{"id":80209,"date":"2020-09-17T17:05:29","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T15:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=80209"},"modified":"2020-09-10T16:42:40","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T14:42:40","slug":"16-05-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=80209","title":{"rendered":"In the 1920s, a Black cantor moved the world"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>In the 1920s, a Black cantor moved the world<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

PJ Grisar<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Image by Courtesy of Henry Sapozni \/ A poster for Thomas LaRue (here styled as \u201cLa-Rue\u201d), the \u201cBlack Cantor.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In a November 4, 1921 article, critic Z. Karnblit of Der Morgn Zhurnal<\/em> described LaRue\u2019s stirring concert rendition of \u201cEli, Eli\u201d \u2014 a Yiddish song Karnblit typically despised.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis, however, was a new \u2018Eli, Eli\u2019 by a Black cantor which was so very heartfelt, and which drew so deeply from Jewish martyrdom, the Jewish cry, begging God why he has forsaken him, and producing from this song what even the greatest opera singers could not. Every person in the theater was transfixed by the Black cantor\u2019s powerful poetic harmony.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet while LaRue was celebrated in his time, he remains something of a cipher. Biographical details are scant, but he appears to have been born in Newark, N.J. to a non-Jewish mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe lived in Newark where she found race prejudice to be very strong,\u201d LaRue told The New York Age, a Black newspaper in 1922. \u201cShe could make friends only with Jewish women preferring the company of Jews to Christians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While it isn\u2019t clear if LaRue\u2019s mother converted, the article contends that she insisted he have a Jewish primary school education, be able to pray from a siddur and have a bar mitzvah in his 13th year. LaRue appears to have been brought up in a white Jewish milieu, and his notices, mooning over his voice and its fidelity of sound, bear the proof of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe lived in a Jewish soundscape,\u201d Sapoznik said.<\/span><\/p>\n

LaRue wasn\u2019t the only Black cantor of his day, but he is nonetheless anomalous \u2014 not only was his voice immortalized on a 78 rpm record, he came from a wholly different tradition than his contemporaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Sapoznik details in his first blog post, the early 20th Century and the Great Migration gave rise to a number of Black synagogues in Harlem, then also a heavily Jewish enclave.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of these shuls had a recognizable Jewish liturgy, with services in Hebrew, but the proceedings were also imbued with the Black experience. Many congregations derived Judaism from their Jewish neighbors \u2014 whose Zionist ideals might have appealed to early notions of Black nationalism. Others, founded by West Indians, may have been formed by descendants of enslaved people whose slaveholders were Jews. Whatever their origins or customs, a cantorial culture emerged.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image by Courtesy of Henry Sapozni \/ A cantor named Mendel, fluent in both Hebrew and Yiddish, and specializing in Yiddish songs and cantorial prayers.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the cantors was a Barbados-born man named Mendel, who performed in the Yiddish theater and specialized in Yiddish songs and cantorial prayers. Yet another \u2014 and certainly the most fascinating \u2014 was an Ethiopian calligrapher named Dovid Ha\u2019Cohen who claimed to have known 29 languages, been educated in Paris and Palestine and apprenticed with a Russian cantor. According to a Variety article from the time, Ha\u2019Cohen made the vaudeville circuit in 1921 and, from what we can tell, he ended his career leading the congregation of the Universal Ancient Ethiopian Spiritual Church of Christ in Hebrew prayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

But LaRue doesn\u2019t appear to have been affiliated with Black synagogues. In fact, he may not have been part of any congregation at all after childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe invented himself it seems by not having a synagogue, by only existing in the popular world,\u201d said Sapoznik, noting that, as a Black man, he\u2019d never have a chance at the pulpit in a White temple. \u201cHe existed on the periphery of immigrant Ashkenazic life \u2014 immigrants for whom the language and the culture around the language was foremost.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another musician, stride pianist Willie \u201cThe Lion\u201d Smith, also from Newark and born to a white Jewish father and Christian mother of Black, Spanish and Native American heritage, had a similar experience to LaRue, attending synagogue with his white Jewish neighbors. But while he listed \u201cHebrew cantor\u201d and \u201cYiddisher khazn\u201d<\/em> on his business card (and popularized<\/a> the aforementioned \u201cEli, Eli\u201d for Black singers), he was better known for tickling the ivories in a Jazz context. According to Sapoznik, LaRue appears to have only ever performed in the Jewish sphere, singing Jewish music.<\/span><\/p>\n

