Throwback Thursday Musical Showcase: The Story of "The Lonely Bull" by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass

Today we're turning the calendar back to 1962 when American trumpeter Herb Alpert co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Ross. He recorded five No. 1 albums among 28 albums on the Billboard chart; achieving 14 platinum albums and 15 gold albums; and earning nine Grammy Awards. He has sold 72 million records worldwide.

A native of California, Alpert is the son of Tillie (née Goldberg) and Louis Leib Alpert. His parents were Jewish immigrants to the U.S. from Radomyshl (in present-day Ukraine) and Romania. Alpert's philanthropic donations include the Louis and Tillie Alpert Music Center in Jerusalem, which brings together both Arab and Jewish Students.

At age 86, Alpert is still performing. He has a concert scheduled in San Antonio, Texas on June 7, 2022.

During a visit to Tijuana, Mexico, Alpert happened to hear a mariachi band while attending a bullfight. Following the experience, Alpert recalled that he was inspired to find a way to express musically what he felt while watching the wild responses of the crowd, and hearing the brass musicians introducing each new event with rousing fanfare. Alpert adapted the trumpet style to the tune, mixed in crowd cheers and other noises for ambience, and renamed the song "The Lonely Bull". In the US, "The Lonely Bull" was a hit  in 1962, peaking at #6 on the Hot 100.

Originally the Tijuana Brass was just Alpert overdubbing his own trumpet, slightly out of sync. By the end of 1964, because of a growing demand for live appearances by the Tijuana Brass, Alpert auditioned and hired a team of crack session men. 

The band debuted in 1965, and became one of the highest-paid acts then performing, having put together a complete revue that included choreographed moves and comic routines written by Bill ("José Jiménez") Dana.  

Enjoy!

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  #Throwback Thursday    #TBT

Wacky Wednesday Comedy Special: Iliza Shlesinger Imagines Being a Pharmacist

Originally from Dallas, Iliza Shlesinger moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Emerson College. She is the only female and youngest comedian to hold the title of NBC'S Last Comic Standing. Most recently she was the host of CBS's syndicated comedy dating show Excused, in which she filmed 230 episodes. 

Iliza's TV credits include her own half-hour Comedy Central Presents special, as well as NBC'S Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, E! Network's Chelsea Lately and The Soup, NBC'S Last Call with Carson Daily, TBS’ Who Gets the Last Laugh?, and Showtime's Pauly Shore and Friends and Bridging the Gap Comedy Festival.

As Lior Zaltzman wrote in Kveller,

Shlesinger, who had a Bat Mitzvah and even went to Israel as a teen (she once lamented being rejected from Birthright because she had previously travelled to the Jewish state),  says that her comedy is very much inspired by Judaism’s seeking of the truth. “Judaism is so steeped in asking, ‘Why?’ Rabbis and men sit around in rooms all day questioning Torah. I think that trickles down in questioning other things,” she said in 2016 interview.

In this clip from her comedy show War Paint, Iliza acts out her fantasy of being a medieval witch doctor pharmacist.

Enjoy!

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Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Hava Nagila on Ocarina in South Korea

One of the joys of posting videos on Jewish Humor Central is discovering new versions of traditional Jewish and Hebrew songs as they are performed around the world, often in unexpected places.

Since we started Jewish Humor Central 13 years ago we have posted 103 different versions of Hava Nagila. The song has shown up in many countries, including some unexpected ones (Scroll down the left column on this page and click on "Hava Nagila" in the Keywords list and you'll see what we mean.)

Today we're posting our 104th version of Hava Nagila as played on a South Korea TV show this week on the ocarina, a woodwind musical instrument that is closed at both sides to produce an enclosed space, and punctured with finger holes. on a TV show in South Korea. 

Enjoy!

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Something That You've Never Seen Before"

It's Monday again, and time for another Joke to Start the Week. Today we were digging deep into the Internet archives and found a joke that was posted some years ago that somehow we missed until now. But most of the jokes we post are older than the Jews who tell them.

Today's joke was told by Steven Levy at a joke telling session at the Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, New Jersey. 

Here's the setup: A guy comes into a bar late at night and tells the bartender "If I show you something that you've never seen before, will you give me a scotch?" And then...

Enjoy!

