A trip to downtown Bucharest
This song belongs to Aaron Lebedeff at least as much as the songs in My Fair Lady belong to Rex Harrison. (I believe it is a felony to sing Rex’s song without trying to imitate him.) [Look for Aaron's singing in the post below this one.]
Aaron made his mark in the 1920s and since then, hundreds, maybe thousands, have tried to imitate him. Knowing it is futile, the super great Barry Sisters tried their own interpretation.
The song’s conclusion is cut off. Still, magnificent. The Barry Sisters flourished in the 40s and 50s and were the Jewish response to The Andrew Sisters. The Barrys were jazzier and had far more swing. I first heard Lebedeff imitators when Danny Kaye sang Rumania in a 1940s movie. Can’t locate it any longer. Mickey Katz’s son, Joel Grey, sings it. So does Johnny Cash!!! Astonishingly well, too.) Youtube probably can give you a dozen other would-be’s.
If you really are crazy enough to want to try your own luck alongside these pros, start with an easy English version. I cannot vouch for the translation but it looks right to a patzer like me. Try singing it alongside the Barrys or, better yet, Aaron L. Once again, you’ll find the link to Aaron in the post immediately below this one.
Oh Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania.
Was such a lovely place, I just can’t explain ye.
Oh Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania.
It was once a land so fine with milk and honey .
If you lived there it was such a pleasure.
What you wanted you got in full measure.
A mameligele, a pastrami, a sausage with bread, pastrami, karnatzele (a kind of smoked meat similar to jerky)
And a glass of good wine, aha!
In Rumania all is well,
If there’s trouble you can’t tell [They don’t know any worries].
They drink everywhere,
They chase their drinks with Kashkaval (a sheep’s milk yellow cheese).
Now comes the impossible part if you want to sing in tempo.
Hay di-gi di-gi dam, di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.
Hay di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.
Hay di-gi di-gi dam, di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.
Hay di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.
There are lots more hay di-gi-di-gi-di-gi dams but that’s enough. If any of you are dirty, hook-nosed, kinky-haired Kikes, here’s a link to a Yiddish version. Yeah, when I was 13, I probably could have read this stuff.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~verele/studentprojects/0506/rumenye.htm
Hey, did you hear the one about the Yid greenhorn who wins a $10 million lottery within one week of coming to America? Before an assembled crowd of a dozen newspaper men (i.e. newspaper people) he says, “Vot a countrree. Vot a vunderful countrree. Only in America. I vant thanks God, and all you, and my beloved vife and…and… [he looks down at his wrist and sees the lottery numbers] and Herr Hitler for giving me the vinning combination!”
What sick perversion turns people AWAY FROM anti-Semitism?
Listening to Lebedeff reminded me of that Brooklyn notable, Danny Kaye, only Kaye couldn’t “git-gattle-giddle” as well as Lebedeff. I think Lebedeff’s son, Joel Grey, attended the University of Miami at one time.
I meant to refer to Mickey Katz’s son, Joel Grey.
Actually, Len, Joel is Mickey Katz’s son. Mickey is one the greats of Yiddish theater and the barest shade behind Lebedeff. Joel and Danny Kaye were not slouches, either.
Sid,
I knew Danny Kaye. Well, I didn’t exactly know him, but we went to the same junior high school — P. S. 149, Sutter Ave., East New York — down the road from your old neiighborhood. His picture hanging in the school library along with the other school notables — previous principals, head custodians — blew my mind. I didn’t know Lebedeff, but I did meet his compatriot, Naftuli Brandwein, the great Klezmer clarinetist, who my grandfather introduced me to at the New Edgwood Hotel in the Catskills. They say Benny Goodman was the Naftuli Brandwein of American jazz.
Lowell, you and Danny also went to the same high school. Let’s not forget that you also went to the same high school and college that Sylvia Fine attended. She was, of course, Mrs. Danny, and the creative force behind his success.
With all due respect to your grandfather’s opinion of Naftuli, who does deserve the utmost respect, your grandfather overlooks other great clarinetists. Brooklyn’s Stanley Drucker may well have been the best.
Moreover, those who have heard Dr. Kleiman have been astounded by him, too.
I know Stanley — well I never actually met the man, but my instrument mechanic, Craig Lindsay, services Drucker’s clarinets. One of these days I may actually bump into him. 60 years with the New York Philharrmonic, 51 as princiipal clarinetist. God bless.
And while we are reminiscing about Brooklyn luminaries, let us not forget that Brownsville philosopher — Sidney Glendin, Dendin, Gendin, whatever — in whose footsteps I continue to follow.
Apart from the fact that you have doggedly and very foolishly replicated Glendin or Dendin’s life for 55 years, even going so far as to park your trailer at his front door so that you could spy on him to learn your next move, you are an extraordinarily fine fellow. Keep blowing that clarinet. And keep teaching philosophy in your spare time. You do both rather well.
The joke at the end was my favorite part. Also, quit acting so disingenuously humble. While not trying to replicate your miserable regimen, many yids, and even a few gentiles, have taken great strides to incorporate your more rational utterances into the periphery of their world views.