He started early. One oft-circulated origin story states that LaRue was at a Shabbat service as a child when a cantor suddenly took ill. LaRue was said to have enveloped himself in his tallit<\/em> and rushed to the bimah to replace him. So wonderful was his voice that the initially-angered congregants began praying along with him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Image by Courtesy of Henry Sapozni \/ A cantor named Dovid Ha\u2019Cohen, who went by many other names over his diverse career<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

LaRue signed on with a concert agent, and toured the vaudeville circuit with Yiddish songs before making his mark in New York\u2019s Yiddish theater in a number of new plays with famed producers Goldberg and Jacobs. He also played vaudeville houses before eventually embarking on a tour of Europe, causing a stir with the Yidden of Poland.<\/span><\/p>\n

But none of Sapoznik\u2019s research \u2014 not the glowing reviews or the potentially apocryphal biography \u2014 could prepare him for hearing LaRue\u2019s voice for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize that I was holding my breath,\u201d Sapoznik said. \u201cWhen the music started, it sounded so familiar. The acoustic nature of it. Even the sound of the ensemble was incredibly familiar. But then this voice comes out. I can\u2019t compare it to any other commercial singer \u2013 you know, a Molly Picon or Aaron Lebedeff. It was this unique and present voice that now, all of the reviews that I\u2019ve read about these gobsmacked Yiddish newspapermen \u2014 all of their high praise was not misplaced. It was reportage!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sapoznik said LaRue\u2019s phrasing and tonalities \u2014 the hard parts of nailing the sound \u2014 were immaculate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what flipped the Jewish listeners out,\u201d Sapoznik said. \u201cHe could say a \u2018chet\u2019<\/em> with the best of them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Image by Photo by William Gottlieb. \/ Willie \u201cThe Lion\u201d Smith, a stride pianist, performer at Harlem\u2019s Clef Club and, also, a cantor.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In one of LaRue\u2019s cantorial offerings, \u201cMisratzeh B\u2019rachamim\u201d<\/em> a horn-forward opening yields to an expansive tenor, masterfully maneuvering through precipitous key changes and dynamic melisma. It\u2019s good \u2014 moving even \u2014 but it sounds at home with other recordings of cantors.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the flip side, though, LaRue sings an original Yiddish song, \u201cYidele, Farlier Nit Dein Hoffnung.\u201d<\/em> While the instrumental quality sounds comparable, the singing is something altogether different \u2014 rich and remarkably expressive. The voice is at once twangy and powerful and, most remarkably, it cracks periodically. It would be a disservice to the recording, however, to call that crack a fault of the type one hears routinely during a bar mitzvah boy\u2019s haftarah. The crack \u2014 which is unmistakable in the final note \u2014 is emotive, giving the impression that LaRue unloaded all of his energy and vigor into the take.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo hear Yosselle Rosenblatt coming out of Thomas La Rue didn\u2019t freak me out,\u201d Sapoznik said, referring to the famed cantor of the same era. \u201cBut this Yiddish song on the other side \u2014 I don\u2019t hear anyone but him and it is such a unique voice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Since receiving the recording, Sapoznik has been revisiting research he hasn\u2019t looked at since \u201cthe Carter presidency.\u201d He\u2019s been flooded with messages from Black visitors to his blog, where he is still in the midst unfolding LaRue\u2019s fascinating and ultimately bittersweet saga. Many reaching out are surprised by the level of cultural symbiosis between Black people newly-arrived in Harlem and their white Jewish neighbors in the early part of the 20th century.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a moment when Sapoznik sees fissures between these communities, he finds the work of exploring their common past particularly meaningful.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe received history of this time has been so narrow that episodes like this, that talk about a grassroots level of interaction, are priceless,\u201d Sapoznik said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet LaRue was just one piece of a larger musical tradition of his time, when Black men (and some women) moved multitudes with Hebrew prayers and songs in the mamaloshen<\/em>. There were others.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI just wish they were recorded,\u201d Sapoznik said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the 1920s, a Black cantor moved the world PJ Grisar Image by Courtesy of Henry Sapozni \/ A poster for Thomas LaRue (here styled as \u201cLa-Rue\u201d), the \u201cBlack Cantor.\u201d In a November 4, 1921 article, critic Z. Karnblit of Der Morgn Zhurnal described LaRue\u2019s stirring concert rendition of \u201cEli, Eli\u201d \u2014 a Yiddish song Karnblit typically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80209"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80397,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80209\/revisions\/80397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}