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By Recorded Sound Archives, March 15, 2010 3:28 pm

Between March 6 and 11, 2010 the Boca Raton campus of FAU became a celebration of Jewish music and culture. It was the FAU Library’s second Kultur Festival. Events ran the gamut from klezmer concerts to cultural diversity forums. Two of these events highlighted the work of the Judaica Sound Archives.

The Man Who Spoke to God

Tues., March 9 : Dr. Jerry Glantz

The voice of the legendary Cantor Leib Glantz was one of the first to be heard on the JSA website. The importance of his compositions, the beauty of his voice and his unique ability to create an other-worldly spiritual experience for his listeners propelled him to prominence during the first half of the 20th century, also known as “The Golden Age of Hazzanut.”  We are exceptionally grateful to Dr. Jerry Glantz for allowing the JSA to showcase his fathers bountiful talents.

Dr. Glantz discussed his book, The Man Who Spoke to God,  a biographical loving tribute to his father, explained his father’s innovations in the field, and shared his father’s voice with the audience through recorded pieces. Especially dramatic was Cantor Glatntz’s rendition of Shema Yisrael. Dr. Glantz told the audience that because his father believed in improvisation the Shema was a new creation each time he sang it.

All of the recordings by this great cantor are available on the JSA website.

Yiddish Zingfest

Wed., March 10 : Phyllis Berk

There’s just something about Yiddishkeit that can fill you with a mixture of longing for days gone by, nostalgia, and concern about the future of Yiddish culture. When Jews immigrated to the USA from Eastern Europe, Yiddish was the language that they shared with each other. It was the language they spoke, read, wrote and sung. It was the language that expressed their struggles and their triumphs.

The JSA is committed to collecting recordings that express the Yiddish culture through music and humor. It is only through phonograph recordings that future generations will be able to hear for themselves what Yiddish sounded like in the early 1900s.

JSA Participating Performer, Phyllis Berk did an amazing job of bringing back the “old days” in this performance. Singing songs from her CD (Coming of Age)  like Shpilzhe Mir a Lidele, Unter Beymer, Grine Kuzine and Mein Shtetele Belz, she not only entertained her large audience, she led them down memory lane and roused them to sing along as well.

There are currently 167 Yiddish song albums on the JSA website that you can listen to at any time.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, March 3, 2010 2:27 pm

In the early half of the 20^th century, Yiddish speaking audiences often connected with their roots and culture by listening to Yiddish radio programs produced in the USA. In 2004 the Judaica Sound Archives received a gift of 70 recordings of radio broadcasts produced in 1949 from the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

These broadcasts were recorded on 16-inch discs. Special equipment is needed to play such large recordings. Unfortunately, the JSA did not have the right equipment.  So the recordings sat in storage.

Over time, the JSA was given about 30 more 16-inch recordings, including 14 produced by Vistas of Israel.

As our collection of 16-inch records grew so did the pressure to find a turntable that could handle them. “I suddenly remembered that my employer had given me a large turntable in the 1970’s” said JSA Sound Archivist, Ben Roth-Aroni. Digging through items that had been in storage for over 30 years, Ben was able to eventually unearth the turntable.

But, when he put the first 16-inch disc on the turntable he realized that the tone arm bumped into the record. The tone arm needed to be raised so that the needle was above the record. Working with spare parts, he was able to solve the problem by raising the tone arm base.

Tone arm base before elevation

Tone arm base after Ben elevated it.

Some of these 16-inch recordings are quite unique.  For example, “some of them have grooves which spiral from the inside toward the outside instead of the conventional outside toward the inside. Also some have a “vertical cut.” That means that the needle rides up and down over the grooves instead of the usual “lateral cut” where the needle moves from left to right.” Ben said.

I asked Ben if a special needle was required to play these recordings. “Sometimes we need a special needle but often a 78-rpm stylus will work fine as long as we have a specially wired cartridge that works for the lateral cut discs.”

