15 May 2020 – Shabbat is almost here
Enjoy with Izak Algazi, born in Izmir in 1889. Let’s listen his “Reina de la Grasia”, queen of the grace, a recording from 1929, that is a declaration of a crippling love.
I first learned about Izak Algazi from Jako el Muzikante, who told me about this hazzan after a conversation about Izak Maçoro, who was our star some MBSs ago.
So, after three editions with klezmer, I return to the Sephardic heritage and to some old music. Izak Algazi was mentioned quite recently in Ladinokomunita, a fascinating email group with participants discussing in Ladino, some natives of the languaje and other people that have learnt it, many of them quite devoted to the continuity of the languaje. They mentioned the presence of a street called Algazi in Izmir, name in his honour.
Izak Algazi was very recognized for his artistry during his life. He was the son of another well-known hazzan from Izmir, Salomon Algazi. Izak had a brilliant career in Turkey, he made many recordings for several record companies and even Mustafa Kemal, before becoming Atatürk, gave him an autographed Quran as a present.
Algazi left Turkey in 1933, as the chances for a Jewish to develope any position in public life started to dissapear in the process of turkification. He settled in Paris for 2 years to complete his rabbinical studies and moved to Montevideo in 1935, because he was invited to join the Sephardic Synagogue. Professor Edwin Seroussi, who knows his biography from at first-hand, has helped me to understand a bit better the situation that caused these events, so I thank him very much.
You can find a list of his recordings on SephardicMusic.org, website, where it is mentioned that he recorded this song in 3 occasions: 1909, 1912 and 1929. Below you can hear the last one. In this same link you can read a brief bio.
And what about the song of crippling love?
By the way, I have to thank Joshua Cheek for helping with the term of “crippling” and some more tips of the English languaje. And I said it is a song of crippling love, because of the lyrics. And it is curious because Izak Algazi’s wife’s name was Reina!!! And reina means queen. The questions is that the lyrics say:
|
Reina de la grasia
Madre de la bivez Onde ke te tope Por verte otra vez. Vo murir, vo murir
Si tu mas non te vez |
Queen of the grace Mother of the life Where could I found you to see you once more. I’m going to die, I’m going to die
if I don’t see you again |
I wonder if Reina made him a lot of “love sorrows” before getting married and having their three kids. Anyway, with sorrows or not, let’s enjoy the amazing voice and the almost unbelievable melismata of Izak Algazi:
Clic the picture to enjoy Reina de la Grasia,
by Izak Algazi:
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Shabbat Shalom.
Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música
And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.
May you always find the light in your path.
These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory
The band is active and I have just asked them what is this piece about. So, Lidiya is the mother of the clarinetist of the band, Gal Klein (in the picture, without glasses, the other man is the co-founder, Amit Peled). He made the piece for her 50th birthday.
Before ending, I want to announce the initiative of the restless team of Sephardic Stories: Sephardic Collection, in which they are producing new contents and interviews, that you can find in their 
Over there, as he was unable to read music, it was difficult to enter in an orchestra, so he made his living playing mainly in weddings. Soon he became known for his eccentricities, like wearing extravagant clothes (sometimes he dressed like Uncle Sam with christmas lights or even with his pants down) and playing back to the audience to hide his fingers’ technique. He raised an earned reputation of gambler and a drinker and his behaviour would prevent him for keeping a regular job in any band. So, from 1920, he worked under his own name, he proclaimed himself as the King of Jewish Music and in 1926 he recorded one of my favourite pieces of the History of klezmer: Von tashlach / New Year’s Prayer at the River. Enjoy it here below.
Madam Gaspard went to market.
I discovered David Kadoch by chance, searching for Sephardic music at the Youtube (the true is that I do this very often: it was a matter of time that I found him). He has a huge collection of wonderful recordings in 
Dr. Hans Bloemendal was chazzan at the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam from 1949. During the war he went into hiding. His family was killed in Sobibor.
I got to know Cantor İsak Maçoro at the Youtube some years ago, searching for Sephardic piyyutim. The picture of him and a short bio can be found in the website 