Jewish Music Flashcards
What is the name of the reading?
The Yiddish Are Coming by Josh Kun
Who was Mickey Katz?
A Yiddish-English parodist who reached his professional peak in the 1950s. Best known for his humorous treatment of American popular music at the time.
What was Mickey Katz cultural life like after the war?
At a time after the war when most American Jews were looking more towards the benefits of becoming a part of the majority culture, Katz stayed traditional and used musical humour to feed off the majority culture in order to ridicule it.
Give an example of a Mickey Katz parody.
He recorded a version of the WC Handy classic ‘St Louis Blues’ and changed most of the lines to Yiddish and replaced the saxophone with violins, more typical of the Eastern European style.
What is the significance of Katz’s version of St Louis Blues?
Katz didn’t just cover the song and cross genres. He creates a racially hybridised composition that switches between languages, bridges tradition and styles and plays with the history of musical racialisation.
Who was Al Jolson?
He was an entertainer in the early 20th century, the star of the first ‘talking film’. He used the mask of black music and black culture to stop himself being viewed as a less than white Jew into being a White American by singing the black music and wearing black make up.
What song did Al Jolson and Mickey Katz both cover?
Toot, toot, toosie. But Katz’s cover of it, a few decades later, can be viewed as a commentary on the way Jolson ignored his Jewish background.
How did Mickey Katz combine musics?
Not only would he change the lyrics, he would put lots of Jewish musical techniques into the American nations favourite tunes of the time. He would often merge many styles together.
How were the listeners of Mickey Katz’s audience split?
His musical humour worked as a sort of ‘private in joke’ concept where people may have found it funny when in private. But in public many people found the musical realisation of the worst of Jewish stereotypes distasteful and offensive.