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A Musical Tribute to Bubbies Everywhere and to the Delicious Jewish Food They Make

Paul Finkleman is a Calgary, Canada-based songwriter, performer, humorist and recording artist who uses the stage name Paulo. 

He has earned his reputation as an accomplished writer and entertainer, with a special talent for relating to audiences of all ages. 

A true minstrel, Paulo has written over a thousand songs – on every subject matter imaginable – several musicals, three books, and recorded nine CD’s. 

In addition to starring in his own award-winning Cable Children’s Television Series, “The Wizard of Od!”, (back in the 20th century!) Paulo has performed several thousand concerts and workshops in schools, on theatre stages, and at venues ranging from major Folk Festivals to the Athletes Village at the Winter Olympics.

Paulo has created a musical tribute to Bubbies everywhere who lovingly prepare the Jewish foods that we all love. In a four-minute song, he manages to pay homage to kichel, kugel, potato knishes, rugelach, taiglach, knaidlach, chremslach, hamantashen, latkes, sufganiyot, etc. etc. etc.

We bet this song will give you a good appetite. Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with Lecha Dodi by Bluegrass Band Kol Kahol

Formed in 2019, the bluegrass band Kol Kahol  seeks to push the boundaries of contemporary Jewish music and traditional American Roots music within the context of Jewish prayer. In combining these two musical identities, they tell their story through music.

The group is proud of its Eastern European Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish traditions, but also of their American heritage and its influence on their lives and musical style. In doing so, they offer a unique spiritual experience to those who are wrestling with their own identity, particularly regarding what it means to be an American Jew.

In this video, recorded last month, Kol Kahol sings Lecha Dodi, the central song in the Kabbalat Shabbat service. 

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Throwback Thursday Comedy Showcase: Rita Rudner in a 1987 TV Performance

We've been big fans of Rita Rudner ever since she started to appear on late night TV in the 1980s.

One of the hallmarks of her comedy is that it's clean, free from the vulgarity and shouting that many stand-up comics find necessary.  Her delivery is demure, tasteful, full of wry observations, and very funny.

Rudner started her career as a dancer, then switched to stand-up comedy about her dating experiences.  She married British producer Martin Bergman about 30 years ago and they have a daughter.  She is fond of Jewish humor but generally reserves it for when she performs for Jewish audiences.

 

We saw Rita on stage last month in Delray Beach, Florida, performing to a full house of 1300 masked people. She's still as funny today as she was in this 1987 TV appearance.

Enjoy!

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#Throwback Thursday     #TBT

Wacky Wednesday Comedy Showcase: Rickie Layne and his Dummy Velvel Tell Jokes on the Ed Sullivan Show

Rickie Layne (1924-2006) was born Richard Israel Cohen in Brooklyn. He was an actor and entertainer, but he was best known for his ventriloquism. In 2002 he received the Askins Award for lifetime achievement from the International Ventriloquist Association.

Layne began entertaining at age 9 doing impersonations of Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, and other stars but his act took on a new twist after an uncle gave him a ventriloquist's dummy.

Nat 'King' Cole was so impressed with Layne and his dummy Velvel that he urged Ed Sullivan to put the act on his popular Sunday night variety show and if Layne bombed, Cole said he would appear on the show himself at no charge. Layne went on to appear in 48 of Sullivan's shows.

Layne's dummy was originally named Willie, but while performing in the Catskills, he gave the dummy a Yiddish accent and changed his name to Velvel.

Here's a rare video clip of Rickie Layne and Velvel telling jokes on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1960.

Enjoy!

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Unsung Jewish Composers and Lyricists of the Great American Songbook - Ervin Drake and "It Was a Very Good Year"

It's well known that many of the songs that comprise the collection known as The Great American Song Book were written by Jewish composers and lyricists, mostly in the decades between 1930 and 1965, but also going back to the turn of the 20th century.

 

The most prolific of these writers are responsible for the great majority of songs. Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin lead the long list of songwriters and their songs number in the hundreds.

But there are many others that were written by composers and lyricists that you very likely never heard of. These songwriters wrote lots of pop songs to stand alone and as parts of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Most of the songs are long forgotten, but a few of them have become popular standards, and are sung as much today as in the years they were written.

In this series, which will run in Jewish Humor Central on a weekly basis, we will focus on one songwriter at a time, and feature a video performance of their most popular song.

