Turkish Folk Song For Istanbul

SMYRNA Recollections - Introduction - This is a short journey into the memory of Izmir before 1922. Throughout this journey you will be hearing only three languages out of many that had echoed on the streets during that period: Turkish, Romaic (Greek) and Jewish Spanish (Ladino). A multicultural folk song parade awaits you to help you visualise Izmir as an almost complete picture.

The recordings by Isaac Algazi (b. İzmir / Turkey 1889, d. Montevideo / Uruguay 1950) presented here are a precious testimony to Sephardi musical traditions in the last decades of the Ottoman period. Beginning in the 1920s there was not a single Jewish home in Turkey with a gramophone that did not possess Algazi’s records, and by the late 1930s he was known throughout Turkey and beyond as ne’im zemirot Israel (Sweet Singer of Israel; an expression originally used to refer to King David). Algazi was admired not only by Jews but also by Turks – who considered him one of their greatest musicians, honoring him with the titles of Efendi and Hoca (hodja = Master).