You can love Irish songs, and you can love Yiddish songs. Irish chanteuse Susan McKeown and Klezmatics bandleader Lorin Sklamberg encourage you to love them both — at once. Why choose? On their CD “Saints & Tzadiks,” (World Village), out August 11, they sing Yiddish, Irish, and blends of Yiddish and Irish — highlighting the traditions’ similarities as well as the different ways each tradition tells a musical tale.
New York encourages such cultural fusions — Tin Pan Alley famously had Irish/Jewish songwriting teams (look for Mick Moloney’s CD “If It Wasn’t for the Irish and the Jews,” and its launch concert at Symphony Space in October). At the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, where Sklamberg works as the sound archivist when not on the road, the duo explained that they had talked about doing this project for years, ever since McKeown first got a call to appear with the Klezmatics back in the ’90s. “It’s a peculiar New York thing to have a band like the Klezmatics and have two musicians in it I know from Irish sessions,” she said.
The 2006 Grammy award-winning Klezmatics CD “Wonder Wheel,” the band’s first English-language CD, put melodies to rediscovered lyrics by Woody Guthrie — and featured vocal arrangements as well as the lively instrumentals for which the band is known. McKeown sang on the CD, and it was during its production that she and Sklamberg discovered how well their voices blend together. They knew they wanted to find another project that deliberately would combine klezmer and Irish styles.
Previous attempts to marry the traditions have focused on instrumental arrangements, Sklamberg explains, like the collaboration between klezmer clarinetist Andy Statman and the Irish band De Dannan. McKeown has sung in Yiddish before, but it’s the first time that Sklamberg has attempted to sing in Irish — a difficult language. “It’s not close to anything!” he said, laughing. As Sklamberg mispronounced the same word again and again (he grumbled, “nisht ahin, nisht aher,” Yiddish for “neither here, nor there”), McKeown coached him phonetically from the booth.
On “Saints & Tzadiks,” Sklamberg’s light-bodied, Yiddish inflection adds pathos to “Oakum,” a song McKeown says she got “from Seán Garvey, who got it from the sean nós (a capella) singer Seán Ac Dhonncha.” On the Yiddish song “Fin Mayn Mamelyu Hot Men Mikh Aroysgenimen” (“They Took Me Out of My Mother’s House”), McKeown’s slightly jazzy, restrained vocals allow the emotion of the song about a girl resisting the temptation of a prostitute’s life in Argentina. And who knew there were Yiddish songs about Polish girls being lured into a life of sin?
Most of the songs on “Saints & Tzadiks” have never been commercially recorded. Sklamberg turned to the book “Yiddish Folk Songs From the Ruth Rubin Archive,” based on the researcher’s field recordings held at YIVO, to discover songs that were “not about life in the shtetl. They were about things that were gritty. It seemed to jibe with what I know about the range of Irish songs.”
Particularly striking are the songs that blend the two languages. For example, “Heart’s Blood” combines “Fort a fidele, fort aroys” and “The Cruel Brother.” McKeown and Sklamberg take lyrics from an 18th-century Child Ballad (one of the songs in the collection of traditional ballads made by 19th-century researcher Francis James Child) and a recording made of a Mrs. Efron in the Queens neighborhood Long Island City in 1953. A note on that recording says it was based on a 200-year-old German ballad. The Yiddish version is harsher: The girl is murdered in an awful way. In the English version, she has the opportunity to make a will first. “The Rattlin’ Bog” is a cumulative song about a tree in a bog (and the bird in the tree, and the feather on the bird), sung in Yiddish and Irish. “It’s the same song,” McKeown said. In the Yiddish version, the tree might suggest a kabbalistic symbol; in the Irish version, the tree may be a symbol of Ireland. The alternating lyrics and melodies create a mysterious, mystical mood — enhanced on occasion by Latin, the language of Catholicism, which is deeply ingrained in Irish culture. A haunting track titled “Prayer for the Dead” blends a Ukrainian World War I lament with the Irish 19th-century anti-war song “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye” — followed by a sonorous Latin hymn with some lines in Irish that McKeown learned in school.
Still, the musical fusion displayed on the CD does not assign styles by heritage — deliberately. “Don’t try to sound like an Irish person,” McKeown remembered telling fiddler Jake Shulman-Ment. “People think the rhythm of Irish and klezmer are opposites, but really, both are exuberant.” In agreement, Sklamberg said: “Both have intense amounts of pride. Sometimes people think a slow or melancholy song is nostalgic, but the impulse is a fierce belief in the rightness of who you are.”