Today we're featuring Ervin Drake, who was born in New York City as Ervin Maurice Druckman. He attended Townsend Harris High School and the City College of New York. One of his best known songs is I Believe which was made popular by Frankie Laine.

He wrote the words and music for It Was a Very Good Year in 1961, when a publisher friend told him that Bob Shane of the Kingston Trio would be in the publisher's office the next morning, and the publisher asked Drake to write a song for Shane to sing solo. 

 

In 1965, Frank Sinatra heard the song on his car radio as he was driving home in the desert and immediately pulled over in the middle of the night to a gas station and pay phone. Sinatra called Gordon Jenkins and told him he wanted him to make an arrangement with plenty of strings and maybe an interesting instrument like the oboe could be used as well. 

When he arrived back in L.A. he recorded it for his career comeback album September of My Years. The Sinatra recording was a Top 30 single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, and made No.1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. 

 

Here's the rare studio recording of Sinatra singing Jenkins' arrangement of It Was a Very Good Year. 

 

Enjoy!

 

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A Joke to Start the Week - "Can of Peaches"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week. Today Mickey Greenblatt is back with another oldie but goodie.

Marshal (Mickey) Greenblatt received degrees from Columbia (BA and BS in Flight Sciences), a DC from Von Karman Institute (1963) and his PhD from Princeton in Aerospace Sciences. He worked as a researcher for NASA and the Naval Research Laboratory. 

With four other scientists, he founded Fusion Systems Corporation, which invented microwave-powered UV lamps for drying coatings. He founded and served on the boards of technology companies and is active in volunteer work. He served on the executive committee of the Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington for many years.

Mickey also loves Jewish jokes and sent us this one to share with you. Here's the setup: Jake and Molly Paretsky have been married for 60 years. It has not been a good marriage. Most of the time Molly is berating Jake for everything he does. Plus, she has a little bit of a shoplifting problem. For example, one time they went shopping, she took a can of peaches and put it into her coat. And then...

Enjoy!

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Yiddish Nostalgia: Avi Hoffman Sings Aaron Lebedeff's Classic "Rumania, Rumania"

Last year Avi Hoffman went on stage with the Klezmer Company Jazz Orchestra to perform Aaron Lebedeff's Classic Yiddish song Rumania, Rumania.

Hoffman, CEO of Yiddishkayt Initiative, is a world-famous actor, who specializes in Jewish culture and Yiddish theater. His long-running “Too Jewish” trilogy has been seen by millions on PBS and in venues around the world. He has produced and presented shows throughout North America, Europe and Israel.

As Adrian Yekkes wrote in his blog,

The song harks back to what was once considered to be the golden era of Romanian Jewry, the years between the first and second world wars. During this time the Yiddish theatre thrived, Jewish culture blossomed and despite continuing discrimination there was a degree of prosperity and progress for Romania's Jews.

It describes the simple pleasures of a less sophisticated, more rural Jewish world. The lyrics describe Romania as a land where everyone is drinking wine, eating delicacies and dancing. It is also described as an amorous land where "he who kisses his own wife is one who is crazy.." and where the cook may be dressed in rags but she is still pretty, makes great puddings and is quite partial to a kiss!

Some of those delicacies are still on offer in Romania and indeed in Israel and old style Jewish restaurants today. These include mamalige - a porridge of yellow corn flour, karnatzl - a spicy beef sausage and patlazhele - an aubergine (or egg plant if you are not British!) salad. The song also mentions two cheeses - kashtaval which can refer to a specific cheese made from sheep milk as well as being a more generic term for yellow cheeses, whilst I am told (but can't find confirmation) that brinze is a kind of cottage cheese. 

Enjoy!

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Yesterday Purim Coincided with St. Patrick's Day. Here's What Saturday Night Live Did With it in 1984

We're still posting Purim content because today is Shushan Purim, an extra day of celebrating Purim in cities that were walled from the time of Joshua. Today the only city that meets this criteria is Jerusalem, and our relatives and friends in Jerusalem are getting an extra day to celebrate.

It's rare for Purim to coincide with St. Patrick's Day, but when they do, it presents an opportunity for lots of fun. The last time this happened was in 1984, when Saturday Night Live took advantage of the occurrence to open the show with a funny skit that blended the two holidays and included a cameo appearance of New York's mayor Ed Koch.

