MBS a talk with a generous disseminator, Joel Bresler, and the quest for the multiples branches of an artistic seed

4th December 2020 – Shabbat is almost here 


And I am pleased to share a little conversation with another disseminator whose work has fed mine in several ocassions: Joel Bresler. And we’ll listen Ruth Yaakov’s Majo, Majo i Majo and discover how a song can produce many branches. 


Hello, how are you? I hope well. You know how I love old music. But from time to time I like to talk with people that are alive, because they can answer. I would love to make questions to Moishe Oysher or to Bienvenida Aguado but for now I just can dialogue with them in my fantasy. So on this occasion, I will be exchanging ideas with another disseminator whose work is exceptional: Joel Bresler, creator of SephardicMusic.org. He is also very fond of old music and not only old. He is, in his own words, an “obsessed” collector and discographer.

On this enlightening report, “The Music of the Sephardim” in Early Music America magazine, he and Judith Cohen (with whom I will talk soon) explain what is the Sephardic music and they mention several artists that have striven for authenticity and Ruth Yaakov is one of them. Find the video with her music at the bottom.

– And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom – ?

Hannukah is coming soon and the last Hannukah is when this Music Before Shabbat initiative was born. Celebrate this birthday with me ?. All I want as a birthday present is to welcome more people here. Share this with your friends and with anybody who can enjoy it. Thank you in advance.

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Joel Bresler’s SephardicMusic.org

The website SephardicMusic.org has been a source of information for me in several occasions, specially related to the oldest recordings. For it didn’t seem to be supported by any organization, so I got curious to learn who was behind this jewel. And it was not difficult: Joel Bresler is the author and here below you have a little conversation in which he explains some interesting facts. I am really thanksful to him for his dedication! In the picture you see Joel with Mrs. Sylvia Cohen, who donated 78-rpm recordings for his project ?

Araceli Tzigane: As a disseminator of Jewish music, and moreover being a Spanish person, your website is a treasure for me. I feel I can understand what forces drives you to disseminate this music you love. Because I think this is not a business, despite you may earn some income from the sales from Amazon done through the website. These kinds of initiatives come from some transcendental need. Which is yours?

Joel Bresler: So glad you enjoy the website – that means a lot to me! I have never earned any money from the amazon links, so that wasn’t a motivation. I went from devotee to collector to discographer. Enjoyed the music, then started collecting it, then attempting to collect every recording ever made with at least one song in ladino. And by then, since I had built a “want list” of recordings that weren’t in my collection I turned it into a discography. First for LPs, cassettes and CDs. And then a separate effort for 78s. 

AT: In the website, in the About, you explain that you were transfixed by Sephardic music when you first heard it thirty years ago (now it must be around forty years ago, right?).

JB: Yes. 

AT: But what happened, why did you get transfixed? What was the specific song or recording? Was it just because of the music or also because you realized there were Jews who spoke Spanish out of Spain for 5 centuries or anything else?

JB: I love Renaissance music and also listened to a lot of Spanish Renaissance music. So my first Sephardic recording was the Hesperion XX double LP of Jewish and Christian music. They performed Sephardic music as Renaissance music which is actually not that authentic, but it was my start. 

AT: I’d like to highlight that you have another career, you are currently the Director of Technology Ventures at Northeastern University. It sounds very cutting edge. You are not the first Jewish person who I have met that works in something very technological and at the same time has an initiative related to the dissemination of Jewish culture, like a festival of live music or your website. Are you also a musician yourself? Do you have any other initiative, apart from your work and the website of SephardicMusic.org?

JB: I fell deeply for the American folk song Follow The Drinking Gourd and wrote a cultural history of it at www.followthedrinkinggourd.org . I have also prepared political parodies the last three us presidential elections, see:

2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD-vY5WIZdw
2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM_9CltI4G8&feature=youtu.be 
2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWs7TXCy7uI&t=5s  

AT: What are the origins of your family? I believe Bresler comes from Breslau/Wrocław, the city that is currently in the South West of Poland, doesn’t it? Can you explain to me the background of your ancestors from both sides? Bresle is the Yiddish for Wroclaw. I believe you may not have Sephardic ancestors, do you? (according to your answer I might have to ask you something more).

