Mazel Tov, Mis Amigos

  This past week nonprofit Jewish-musical-gem-finding juggernaut The Idelsohn Society re-released Juan Calle and His Latin Lantzmen's 1961 Jewish-Latin mambo album "Mazel Tov, Mis Amigos."  And the album will be performed in its entirety at Lincoln Center this Sunday, Aug. 23. The one-shot concert is free, so if you happen to be in the NYC area, I'd highly suggest stopping by. I however will be relegated to listening to the album on my Ipod speeding through San Francisco's Financial District on my way to the j. But I digress.

"Mazel Tov, Mis Amigos," digitally re-mastered for the re-release, interprets Yiddish theater classics through the Latin dance styles of the late 1950s, early 1960s. It was actually part of a whole Jewish-Latin explosion that I sadly knew nothing about until I read Josh Kun's excellent encylopedia Jewmusica: “And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost.” Full Disclosure: Kun is part of the Idelsohn Society and wrote the liner notes for this re-release.

The album features 11 songs including Herman Yablokoff's "Papiroseen," “Yossel, Yossel”  and that old Jewy standby “Havah Nagila,” re-imagined in full mambo swing. Normally I'm not such a fan of "fusion" but there's something about the mid-century Jewish-Latin combo that really works for me. I guess it's that whole bagels and bongos vibe that draws me in. Percussion and carbs, you dig?

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