Various artists

Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World. Yiddisher Jazz in London East End 1920s to 1950s

Various artists - Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World. Yiddisher Jazz in London East End 1920s to 1950s

New label JWM Records launch with the selection 'Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World'. A vibrant soundtrack to the Cockney Jewish experience, starting when the swinging hot dance bands were still all the rage, and the Yiddish language was spoken on the streets of Whitechapel, in London’s East End. For some, music or acting was a potential way out of the poverty experienced by these first and second generation refugees.

Sounds from long-forgotten 78 rpm discs only recently unearthed, reveal a host of recording artists, united here for the first time. Klezmer fused very easily with jazz, a connection that becomes apparent in these recordings. Hear the legendary dance band figures of the era like Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra, and Lew Stone and his Monseigneur Band, to the relatively unknown Jewish speciality acts like Johnny Franks and his Kosher Ragtimers, and Rita Marlowe, the siren of Yiddish song. Delight in the cheeky street patter of the incomparable slapstick drummer Max Bacon, rejoicing in the East Enders' love affair with ‘Beigels’; celebrate the world famous Petticoat Lane street market with not one, but two fox-trots - but also shed a tear with Leo Fuld, the remarkable Dutch Yiddish singer, whose recordings in post-war London were haunting reminders of a way of life decimated by the Holocaust.

Sale Jazz
LP JWM Records: JWMLP001