JB: Hi, you have all this exactly right. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Karo, which as you may was the name of a very well-known and influential Sephardic rabbi. There were Sephardim who made it as far as Poland, so it’s possible even if not likely. Since it is such an influential name, it could be my ancestors adopted it for the prestige. We may never know. I’ll probably get a genetics test some day!

Related to Joseph Karo, Joel provided several links:

This is a picture of the Market Square in Breslau, between 1890-1900 at the time when it was Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) ca. View from the East. This is in Wikipedia and is of public domain. Might be one of these people any ancestor of Joel Bresler?

AT: So one side of your family comes from Poland. And the other side too? Your grandparents from your father and also from your mother, were from Poland? And do you know when did your ancestors arrive to the USA?

JB: Yes, all four grandparents from Poland (though one was US-born.) And perhaps some ancestors from Spain (much earlier!!. Key word here is “perhaps”!) On my maternal side, approx. 1920 or so. On my paternal side, my grandfather was here at roughly the same time; my grandmother was US born and so her parents like arrived late 19th century??

AT: In your website I found a link to the work of 2009 The Music of the Sephardim, by you and Judith Cohen. There you mention that: “But some musicians constantly invoke a mythological exoticism and the supposed antiquity of Sephardic song as an excuse to make of it what they will and justify it in the name of “creativity.””. I have to say that I totally agree and that the same happens with traditional music from Spain (not Sephardic, but rural traditional). The invocation of its antiquity, or of its coming from the tradition, is used to legitimate also mediocre works. Don’t you think it may happen the same in many other traditions? Doesn’t it happen with Askenazi or Yemenite Jewish music?

JB: I believe that after World War II, once musicians hear a song they can take it and perform it however they might wish to. It used to be difficult to find repertory – there were actually song-sharing groups active in the folk community in the 1960s. Now, with Itunes, Spotify, digitized field recording, Youtube, etc. It’s quite easy.

AT: Are you interested in receiving new recordings of Sephardic songs that are done nowadays? If so, how shall the people send them to you?

JB: My public account is joelbresler@gmail.org. I am always interested in new recordings. Although i am not doing a comprehensive discography of electronic recordings – a job for the next generation. 

AT: In this edition I will accompany your interview with a recording by Ruth Yaakov: “Majo, majo y majo” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty-7V-MZfFo She is one of the singers you and Judith Cohen (old friend of mine, with whom I will talk here soon) mention that have striven for authenticity. She is really outstanding, one of those singers that are quite impossible to imitate. Do you want to share any insight about this recording or about the song or about Ruth Yaakov?

JB: Aside from deep admiration for her work and artistry, I don’t have too much to add. As opposed to scholars like Judith, I am “just” an obsessed collector and discographer! 


 

The Jews in Wrocław

So the origin of Joel Bresler’s surname and at least of some of his ancestors is Breslau, currently Wrocław in Polish. After the II World War and the Potsdam Agreement (August 1945) the city became part of Poland. I would have been in Wrocław last June, for a concert by Gulaza. It is one of the losses caused by the pandemic. Nevertheless, the city is still there, waiting for me…. 

According to JGuideEurope, the oldest Jewish tombstone found in Wrocław (Breslau) dates back to 1203, indicating that by then Wrocław was home to a permanent Jewish community. In 1290, Wrocław had the second largest Jewish community in East Central Europe, after Prague. Click the link to learn more about the history of Jews in this city, that was a referential point in several moments.

This is the White Stork synagogue in 1979, by Stiopa in Wikipedia ?

The website of the Jewish Community of Wrocław explains that:

“The resurgence of the Jewish community in Wrocław took place after 1989. Scientific conferences, exhibitions and cultural events dedicated to Jewish issues began to be organised in the city. Scientific research on fascism and the Holocaust in Silesia was developed, as well as on the history of the Jews of Lower Silesia after the Second World War. In 1993, the Centre for the Study of the Culture and Languages of Polish Jews was established at the University of Wrocław, transformed in 2003 into the Study of Jewish Culture and Languages.

Until 2006, there was an independent Jewish religious community at Wrocław, which was then incorporated into the structure of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in the Republic of Poland and transformed into a branch of the ZGWŻ at Wrocław. The branch has its own rabbi: since 2013 it has been Tyson Herberger, who is the Chief Rabbi of Wrocław and Silesia. TSKŻ still operates in the city, as well as several organizations dealing with Jewish culture and education, including the Bente Kahan Foundation and the GESHER Foundation for Jewish Culture and Education. Aleksander Gleichgewicht has been the president since 2012.”

