How did Klezmer fit into the Catskills?
In the early years going back to the 20s and things, klezmer was the Catskills. When they first started using musicians in the hotels, who were the people who were going to the hotels? Immigrants. Even though most of them were not religious, I mean when most of the got to this country they shaved off their beards, we know that. In that time, Jewish dance music was what today we call klezmer. In those years it wasn’t always called Klezmer. When I broke into the business in the 50s, we called it the freilachs and the bulgars. That means the old tunes from the Dave Tarras/Naftule Brandwein repertoire. Back in the 20s none of us existed; I wasn’t a gleam in my father’s eye. Essentially the bands played that stuff. I would say about toward 1930 the American music began to come in because the children of the first generation Americans changed their names from Schwartz to Shaw, from Greenberg to Green. They didn’t want to know. Everything that was grine was out, it was outr, unhip. In any cas