The JSA currently has over 400 Vistas of Israel radio broadcasts.  These programs were produced by the state of Israel from the 1950s through the 1970s. Fourteen of the broadcasts in the JSA collection were produced on 16-inch discs. We are currently involved in an extensive digitization project so that all of these Vistas of Israel broadcasts can be heard on the JSA website. With the addition of our newly revamped turntable these broadcasts can be included in this exciting digitization project.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, February 18, 2010 4:24 pm

Cleveland weather provides a rare opportunity for Floridians to shovel snow

Nathan Tinanoff, Ben Roth and Alethea Perez left South Florida to complete the final packing of the Jack Saul  recordings that will find a home at FAU’s Wimberly Library. They arrived in Cleveland to find a snow-covered landscape and frigid temperatures. How did the Floridians handle the weather?

Alethea said, “It was amazing! I got to throw my first snowball!” But they didn’t have much time to play in the snow, or make snow angels or even create a snowman, there were 78-rpm records to pack into boxes.

Each box holds 40 to 50 records and they packed almost 500 boxes over the Presidents Day weekend. That translates to between 20,000 and 24,000 records.

Working in both the Saul’s home and the furniture store they were amazed at what was still left behind. “This collection was so extensive that even after we packed two truckloads of recordings, it still seemed like there was so much more there,” said Nathan Tinanoff, director of the JSA. But as these pictures show, a lot of progress has been made in clearing out the clutter and packing treasured recordings.

Before

After boxes are packed

The 78-rpm records that were packed during this trip to Cleveland will NOT become part of the Judaica Sound Archives.  These 78-rpm recordings contain American pop music, classical music, opera and the works of many famous entertainers of 50 to 100 years ago. Because of the size of this collection FAU Libraries is establishing a new Vintage Record Collection which will be under the direction of Nathan Tinanoff.

Below is newspaper article from 1976 showing Jack Saul with a basement full of recordings. It seemed huge , but who knew at the time that Jack Saul would continue adding to his enormous collection of recordings for over 30 more years?

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By Recorded Sound Archives, February 8, 2010 11:31 am

Chuck Samberg and Gloria Magida (on right) visit the JSA to donate recordings to Nathan Tinanoff and Maxine Schackman (holding record album).

Valentine’s Day is certainly not a Jewish holiday.  But who says Jews can’t celebrate love?

The Yiddish word, beshert, can refer to any kind of fortuitous good match, such as finding the perfect job or the perfect house, but usually it refers to a perfect romantic match. Beshert brings people together no matter what obstacles might stand in the way.  “If it is meant to be, it will be.”

Chuck and Gloria connected romantically back in the early 1960s, after her first husband passed away.  They dated, they married.  But the time was not right for these two to live happily ever after. After five years they divorced and lost contact with each other.

But when two people share a destiny they will find a way to reconnect with each other, even after many years. Chuck’s father was a pioneer in Jewish comedy back in the 1930s. Known professionally as Benny Bell, he was a celebrity in Jewish circles.

When Gloria’s third husband passed away a few years ago she became interested in reconnecting with friends from her past. She especially wanted to reconnect with Chuck. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to find him.

Many times she sat at her computer and typed the name “Charles Samberg” into the Google bar only to be disappointed by the lack of results.  Then one day she typed in the name “Chuck Samberg.”  This time she got a link to FAU’s Judaica Sound Archives.

Her curiosity aroused, she decided to follow the link which led to one of the happiest surprises of her life!  What she found on the JSA website was 19 comedy albums by Benny Bell.  As she listened it brought back many memories of her childhood. And then she went to the Benny Bell biography page. And there, at the bottom of the page was a way to reconnect with her past. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

She sent a note. Now the two are reunited and enjoying every moment of it, looking back at the past with nostalgia, looking towards the future with joyful thoughts. “We’re very happy!” Gloria to me.

For more information about Benny Bell click here.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, January 11, 2010 3:33 pm

Ariana Goldstein recieves recognition plaque from Nathan Tinanoff on the completion of her Mitzvah Project

You might think that since the donation of Jack Saul’s enormous collection of recordings that the JSA would be less than eager to receive even more Judaica recordings.  BUT. You would be wrong!

Ariana Goldstein, a student at Woodland Middle School in Gurnee, IL. is a music lover and musician who plays trumpet, bass guitar and acoustic guitar. As she prepared for her Bat Mitzvah she wanted a Mitzvah Project that would reflect her interest in music and her desire to do something meaningful.

Ari contacted the JSA to see if there was any way that she could help us to preserve the recorded music heritage of the Jewish people. “There are still so many recordings out there and we worry that people do not appreciate their historical and cultural value. Do you think you could try to find recordings and send them to us?” we asked her. She took on the challenge.