This is the White Stork synagogue nowadays in Google Maps Street View:
For further information, visit the mentioned links and the page about Wrocław in Sztetl.org.pl
.
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Listen to Majo, Majo i Majo by Ruth Yaakov

As Ruth Yaakov (born in 1960 in Israel) is one of the artists that, according to the article “The Music of the Sephardim“, have striven for authenticity, I have chosen a piece of her work. From the album Shaatnez (Piranha Records, 1998), by Ruth Yaakob Ensemble, I have chosen Majo, majo y majo, with a part of the lyrics of the piece El mancebo enamorado (The young man in love), that shares part of the lyrics with the story of the but also of the song of the Ciego raptor (The blind raptor). Under the picture you’ll find the lyrics that Ruth Yaakov sings in this recording. But before, let’s go deeper into this piece.

In the popular anonymous pieces that have been transmitted orally it is very normal that versions and divergences arise. This is a case in point. I have located several references and recordings that exemplifly it well.

The Maale Adumim Institute for the Documentation of the Jewish-Spanish (Ladino) Language and Culture has several versions, published in their El Trezoro de Kantes de Sefarad (Sefarad Song Treasure). There are many other recordings named El mancebo enamorado, but I have selected the ones that have at least one stanza similar to what Ruth Yaakov sings. The stanza of majo, majo i majo is present in many occasions between any other lyrics, usually related to love, but in some ocassions it is sang together with the lullaby “nani, nani”.

  • This one from the Bulgarian tradition, sang by M. Tiferet, recorded in Yafo in 1978
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Kobi Zarko, recorded in Jerusalem in 1989
  • This one from the Greek tradition, sang by Dasa Liza (date and place of the recorded not indicated)
  • This one, that includes just one of the stanzas, from the Turkish tradition, sang by Ilter Yitshak, recorded in Bat Yam in 1978
  • This one, from the Turkish tradition, sang by Politi Mazal, recorded in Jerusalem in 1979 (the first part is another piece)
  • This one (tradition not mentioned but I feel it sounds Turkish), sang by Karavani Hanna, recorded in Jerusalem in 1984 (just the first stanza is shared with the other versions)
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Levy Ventura, recorded in Jerusalem in 1985 (this includes the stanza of majo, majo i majo between many other stanzas)
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Mizrahi Rivka, recorded in Jerusalem in 1979 (this includes the stanza of majo, majo i majo after other two)
  • This one from the Turkish tradition, sang by Zevulun Estrea, recorded in Beer-Sheva in 1978 (this includes the stanza of “akodravos dama” (remember, lady) at the beginning and the one of “los males son kurados” (ailments are cured) that is also present in other versions)
  • This one (tradition not indicated), sang by Vardi Zaavi, date and place not indicated. This includes the stanza of majo, majo i majo in the middle.

Some of the stanzas and ideas of the lyrics of this piece are shared with another piece, with very different meaning: the blind raptor. I found the lyrics at the website of Pan-Hispanic Ballad Project. This song registered by David Romey in Seattle between 1948 and 1950 starts like the other and the last stanza is also shared, but the story is quite different. In this, the foreigner pretends to be blind to beg at the house of the girl he loves and kidnaps her. His mother wonders where his Flor (flower, used as the girl’s name) is.

So far I am sure you want to listen to the announced recording by Ruth Yaakov, so here you are!

Click the picture to listen to the recording:

 

Lyrics

Majo i majo i majo
Agua en el mortero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero.

Akodravos damma
De akel pan i sal
Ke durmimos djuntos
En un kavesal
Ke durmimos djuntos
En un kavesal

I dezir ansí
yo ya me cansí;
Ke de vuestro fuego
yo ya me cansí.
Ke de vuestro fuego
yo ya me cansí.

Majo i majo i majo
Agua en el mortero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero
No ay ken s’adjideye
De este forastero

I mash, mash and mash
water in the mortar.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.

Remember, lady,
that bread and salt
we ate together
on a pillow.
We ate together
on a pillow.

And to say so
I got tired.
I got tired
of your fire.
I got tired
of your fire.

I mash, mash and mash
water in the mortar.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.
No one take pity
on this foreigner.

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Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música


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