Enjoy the skit, and Shabbat shalom!

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Today is Purim! Here's a Lively Version of the Purim Story by the Students of Australia's Masada College

 

Located in St. Ives, a leafy suburb of Sydney on Australia's North Shore, Masada College is a Jewish co-educational school. In American terms, it's really a high school or secondary school. 

 

Students from all backgrounds are welcome to the school, which prides itself on inclusivity. Its educational mission is to raise responsible individual thinkers with a strong sense of social justice and confidence in their ability to determine their own future. Its graduates win scholarships and awards and embark on a diverse range of career paths. 

 

For Purim, the students of Masada College put on a lively show to retell the basic story of the holiday.

Enjoy, and Chag Sameach!

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Hamantaschen

This week CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment on hamantaschen, the edible symbols of Purim. The hamantasch, a triangular-shaped cookie served during the Jewish holiday of Purim, celebrates the spirit of resilience. 

Correspondent Faith Salie bites into the history of this treat, and of how it came to be associated with the Biblical tale of Esther – and a notorious villain.

In this segment, Gadi Peleg, owner of New York's Breads Bakery, shows the many hamantasch fillings available, including pizza. Stephanie Butnick, Deputy Editor of Tablet magazine and host of the podcast Unorthodox, explains the Purim story and how the cookies were named hamantaschen.

Enjoy, and have a happy Purim!

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Jewish Life Olympics to Return in 2023; South Florida Set to Host the Games (A Purim Spoof)

 This year Purim starts with the reading of Megillat Esther Wednesday night. It is read again Thursday morning, March 17. We wish a Happy Purim to all of our Jewish Humor Central readers. We hope you enjoy this special Purim spoof from the Purim 2022 issue of The Kustanowitz Kronikle. Print it and share it at your Purim Seudah.

 

A Joke to Start the Week - "A Chicken for Shabbat Dinner"

It's another Monday and time for another Joke to Start the Week. This week we're posting another joke from Dr. Jay Orlikoff, a retired dentist from Centereach, New York, a community on Long Island in Suffolk County.

After a distinguished and meritorious dental career, he is shifting his focus to telling and posting jokes on YouTube. We were fortunate to find some of his jokes and we're sharing one of the family-friendly ones with you today. 

Here's the setup: Mrs. Greenberg is having guests over for Shabbat dinner. So she goes to the butcher and she says "I want to get a chicken for dinner." And then...

Enjoy!

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Actress Zoey Deutch Quizzes Jimmy Fallon on His Yiddish Vocabulary

Last week actress Zoey Deutch appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show and quizzed him on his Yiddish vocabulary. Tossing out the words Mishpacha, Shayna Punim, Shmegegge, Shmendrik, and Shmo, She asked Fallon to guess their correct translations. 

Deutch's big screen breakthrough came in the supporting role of Emily Asher, alongside Emma Thompson, Thomas Mann and Alden Ehrenreich in the 2013 fantasy-romance-drama Beautiful Creatures based on a well-known young adult novel of the same name written by authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and the first book in the Caster Chronicles series. Deutch also appeared on NCIS, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, ABC Family's Switched at Birth and in Marc Cherry's television pilot Hallelujah.

Enjoy!

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Welcoming Shabbat with the Y-Studs and Evolution of Shabbat

The Y-Studs, the Yeshiva University a cappella group, has produced Evolution of Shabbat, a video that includes most of the Shabbat songs that we know so well. It's a follow-up to their 2017 video Evolution of Jewish Music chronicling the evolution of Jewish music from the 1600s to the present day.

 

In this just-released video, the Y-Studs sing a medley of excerpts from the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, kiddush, zemirot, Shacharit, Torah reading, Musaf, Seuda Shelishit, and Havdalah.

Enjoy, and Shabbat shalom!

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Throwback Thursday Entertainment Showcase: Neil Diamond Introduces "Sweet Caroline" in 1969

On Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" is as popular today as it was in 1969, the year he recorded it and sang it on the entertainment circuit, including this performance on the Ed Sullivan Show on November 30, 1969.

On this Throwback Thursday we go back 53 years to watch a young Neil Diamond caress the lyrics of his most popular song.