Ariana had her  Bat Mitzvah at the Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha, WI on October 17, 2009.  She had accumulated about 100 recordings that she intended to donate to the JSA. On the evening of December 24, 2009 she and her parents arrived in Boca Raton after a 9 hour car ride. They were tired and they were weary, but they wanted to hand deliver the recordings to us. Although the University was closed at the time, we obtained permission to meet them at the Wimberly Library to accept Ari’s donation.

Ariana started her search for recordings with her grandparents and their friends. Sure enough, many of them had recordings which they did not need or want. Some people could not even listen to the songs because they no longer owned phonograph players.

“What was the hardest part of locating the recordings?”  I asked her.

Susan Goldstein, Ari’s mother, explained. “The Newberry Library in Chicago has a book and record sale every year. We went there and Ari sorted through boxes and boxes of recordings looking for the ones she could rescue and bring here.”

“That was really hard!” Ari exclaimed. “Also we got some records from the temple and other people we knew.” she added.

Ari and Ben Goldstein admire vintage Victrola at JSA

Nathan Tinanoff, Director of the JSA, led the Goldstein family on a tour of the Judaica Sound Archives and awarded Ariana a special “JSA Record Label” plaque in recorgnition of her hard work, the completion of her Mitzvah Project and her contribution to the JSA.

He told the Goldstein family, “These recordings are very important to us. They will be incorporated into our collection.”

It is good for us to remember the past and to cherish our cultrual accomplishments.  Yet, the generations to come are the ones who will eventually benefit the most from the cultural treasure which is their legacy.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, January 8, 2010 11:09 am

• December 29, 2009:  The large donation of recordings to FAU Libraries from Jack Saul’s private collection sparked interest in the Judaica Sound Archives and resulted in the following  newspaper article by Lona O’Connor, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The Judaica Sound Archive is accustomed to receiving large donations of old recordings. But its latest bequest — 10,000 records — arrived in an 18-wheel trailer truck.

The 7-year-old musical archive, part of Florida Atlantic University’s library, has a lot of cataloging to do in the next few months, because another 18-wheeler will arrive as soon as the snow melts . It will carry at least twice as many recordings — all from the late Jack Saul, a Cleveland furniture store owner whose collection may have amounted to as many as 300,000 recordings at its peak.

The Saul contribution will add about 60,000 recordings, including a few unique examples, to the FAU archive, already one of the largest in the world.

The sound archive is run by Nat Tinanoff and Maxine Schackman, who, aided by tech-savvy volunteers and students, have made 10,000 songs from the archive’s collection available online to the public. The archive contains religious, folk and children’s music, theater and music-hall performances. Click here for full text.

• December 31, 2009:  The following editorial in the Palm Beach Post explains the importance of the work that is being done by the Judaica Sound Archives.

In the larger scheme of things, the dedication of the employees of the Judaica Sound Archive at Florida Atlantic University isn’t earth-shattering. It doesn’t change Florida, the way oil drilling off the coast would. It doesn’t build houses or end foreclosures or reinvigorate the economy.

But it alters Florida just the same, adding a twist of culture to a state that too often is criticized for sterile shopping malls, cookie-cutter houses and cultural voids.

We mention the dedication of employees Nat Tinanoff and Maxine Schackman, aided by volunteers and students, because it was their dedication that persuaded a Cleveland furniture store owner and record-collector extraordinaire to donate to the archives 60,000 record albums for preservation. As The Post’s Lona O’Connor reported Wednesday, thanks to these workers, the mountain of wax recordings preserving the music of the past will be catalogued and digitized so that they can remain far into the future.

Jack Saul, who died in May at 86, picked FAU’s sound archive specifically because he saw that it would preserve his collection. He once had been burned, giving away 200,000 recordings to an organization that later sold them. Mr. Tinanoff estimates that it will take five years to inventory Mr. Saul’s collection. He expects to make 4,000 compact discs available to students. The collection includes an album of Fanny Brice singing to children and a fantasy cantata about the Brooklyn Dodgers by opera singer Robert Merrill.

It’s a cultural bonus Florida would not have, if not for the dedication of the Judaica Sound Archive’s employees. Click here for full text.

