THE CHALLAH FAME
“Inductee class” is a phrase one hears around Cleveland.
Who’s going to be inducted into the next Rock Hall class, and who isn’t.
Mr. Stress is in the first inductee class of the Cleveland Blues Society’s Hall of Fame. That’s a new place. Doesn’t even have a building. (Stress is a terrific harmonica player.)
The National Cleveland-style Polka Hall of Fame has a building. It’s in the old Euclid, Ohio, city hall. Frankie Yankovic was the man in Slovenian/Cleveland-style polka.
Yiddishe Cup has a polka pedigree – a small one. The DJ on the radio show “Polka Changed My Life Today” plays our “Tsena, Tsena” recording regularly. “Tsena, Tsena” isn’t polka, but it is upbeat and major key. Some polka aficionados clamor for “happy music,” and “Tsena, Tsena” fits the bill.
Generally, Jews aren’t big on “happy.” For example, recently Yiddishe Cup performed “A Hard Day’s Night” in Yiddish (A Shvere Togedike Nakht) but sang the “I feel all right” line in English. Why? Because you can’t say “I feel all right” in Yiddish. No such thing. (Also, Gerry Tenney wrote the Yiddish lyrics that way.)
[Another acknowledgment: Plain Dealer music critic Donald Rosenberg pointed out the “I feel all right” paradox to me.]
My point here . . . When is Cleveland going to get a Challah Fame?
I have the beginnings of one in my basement. I have a plywood cut-out/statue of Dave Tarras, the great klez clarinetist. Must be 10-feet tall. Irwin Weinberger, Yiddishe Cup’s vocalist, made it. Irwin is also an art teacher. Irwin’s Tarras cut-out folds in half at the waist.
Tarras (left), a giant of the clarinet, and Klezmer Guy
We used the Tarras statue as a stage prop at our Chautauqua Institution gig. That was one complicated deal; I brought a rechargeable drill to screw Tarras’ halves together. And I reinforced his back with metal channel strips.
The first class of inductees at The Challah will be some dead old guys, like Tarras and Brandwein, plus for post-ceremony partying needs, some living old guys: Danny Rubenstein and Ray Musiker.
For personal reasons, the museum’s second cut-out/statue will be Willie Epstein (1919-1999), the klezmer trumpeter from Florida and New York. In 1997 Willie came to Cleveland for the local premiere of the Epstein Brothers documentary A Tickle in the Heart, and my band played prior to the movie. Willie was impressed with Yiddishe Cup’s trombonist, Steve Ostrow. Willie cornered me in the hall and said, “You mind if I call your trombone player later. I’d like to take him on our tour of South Africa.”
That was class: asking me — the bandleader — if Willie could raid my band. Most music contractors would have just raided, no questions asked.
Willie never called.
Did the Epsteins ever make it to South Africa? I don’t know. Doubt it. Nothing on the Internet about it.
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Read a Cleveland Scene review of Yiddishe Cup’s recent 20th anniversary concert. By Anastasia Pantsios.
5 comments
Premiere. That’s a pretty common mistake so I’ll let it slide this time… :)
Thanks for the correction on “premiere,” Teddy. Just changed it.
And thanks to Matt Temkin, klezmer drummer, for another correction: Willie Epstein played trumpet, not drums. Just changed it.
Willie’s daughter came up to me at a Cleveland bar mitzvah and said, “You might know my father. He plays klezmer.”
Big deal, I thought. Maybe the dad was in a community band.
“He’s Willie Epstein.”
That was like saying, “My dad plays blues . . . He’s B.B. King.”
Willie’s daughter got Willie to fly up from Florida for the Cleveland opening of A Tickle in the Heart.
Maybe Madame Tussauds wax museum will add a Challah Fame wing. I can see it now–Yiddishe Cup members immortalized as wax figures–just like the Beatles.
I don’t remember ever seeing Uncle Dave with that much hair.
Richard, Irwin Weinberger — the artist who made the Tarras cut-out — used a circa 1927 photo of Tarras as a template. This photo is on the cover of the CD Dave Tarras, Yiddish-American Music, 1925-1956. Tarras was about 30.
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