The traditions survive in different ways. In Ireland, traditional musicians often run in families, McKeown says, and they are seen as the keepers of the flame. Irish is taught in schools, but McKeown says she came out of school knowing more French than Irish. She herself is not from a traditional musical family. Of Yiddish music, Sklamberg insisted, “It’s alive!” But it was hard to ignore the fact that the interview took place in an archive.
“One of the great tragedies of Jewish history is that there hasn’t been a continuous singing tradition,” Sklamberg said, with a sigh. “When I was growing up, everybody was listening to songs from Israel.” He learned Yiddish as an adult. McKeown does not come from an Irish-speaking family. She and Sklamberg share a bit of the viewpoint of the outsider. “Both languages are not lost yet, but they’re both languages that certain members of the community are trying to hold on to and keep alive,” McKeown said. She also concedes that the histories of the Jews and the Irish have certain similarities.
“It’s the humanity of the music that comes through,” Sklamberg said, thinking about the impact the 1960s folk revival had on Jews. “You look in any suburban Jewish record collection, and you’ll find Belafonte and the Clancy Brothers,” he said. “Everybody had Theodore Bikel records, and he did some Irish songs in an Irish accent.”
“We’re one of the lost tribes,” McKeown said jokingly. “We have to do the DNA on that. It works well, the Irish and the Jewish music. It’s a good match.”
Listen to the Saints & Tzadiks song ‘Heart’s Blood’:
Gwen Orel is a freelance writer on theater, music and film. She has a doctorate in theater arts from the University of Pittsburgh.
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Soundtrack album from "Shalom Ireland," a lovely film.... and album: http://www.klezmershack.com/bands/misc/ceilizemer/misc.ceilizemer.html
Very beautiful singing! And great article Gwen!
Excellent review! I share an office with a fellow from Ireland. This music is something to share!
So why is this such a suprize. Did not Jeremiah, take the tender twigs and plant them? This was with the tribe of Dan, were the stone of destiny was taken. Judah and Israel---sounds good to me.
Thanks for bringing my attention to this cd Gwen. Great article. The track sounds great too. Susan has a great body of work since coming to NY. The Klezmatics too have had a huge impact. Keep playing the sweet music to lift our hearts.
What a moving song & performance! A real conjunctio / divine marriage. Will spred the message of The Celtic Jewish Connection!
The last time I was in Dublin, we visited the Irish Jewish Museum. It is small and bit low tech shall we say, but tells the interesting story of the Jews in Ireland. Check it out if you are ever there. Oh yeah, my wife and I (she is Irish and converted) bought a CD at the gift shop called Irish Heart/Jewish Soul. Horrible music but fun regardless.
Great music. Love it. I have written an unpublished as yet book showing the Irish Jewish connection is a humorous way but it is mostly true. I continue with stories regarding Irish Jewish families and their own stories. Really good fun and very funny in places. Others are of course sad. Any advice re publishing accepted to maertondavis@gmail.com Thank you.
Great article. I ordered the CD and it shipped today! I can't wait!
She sings better in Yiddish then he does in Gaelic.
Thank you for this delightful review. I just spent a week in northern California with my almost three-year-old grandson. I did a children's concert out there with him, and remembered a song I had known and sung many years ago: "The Rattlin' Bog" (being 70 it took a day or two to recall it) -- and here it is in your review. i will get the cd. At my concert I also sang Gene Bluestein's translation of "Hob Ikh a por oksn - I have a Pair of Poodles" who's tune has an Irish sound. Some day some one (maybe me) should write an article on Gene (of beloved memory) who with his family sang many Yiddish songs, as well as researched and recorded American anglo-saxon singers and was an English prof at Fresno State - also wrote "Anglish-Yinglish" a dictionary of Yiddish words that have entered our American tongue. Thanks again for the very informative review - onward Abie's Irish Rose! Shalom, Bob
With little opportunity in my Indiana town to study klezmer accordion, I have been taking accordion lessons at the Riley School of Irish Music in Cincinnati (about 1 1/2 hours from here). Irish music has become a close 2nd to my favored klezmer. There are some similarities (bulgar rhythms can be present in both), but the greatest commonality between them is the stirring, soulful exuberance each genre has, making you want to just get up and dance! I'm so glad that "Jewish" and "Irish" are finding each other.
The resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. Keeping the Ark hidden behind legends hides the real roots and national background of the people of ireland. They are Israelites. That is why Jeremiah took the tender twigs, the girls, daughters of the king to plant and root in Ireland with the Danites. Now Judah and Danites, are the Fighting Irish.
Have you ever seen the Walt Disney movie--Darby O'Gill and the Little People? If you haven't, it is a good idea to rent it. About fifeen minutes into the flim there is a scene which accurately depicts much of the Irish legend surrounding the "wissing well" "the harp of David " horn of David:, the "throne", the "Pot of Gold", the "little people". All these symbols are a part of Irish legend, and they are in the film. The Irish, know their history, their written in their story telling.
The pot of gold is a reference to a pot made of gold, not filled with gold This is none other than the Ark of the Covenant covered in gold which is depicted in the throne room of G-D and is ....under the rainbow of heaven.
THINK! why did it take war to bring Gentile Christianity the Roman church to Ireland in the 14 century A. D.? Mankind plant in our minds and books and universities schools the lie and deceit that has been seeded down through out all generations. The war of good and evil.
THINK! Why did Northern Ireland use the ...red hand...within the ....Star of David as a national banner, untol the 1970's? Why does Irish folk-lore have the legend of the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Why is it that only the ...little people... know the location of the pot of gold? I know, becouse when we turn form sin and put it out of our lives and desire truth to be put on our inward parts (heart and mind) truth will let us know wisdom in the hidden part.
For it is written in Psalm 51.....Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
The inward parts are now have the law of G-D written on them. The two sided tablets that Moses and all generations have broken and rejected. the hidden part---the Rock, our dwelling place, were our G-D rest upon.
We become the ark that moves and holds the law.
It is written in Job 33....The Spirit of G-D made me,(flesh below) but the breath of the Almighty has given me life. ( eternal life, a spirit above). A new child is brought forth in the union of the Spirit of G-D and the Almighty. When heaven touches earth, a little one is brought forth, in the mirror image of their G-D of heaven and earth.
dust to dust, ashes to ashes, Spirit to spirit.
It is a Declared Decree of G-D Most High to be obeyed by all.
It is written in Psalm 2....I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day ( a day is given in all our lives to turn from sin) ....Thou art my Son; this day have I brought you forth. or beggotten you. meaning birth you. Note this did not happen when David was born, he is a much older here. How did this happen ???? It is written how in Psalm 101:1-8 please read it, thank you.
MARK THIS: The Stone of Destiny the Lia Phail....Irish tradition tells us that jeremiah married the princes Tamar Tephi to Eochaidh, the Heremon, or head king of Ireland, after the latter embraced the worship of the true Jehovah. Jeremiah became the chief figure in Irish history, life and religion. There were three sisters that married with the kings of Ireland. Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright.
The twenty Irish histories agree that Jeremiah the prophet in about 585 B.C. came to Ireland. He brought important items from Jerusalem. One of them was the Ark of the Covenant. He wes the Patriarch of Ireland. The title evolved to ...St. Patric, the roman catholics sainted a christian missionary named Patrick who in the county of Down, on March 17,465 A.D. This slick trick, was recorded by history as fact. This Patrick ...WAS NOT... the traditional PATRON OF IRELAND.
The fact is....ROME began early to covet Ireland. Once they got possession, it was necessary for them to destroy the influence of Jeremiah. This they did in part by substituting the name of St. Patrick in the place of the prophet's and more they then set to work to destroy even the old and famous capital city ot Tara. In 565 A.D. St ruadham along with a opsse of biships and chieds of the South of Ireland, cursed the city, so that neither King nor Queen might ever rule or reign Ireland. (The Ten Lost Tribes, Rev. Joseph Wild, D.D. 1883, Lindon: Robert Banks, Printer, Racquet Court, Fleet Street, E.C.)
The twelve precious stones of the breastplate of judgment Ex. 28 tells us that Judah was the Emerald and Dan the Sapphire. Ireland is called the Emerald ile. Why?
Dan, The Judge And the Serpent.... For it is written Gen. 49 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, the biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. i have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.
Remember the greatest son, the famous strong man-judge from the tribe of Dan? Samson Samson failed G-D because he lacked spiritual strength, the tribe of Dan with the tribe of Juday will have spiritual strength, that will bring down the rider.
You both should sing of this.....the child that is brought forth from the tribe of Dan and Judah.....the holy children of our G-D, the little people.
please see our web site
www.internationaljerusalem.com
we have proof of the Jewish irish royal tie