In a 2007 interview, Diamond stated the inspiration for his song was John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, who was eleven years old at the time it was released. Diamond sang the song for her at her 50th birthday celebration in 2007. On December 21, 2011, in an interview on CBS's The Early Show, Diamond said that a magazine cover photo of Caroline as a young child on a horse with her parents created an image in his mind, and the rest of the song came together about five years after seeing the picture.  

However, in 2014 Diamond said the song was about his then-wife Marsha, but he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody. The song has proven to be enduringly popular and, as of November 2014, has sold over two million digital downloads in the United States.

The song reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the week ending August 16, 1969, and was certified gold by the RIAA on August 18, 1969, for sales of one million singles."Sweet Caroline" was also the first of fifty-eight entries on the US Easy Listening chart, peaking at #3.

In the autumn of 1969, Diamond performed "Sweet Caroline" on several television shows. It later reached No. 8 on the UK singles chart in March 1971.

In July 2021, "Sweet Caroline" re-entered the UK Singles Chart again 50 years after its first UK release, following its use by England supporters during Euro 2020. It re-entered the chart at No. 48 on the week ending 15 July and a week later it rose to No. 20.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamond changed some of the lyrics to "Hands ... washing hands ... don't touch me ... I won't touch you."

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#Throwback Thursday    #TBT

The Great Jewish Comedians - Menashe Skulnik on the Ed Sullivan Show

Menashe Skulnik (Yiddish: מנשה סקולניק, May 15, 1890 – June 4, 1970) was an American actor, primarily known for his roles in Yiddish theater in New York City.

Skulnik was also popular on radio, playing Uncle David on The Goldbergs for 19 years. He made many television and Broadway appearances as well, including successful runs in Clifford Odets's The Flowering Peach and Harold Rome's The Zulu and the Zayda. 

Skulnik knew exactly what he was in comedy: "I play a schlemiel, a dope. Sometimes they call me the Yiddish Charlie Chaplin, and I don't like this. Chaplin's dope is a little bit of a wiseguy. He's got a little larceny in him. I am a pure schlemiel, with no string attached." Skulnik was dubbed the "East Side's Chaplin" by the New York Evening Journal in 1935.

Here is Skulnik in a rare TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1966. Enjoy!

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Unsung Jewish Composers and Lyricists of the Great American Songbook - George David Weiss and "What a Wonderful World"

It's well known that many of the songs that comprise the collection known as The Great American Song Book were written by Jewish composers and lyricists, mostly in the decades between 1930 and 1965, but also going back to the turn of the 20th century.

The most prolific of these writers are responsible for the great majority of songs. Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin lead the long list of songwriters and their songs number in the hundreds.

But there are many others that were written by composers and lyricists that you very likely never heard of. These songwriters wrote lots of pop songs to stand alone and as parts of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and Hollywood movies. Most of the songs are long forgotten, but a few of them have become popular standards, and are sung as much today as in the years they were written.

In this series, which will run in Jewish Humor Central on a weekly basis, we will focus on one songwriter at a time, and feature a video performance of their most popular song.

Today we're featuring George David Weiss, who was born to a Jewish family in the Bronx. He originally planned to be a lawyer or accountant, but out of a love for music he attended the Juilliard School of Music, developing a talent for writing and arranging. He wrote the English lyrics for “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

Weiss is best known for writing Louis Armstrong's big hit, What a Wonderful World, a song that is simply about appreciating the beauty of your surroundings.

 

In the song, Louis sings of seeing various events and natural wonders that make him smile, while also perhaps lamenting the passage of time, noting: "I hear babies crying, I watch them grow, they'll learn much more than I'll never know".

 

Weiss was also said to be inspired by Armstrong's ability to bring people of different races together.

 

The song was not initially a hit in America, where it sold less than 1,000 copies because ABC Records head Larry Newton did not like the song and chose not to promote it.

 

However, it was a huge success in the UK, reaching number one and becoming the biggest-selling single of 1968. The song made Louis Armstrong the oldest male to top the UK Singles Chart. Tom Jones later broke this record in 2009.

 

In 1988, Armstrong's recording appeared in the film Good Morning, Vietnam (despite the film being set in 1965 — two years before it was recorded) and was re-released as a single. This time, it reached a new peak of number 32.

 

With music by Bob Thiele, here is the hit recording by Louis Armstrong.

Enjoy!

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