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1-2 Weeks
01. Jewish Wedding Orchestra - Dance in a Circle
02. Titunshnayder - Spring (Bulgarian Dance)
03. Giter's Kharkov Orchestra - Bolgareska Romanian Fantasy
04. Czernowitzer Civilkapelle - Masel Tow der Schwieger
05. Jewish Wedding Orchestra - Sher
06. Titunshnayder - Ukrainian Fantasy
07. J. Gegner - Fantasy on a Jewish Melody
08. Jewish Wedding Orchestra - The "606" Dance
09. A.S. Olevsky's Orchestra - Merry Nights
10. J. Gegner - Choz - Jewish Melody
11. Titunshnayder - Remembrance of Zion
12. Jewish Wedding Orchestra - The Talner Rebbe
13. Giter's Kharkov Orchestra - Romanian Fantasy
14. Veinbren's Orchestra - The Rebbe's Melody
15. Titunshnayder - Flora, Romanian Zhok
16. A.S. Olevsky's Orchestra - Jewish Round Dance
17. Stupel's Vilna Orchestra - Good Day
18. Oscar Zehngut - Oriental Themes
19. Titunshnayder - Craculets Romanian Folk Song
20. Jewish Wedding Orchestra - Yiddle with His Fiddle
21. Titunshnayder - Bolgarskoe Popurri
22. Czernowitzer Civilkapelle - Kopaczincaer Chusid
23. Titunshnayder - Pidutser's Nign
24. Stupel's Vilna Orchestra - Karaite Medley
ARTIST
TITLE
Chekhov's Band - Eastern European Klezmer Music from the EMI Archives 1908-1913
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
REN 129CD REN 129CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
10/30/2015

In Anton Chekhov's last play, "The Cherry Orchard," which Chekhov finished in 1903, just a few years before the Gramophone Company made these recordings in Odessa, Ukraine (mostly), the character Leonid Andreyevich Gayev hears off-stage "our famous Jewish orchestra. You remember, four violins, a flute and a double bass." In this period, klezmer music was venturing beyond its original role as Jewish wedding and celebratory music. It was proliferating in secular settings, sometimes disreputable, even underground. In The Odessa Tales (1923-'24), Isaac Babel mentions a bar with a house band of "old Jews with dirty beards playing Romanian and Jewish tunes"; and klezmer would have been the soundtrack of the local brothels, pretty much all Jewish-owned. (One track here celebrates a new treatment for syphilis, Preparation 606... even lavishing a trumpet on proceedings.) Tangy, precious, exuberant, life-affirming music, high and low, mostly for dancing, featuring virtuosi like violinist Jascha Gegner and clarinetist Titunshnayder, presented with excellent notes. Also includes performances by Jewish Wedding Orchestra, Giter's Kharkov Orchestra, Czernowitzer Civilkapelle, A.S. Olevsky's Orchestra, Veinbren's Orchestra, Stupel's Vilna Orchestra, and Oscar Zehngut.