Jewish Music

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).