121. Ихесъ (Yikhes)

Belf’s Rumanian Orchestra (Syrena Grand 11079, 1912 – b/w Сихмасъ-Тойре)

I know very little about this group or this record. No one does, and it is not just that we are a century and change apart – this record could have been top of the pops on Krypton. Yet this crackly 78 is so pop in its way, if you get it all the way in your head. They were not actually “Rumanian” – that was a term of art, as was “Bulgar” or “Odessa,” both as those cultures influenced the music over time and as euphemisms for “Jewish” – as was “Klezmer,” a centuries old term loosely translated as “musical instruments.” Yiddish speakers might get more out of the song’s title than Google Translate, which renders it in English (ha!) as “Yikes!” There were any number of very similar Yiddish-speaking dance orchestras around the western part of the pre-WWI Russian empire at the same time, but this one was fortunate enough to be recorded by an enterprising record company in Warsaw, and the records sold well enough for copies to still exist. Although emigres like Abe Schwartz and Naftule Brandwein got Klezmer going over here within a decade, this music is like what jazz might be if someone had recorded Buddy Bolden.

Note: Secular essays about individual songs, each one exactly 200 words long, appearing one per day through Advant and at least semi-regularly until Donald goes away.