• January 6, 2010: The Jewish Forward recognized the importance of recorded Jewish music for musicians and others who cherish Jewish culture in this article by Ezra Glinter.

It’s a truism of traditional music that in order to go forward, you have to go back. To innovate on old material, you have to know the old material in the first place.

But in the case of Yiddish music, there’s often not much to go back to. During the heyday of Yiddish culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, klezmer melodies, Yiddish theater tunes and cantorial music were popular entertainments for Jews from Warsaw to New York. But with the Holocaust in Europe and the rapid assimilation of Jewish immigrants in America, that culture went away as quickly as it had come. For musicians today who want to learn the Yiddish repertoire, finding a living link to that centuries-old musical tradition is nearly impossible.

But there is another way. Between 1898 and 1942, some 6,000 78-rpm recordings of Jewish music were produced in the United States, and some 5,000 in Europe. When Jewish musicians in the 1970s revived the Yiddish music that had largely disappeared after the Second World War, it was to those recordings that they turned.

“If it weren’t for these historic recordings, there wouldn’t have been a klezmer revival,” said producer Henry Sapoznik, executive director of Living Traditions, a Yiddish arts organization that produces the annual weeklong KlezKamp in Kerhonkson, N.Y. “Of every traditional music scene, whether it’s Balkan or Greek or blues or early jazz, the only one that relied completely on using 78s as a style and repertoire model was the klezmer scene. . . . ”

Florida Atlantic University’s Judaica Sound Archives has been collecting Jewish music of all kinds since 2002, and provides much of it in streaming format on its Web site and more through research stations located in libraries throughout the United States, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom. Click here for full text.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, December 18, 2009 3:49 pm

I was listening to my local public radio station while I was driving to work the other day. Roger Bennett, co-author of And You Shall Know Us By the Trail of Our Vinyl, was talking with Marco Werman about his attempt to save decades of American Jewish music from obscurity.

We, at the JSA, are very proud of our participation in helping Roger and his co-auther, Josh Kun to find materials that eventually found its way into their wonderful book.

Even though he didn’t mention us by name, we knew who Roger was talking about when he mentioned visiting Boca Raton, Florida, “where old Jewish vinyl goes to die.” When JSA Director, Nathan Tinanoff listened to the interview he told me, “He got that wrong! The JSA isn’t where old Jewish vinyl goes to die.  It is where it goes to be reborn!”

The book is a wonderful compendium of stories, information, photos, and album covers from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

Josh Kun, Associate Professor of communication and journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and the author of Audiotopia: Music, Race, and   America, which won a 2006 American Book Award, co-authored the book with Roger Bennett who also co-authored Bar Mitzvah Disco.

The authors write about how they “encountered the Judaica Sound Archives of Florida Atlantic University, where Nathan Tinanoff and his devoted staff generously opened their collection to us.”  And where they found “thousands of LPs, shelf after shelf filled with dsicarded cardboard and vinyl that we gushed over like scientists marveling at new speciments” (p.17).

Looking through the book is an education and a trip down memory lane. From Steisand to Bagels and Bongos by the Irving Fields Trio, from Molly Pecon to the Four Bursteins, from Neil Sedaka to Theodore Bikel, the names and images pop off the pages.

The following JSA featured performers are highlighted in the book: Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, Oysher-Michaels Family, Benny Bell , The 4 Bursteins, Gladys Gewirtz, Shimon & Ilana Gewirtz, Gadi Elon.

A friend of mine who loves the book told me that when she goes on the JSA website it is like the “book comes to life” right on her computer. I can’t think of a nicer compliment.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, December 9, 2009 10:28 am

You might think that Adam Sandler has the last word when it comes to Chanuka songs.  But you would be wrong! The Judaica Sound Archives has hundreds of Chanukah songs that your whole family can enjoy. This year’s Chanukah Mix highlights 17 songs by some of our favorite JSA performers.

