the KlezmerShack

Judith Cohen had the following comments to George's reviews, posted to the Jewish-music list.

It was a pleasure to see Samy Maghribi's CD reviewed: Samy was my first
oud teacher years ago and I have fond memories of sitting in his office
at the Spanish & Portuguese (neither Spanish nor Portuguese now)
synagogue in Montreal listening to him chat with the King of Morocco's
Secretary, about how he had to sing for Canadian political leaders who
"are good people but don't know how to appreciate this music like His
Majesty does..." (in French, for my benefit: otherwise he used Arabic).

I don't actually find the Bene Israel Bombay recording very good.
For years I've recorded Toronto and Hamilton area men from this
community - not professional musicians: their day jobs are things like
urban planning or office jobs - singing and they're wonderful; the
voices on the Diaspora Museum recording for some reason don't seem
nearly as good, maybe they were having an off-day...

As for Raices, I've always found their approach far too Spanish for
Sephardic music, and "sprightly" in my personal dictionary tends to be
a negative rather than positive attribute... they ARE good musicians,
but it tends to sound more like a Castillian folk group than like
Sephardic music...
> Garcia Sanchez has a
>lilting, sparkling voice and the accompaniments are sprightly.

For Shoshana's splendid collection, which has been out for many years
now, see my comments in my discography linked to Klezmershack.

Look out for the upcoming Cochini Jewish Women's Songs CD originally due
out in February but somewhat delayed....
Judith