a r t i s t : Irving Fields
t i t l e : Bagels And Bongos
d a t e : 2005
l a b e l : Reboot Stereophonic
g e n r e : Other
r l s. d a t e : May/2006
t r a c k s : 14
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 41,9 MB
_______________________________________________________________________
Reboot Stereophonic is proud to premiere its first release, a
re-issue of the long coveted but rarely heard 1959 gem from
the Irving Fields Trio, Bagels and Bongos. Bagels and Bongos
is a window into another worldùimmigrant hustlers with bongos
on the brain, music fiends tuned into ethnic radio and finding
Spanish and Yiddish fading into each other. a story of the
classic American criss-cross culture swap, Bagels and Bongos
was the crown jewel of the Jewish-Latin craze.
Bagels and Bongos is an album from a keyboard whiz named
Irving Fields who, at the age of 90, still plays six nights a
week at NinoÆs in Manhattan. He may play ôBlue Danubeö now,
but in the 40s and 50s he was the king of the Jewish-Latin
craze, holding court at elegant spots like the WaldorfÆs Crest
Room. After hitting it hard with ôMiami Beach Rhumbaö (Cugat
covered it, then Tito Puente), Fields struck gold with a
full-length experiment he dubbed Bagels & Bongos. Jewish gems
re-tooled in Latin tempos.
ôMr FieldÆs world is a slice of Old New York ,a city that
still gathers in cocktail lounges and hotel bars and orders
highballs and whose familiarity with the great American
songbook extends beyond Rod Stewart renditions. ô New York
Times 12/25/04
Born in 1915 on New York's Lower East Side, Irving started
playing piano when he was 8, wrote his first song when he was
9, and his stylistic leanings would change forever when, at
17, he landed his first major gig as the resident pianist for
a local cruise ship line bound for Cuba and Puerto Rico. It
was the height of Caribbean nightclub elegance, and Fields
fell in love with the music he heard percolating from the
sultry bandstands of San Juan and Havana. ôI went crazy for
Latin music,ö he recalls, ôI just loved it. I brought Latin
music back to New York and I featured the rhythms, tempos, and
selections in my repertoire. The rhythms were exciting because
you had the rumba, the merengue, the cha cha cha, the mambo,
the cumbia, tango, paso doble-an assortment of wonderful
rhythms.ö
Bagels and Bongos was recorded in Boston, over two days in
1959, but its mix of Jewish melodies and Latin American
rhythms was born over a decade earlier in Miami Beach. Fields
was in the middle of waltzing through French favorite ôAutumn
Leavesö during a show at the Versailles Hotel when the
crowd-mostly Jewish-demanded Fields' trademark Latin sound. So
mid-song, a waltz became a rumba and ôAutumn Leavesö became
ôMiami Beach Rumba.ö It would be Fields/Campos' first official
purple-label single for RCA Victor in 1946, complete with
bi-lingual Spanish and English lyrics from Johnnie Camacho and
Albert Gamse. Clearly, it was time for a full-scale
Latin-Jewish experiment, and Fields was just the man for the
job. He recorded a bunch of Jewish songs in Latin Tempo, Milt
Gabler over at Decca loved it, gave him a deal. It soon became
a smash all over the world-Italy, Japan, everybody loved it
even Eva Garnder who frequented The Crest Room, Jackie
Gleason, and Eleanor Roosevelt were regulars at the Mermaid
Room, even Leona Helmsley was a fan!
Bagels and Bongos followed a simple formula. Take the most
recognizable Jewish melodies and match them to their
tempo-appropriate Latin rhythm. So ôBelz Mein Shtetle Belzö,
gets a rumba makeover, ôBei Mir Bist Du Schoenö wakes up as a
mambo, ôHava Nagilaö becomes ôHavannah Negilaö and ôRabbi Eile
Melechö is re-born as ôMiami Merengue.ö For Fields, the two
musical traditions shared common sensibilities and feelings.
ôThe emotion of Jewish music just blends beautifully with
Latin music,ö he says. ôThere is a similarity between the
two-they both have a soulful feeling. The melodies go together
beautifully with the rhythms. Which is why I had never one
complaint from the Jewish community because I never messed
with the melody. I just added the rhythm, so people could
dance to it.ö
Bagels and Bongos was a mid-century smash, enough to inspire
Decca to order a sequel, the inventively-titled ôMore Bagels
and Bongos.ö The success of the Bagels albums and Fields'
continued passion for Latin music led to a string of
globe-trotting follow-ups: ôPizza and Bongosö (Fields goes
Italian), ôChampagne and Bongosö (Fields goes French), and
ôBikinis and Bongosö (Fields goes Hawaiian). ôEvery country
has beautiful music and beautiful melodies,ö Fields says,
ôThere is no language barrier with my music.ö
Yet it was the original Bagels and Bongos artifact and not any
of its United Nations of Melody clones that made Fields a
legend on the supper club circuit and established Fields as a
cult hero to jazz musicians with an ear for style-swapping.
More than any of his other recordings, it captured what Fields
did best: connecting disparate cultural dots with an arsenal
of Latin tempos while never losing sight of the immortality of
a good melody. Indeed, Fields may have done his four stints at
Carnegie Hall, headlined the London Palladium, and appeared on
The Milton Berle Show and The Tonight Show, but he's always
been, above all else, a ôroomö musician. Fields plays rooms--
the Mocambo, the Stork, the Mermaid, the St Moritz-because
they're intimate places where the quality of interaction
between the performer and the people he plays for is the
measure of success. It's a dying musical tradition of melody
and civility that Fields, now 90 years old and still playing
six nights a week has nearly single-handedly kept alive.
ôI just want to satisfy the people,ö he says. ôI love to play
a patron's favorite song. I love to play beautiful music,
melodic musicàmusic that survives the years.
_______________________________________________________________________
01-where shall i go [02:53]
02-pretty as a moonbeam [02:48]
03-i love you much too much [02:22]
04-havannah negila [02:16]
05-raisins and almonds [02:56]
06-mazeltov merengue [02:46]
07-david's dance (reb duvidel) [02:24]
08-joseph! joseph! [02:27]
09-little shawl (dus talesel) [02:59]
10-belz [03:41]
11-miami merengue (rabbi eile melech) [01:54]
12-my yiddishe momme [02:30]
13-cha cha no. 29 [02:35]
14-bei mir bist du schon [02:25]
-------
36:56 min