You might also enjoy these holiday albums:

Chanukah Favorites – Judy Caplan Ginsburgh

Chanukah Festival of Songs – Sidor Belarsky

Chanukah is Freylekh! – Lori Cahan Simon

Chanukah Melodies – Honore Singer

Chanukah Songs For Children – Shimon & ilana Gewirtz

Hanukkah Sing-A-Long

Hanukkah Sing-A-Long II

Hanukkah Sing-A-Long III

Hanukkah The Feast of Lights – Emanuel Rosenberg

Happy Channukah! – Fran Avni

Isaac Goodfriend Sings Hanukka Songs – Isaac Goodfriend

Kinder Songs – Holiday Songs for the Entire Family – Deborah Katchko-Gray

Latkes and Hamentashen – Fran Avni

Make a Chanukah Miracle – Cantor Benjamin Maissner

Mother Goose Rhymes for Chanukah – Honore Singer

The Chanukah Collection – Safam

The Chanukah Party – Fred Vogel (Narration), Jesse Silverstein (Songs)

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By Recorded Sound Archives, December 2, 2009 5:01 pm

Ben Roth-Aroni looking for treasures in a hidden closet

After his visit to Cleveland in October 2009 to look at the additional recordings that Jack Saul’s family had discovered in the furniture store and in a “hidden closet” in the family’s home, Nathan Tinanoff, director of the JSA at FAU Libraries,  said, “I could see right away that this was going to be a big job.” Last week he returned with Ben Roth and Alethea Perez, two JSA employees who offered to help pack the rest of the phonograph recordings that were earmarked for Florida Atlantic University Libraries in Boca Raton, FL.

Although the JSA team had packed about 30,000 recordings in September 2009, there was still a lot to do. The JSA team made a plan of attack.

Day 1: Explore the “hidden closet” in the house and determine which recordings would be shipped to FAU Libraries. Complete the packing of recordings in the house which had been identified but not packed during the previous visit.

Day 2: Explore the previously undiscovered basement of the furniture store to identify recordings for shipment to FAU. Pack as many of the recordings as possible.

Day 3: Pack as many recordings as possible.

The team was excited by what they found. Recording treasures and vintage 78 rpm recordings had been tucked away into every nook and cranny. Jack Saul’s enormous collection which had become disorganized and cluttered throughout his home and place of business were in the process of becoming a valuable research tool for teachers, students and scholars.

Ben Roth in front of store with folded boxes

Alethea Perez packing recordings previously identified in the Saul’s house.

Alethea Perez packing phonograph records in store.

Ben Roth sealing boxes filled with recordings.

Nathan Tinanoff making boxes in furniture store.

……

Alethea Perez & Nathan Tinanoff take a well-deserved work break as they pose in front of some of the boxes they packed.

“This second shipment of recordings from Cleveland will be almost twice as large as the first. We did a great job of packing recordings. Our backs hurt. Our fingers are bleeding. But are hearts are happy,” said Tinanoff.

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By Recorded Sound Archives, November 10, 2009 4:39 pm

The name of Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky can be placed alongside Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, Cantor Gerson Sirota, and Cantor Zawel Kwartin — the most honored names from the Golden Age of Cantorial music. The JSA’s online selection of recordings by Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky contains 13 albums from the JSA’s Collectors Guild and Famous record label collections, a total of 100 separate song tracks.

Moshe Koussevitzky was born into a family of cantors and so his vocal gifts were not overlooked, even at an early age. Born in 1899 in Belarus, he was a teeneager when WW I began. The Koussevitzky family relocated to Russia where his cantorial studies continued. By 1925 he could be heard in the Great Synagogue of Vilna, Poland. And in 1928 Koussevitzky was awarded the position vacated by the renowned great Cantor Gerson Sirota at the Tlomacki Synagogue of Warsaw.

According to Benedict Stambler, founder of Collectors Guild records, it was in Warsaw that Koussevitzky’s “voice reached its full power and brilliance.” His popularity spread as he performed throughout Europe and Palestine in the 1930s.

Trapped in Poland during WWII Koussevitzky was rescued by members of the Polish underground and brought to Russia. There he was reunited with his family soon afterward. After the German retreat he became the principal tenor in the Tiflis National Opera Company in Georgia. The four Koussevitzky brothers were all exceptional cantors. Moshe, David, Jacob and Simcha reunited in London in 1946 to give a stirring farewell appearance at the Royal Albert Hall before an audience of thousands.

The JSA’s online collection of Koussevitzky recordings encompasses the full career of this great cantor, from his early recordings to his later works. Of special interest is his recording of Sheyiboneh Beys Hamikdosh which allows the cantor’s full range of talents to be heard.