón Armengod con Nano Rodrigo y su Orquestra
  Amapola {tango/foxtrot}
  Adiós Mariquita Linda {foxtrot}
  [decca 18160] {1941}
 (Mexican singer/actor backed by popular orchestra of the period)


Watanabe Hamako
  Hill of Pure Heart {tango}
  China Night {no tango}
  [columbia A-93] {1938}
 (This tango is controversial in political nature.  An earlier translation
  renders it as "Dream of China."  The song was hit among Japanese
  troops that advanced across Manchuria during WWII.
  After its early success the song  "China Night" was the springboard
  for a love story/propaganda film that played in Asia during the war.
  The singer Waranabe Hamako was later captured in Machuria
  and served a year in a P.O.W. camp  before returning to music.
  After the war the song had yet another wave of popularity
  among American G.I.s stationed in Japan)

TANGO

De las piernas

Intangible

Rio de la Plata

Uraguay y el Argentino

Habanera

Milonga

 Candomble

Los Ochos

 CARA 

abrazo

CARA

Paris y al resto 

En syncopación 

Bailando,

Girando como un globo.

*

 "...the tendency to end on an unresolved note..." ~E. C.

Ethan Crenson @ 78rpm : Hazzanut

Artist and curator Ethan Crenson shares amazing platters from his expansive 78rpm collection. Brooklyn blocks echo with these mournful melodies that cry out from open windows. Presenting seven records by Jewish cantors (hazzanim) and one by an actor-singer from the 1920's Yiddish theater.

"One of the earliest recordings here is a memorial to the victims of the Titanic disaster recorded in 1913. Four of the records, all by Mordechai Hershman, are from the years between the World Wars, an era considered the "golden age" of cantorial singing. The songs are powerful, plaintive, soulful, and to me, very mysterious." - E.C.

-
[victor 68630] {1923}
Mordechai Hershman - Ato Yazarto - Teil 1 - (Thou hast created thy World pt.1)
Mordechai Hershman - Ato Yazarto - Teil 2 - (Thou hast created thy World pt.2)

[victor 68639] {1923}
Mordechai Hershman - Sand und Sterne (Sand and Stars)
Mordechai Hershman - Mai-do-mashma-lon (Monologue of a Talmudical Student)

[victor 68598] {1922}
Mordechai Hershman - In Cheder'l (In the Hebrew Classroom)
Mordechai Hershman - A Dudele

[victor 68614] {1923}
Mordechai Hershman - Ein Kemechal (There is no one but God)
Mordechai Hershman - Ahavat Rahya:Arabische Lied/Di Frau's Liebe (Ahavat Rahya:Arabian Song/The Wife's Love)

[unknown label, 1952}
Noah Nachbush - Yochenen Hasander
Noah Nachbush - Chassidic Airs

[menorah records E-47] {date unknown}
Cantor Samuel Kligfeld - Shofetim (pt 1)
Cantor Samuel Kligfeld - Shofetim (pt 2)

[polyphon 0211536] {1909}
Oberkantor Zavel Kwartin - Uwinu Malkeinu
Oberkantor Zavel Kwartin - Adom Jesodo Meofor

[victor 35312] {1913}
Josef "Yossele" Rosenblatt - Kol Nidre
Josef "Yossele" Rosenblatt - El Mole Rachmin (für Titanik)

-

Mordechai Hershman (1888–1940) around was a hazzan in Vilna. After serving in World War I, he emigrated to Brooklyn and took the position of hazzan at Temple Beth El.

Noah Nachbush (1885-1970) was an actor of the influential Vilna Group. He emigrated to the US in 1923 where he became a singer-actor in the Yiddish theater.

Samuel Kligfeld was cantor for the Genesis Hebrew Center in Crestwood, New York. He performed on the radio and television in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Zavel Kwartin (1874-1952) was born in Russia. He became Obercantor of the Queen Elizabet Temple in Vienna in 1903. Invited to perform in the US in 1914, his tour was postponed by the outbreak of World War I. He completed the tour in 1920 and decided to stay in the US permanently as hazzan of the Temple Emanuel in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Upon his death he was buried in Israel in 1952.

Josef "Yossele" Rosenblatt (1882-1933), a child prodigy from a long line of cantors, was born in Ukraine. His first position was in Hungary at the age of 18 . Later, he served as cantor in Hamburg, followed by a position in Harlem, New York's First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek. He had a singing role in the film the 1923 film 'The Jazz Singer'.

Ethan Crenson @ 78rpm : O Calypsonian

78rpm enthusiast Ethan Crenson presents a selection of Calypso tracks, all played directly from original shellac pressings.
***
"Calypso music arose from the island of Trinidad. The music was topical, competitive and lively. Popular singers of Calypso erected their own thatch-roofed tents during Carnival season and charged admission. When a singer visited his competitor's tent, there was often a "war". Two singers in a cutting contest, extemporizing rhyming couplets often based on the news of the day, the people assembled in the crowd, or on descriptions of the singer's own prowess. "For veteran Calypsonians are known to be, Men who can sing on anything instantaneously", a singer is quoted rhyming in the liner notes to an album of Calypso 78s from the 1940s.

In the 40s Calypso invaded the US, and more to the point, New York City. Calypso performers took stage at the Village Vanguard. Sir Lancelot performed there in his signature tuxedo. Duke of Iron played engagements there for a full 10 months. In December of 1946 Alan Lomax organized 2 "Calypso at Midnight" concerts at New York's Town Hall. And there were recording sessions.

Among the artists, Trinidadians include: Sir Lancelot (Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard), Lord Beginner (Egbert Moore), Duke of Iron (Cecil Anderson), Lord Invader (Rupert Westmore Grant), Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), Macbeth the Great (Patrick McDonald), and The Lion (Hubert Raphael Charles). But Calypso also took hold in other locations. From Bermuda came Sidney Bean and the Talbot Brothers. And from the U.S. a dancer at the Cotton Club, Murial Gaines became a popular Calypso singer. There is also the "Calypso Jazz" amalgam represented here by the little known Jack Sneed.

A final offering is not Calypso at all, but it is island music. The Orchestre De La Boule Blanche played Biguines from the French island of Martinique in the early 1930s."
-E.C.

***
1) Sir Lancelot - Atomic Energy [charter 102] {1947}

2) Lord Beginner (Egbert Moore) w/Felix and his Internationals - Norah the War is Over [disc New York 5008] {1946}

3) Duke of Iron et. al. - Jam Session (Duke of Iron, quatro; Victor Pacheco, Violin; Gregory Felix, clarinet; Modesto Calderon, bass) [Stinson 105-2] {?date}

4) Muriel Gaines the Enchantress with Sam Manning's Serenaders - You Got To Have Power [national Records 8001] {1945}

5) Lord Invader (Rupert Grant) Felix and his Internationals - Yankee Dollar - Disc New York 5008 {1946}

6) Lord Kitchener acc. by St. Vincent Street Six - Too Late Kitch [lyragon 720] {1953}

7) Jack Sneed and his Sneezers - West Indian Blues [decca 7566] {1939}

8) Lord Invader (Rupert Grant) Felix and his Internationals - New York Subway - [disc new york 5009] {1946}

9) Sidney Bean and his Trio - Collegian Invasion [bermuda 2003] {?date}

10) Archie Talbot - The Gombey Dance [bermuda talbot brothers T5] {?date}

11) Roy Talbot - The Coronation Story [bermuda talbot brothers T5] {?date}

12) MacBeth the Great with Gerald Clark and his Original Calypsos - Rufus Hold Me Tight - Guild 136 {1945?}

13) The Lion with Gerald Clark and his Original Calypsos - Excursion [guild 136] {1945?}

14) Sir Lancelot - Old Woman With a Rollin' Pin [charter 102] {1947}

15) Sir Lancelot with Gerald Clark's Caribbean Serenaders - Trinidad is Changing [keynote 549] {?date}

16) Orchestre De La Boule Blanche (sous la Direction de Charlery Banguio) - Maladie D'Amou - [columbia DF 428] {1931}

17) Orchestre De La Boule Blanche (sous la Direction de Charlery Banguio) - C'est Biguine - [columbia DF 428] {1931}


*Note to audophiles: The absurdity of transferring 78rpms to mp3s does not elude us any more than the absurdity of "capturing" an audio moment in flux and presenting it frozen as a rare artifact foreverafter.
We reflect upon both the desire for audiofidelity and presenting the state of these artifacts. The turntable used is a Esoteric Sound Ramses II turntable which appears to be a modified shell of a Technics 1200 though instead of direct drive it employs a belt-driven system.
No noise reduction and only slight EQ adjustments were made in the transfer. Enjoy the surface noise! -r.r.