A Bisl Pintele Musik

One of the pleasures of working on Pintele has been spending time with all the great music heard throughout the series. As indicated in the credits for each episode, many of the key Pintele selections are licensed from the remarkable Pond5 collection, which I strongly recommend as an affordable way for independent creators to score their projects. Pintele also features many older, public domain recordings, including several from the University of Wisconsin’s invaluable Mayrent Collection of Yiddish Recordings. And, as expressed in the series and accompanying web notes, I’m especially grateful to some brilliant contemporary Yiddish artists, Eleanor Reissa and The Mamales, for granting permission to use some of their work.

Much to my delight, some Pintele listeners have contacted me about music used in the series, either to express appreciation for it, or to comment on specific selections, or to ask how to access the music by itself. I wish I could release an official Pintele “soundtrack,” or at least put all of the Pintele music into one master playlist for your enjoyment (and mine). That’s not quite possible, but I hope this post will at least partly satisfy any desires you might have for a bisl Pintele musik.

First, here’s a YouTube playlist featuring about 40 selections, most of which are heard or referenced in the Pintele audio series (in some cases, in different versions):

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY_KFLWHk_6YQtxj_4BFdfTBDh8erR5K5&si=NrgYTLWqL8MFTEOl

I want to call special attention to Eleanor Reissa’s “Lebn Zol Columbus / Yankee Doodle Boy,” which closes Pintele 1: Straight Outta Anatevka. The recording is included in the above playlist, but I recommend Ms. Reissa’s record Going Home: Gems of Yiddish Song in its entirety, as well as her subsequent Songs in the Key of Yiddish. And I want to call special attention to The Mamales’ recording of “Abi Gezunt,” which closes Pintele 7: Next Year in Manhattan. It, too, is included in the above playlist. The Mamales haven’t released an album yet, but I’ll see you at the front of the line to buy it the moment they do, and in the meantime, the trio’s Instagram page has information for bookings, and their “Abi Gezunt” concept video is embedded at the end of this post.

And finally, here are links for some important Pintele musical selections which are not available on YouTube, and are therefore not included in the playlist:

• “Hava Nagila Sly Violin” (Musical Production)

• “Lebn Zol Columbus” (Abraham Rosenstein)

• “Klezmer Moon” (Cynthia Anastasia La Fata)

• “Mir fohren kein America” (Hymie Jacobson and Fanny Lubritsky)

• “Internationale” (Künstler Orchestra)

• “Kaddish” (Cantor Alberto Meir Pinkas)

• “Golden Wedding” (Rita Marlowe with Sid Phillips and His Orchestra)

• “On Sabbath Eve” Part One_and Part Two (Efim Schachmeister and his Künstler Orchestra)

• “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (Mike Fielding)

• “Dayenu” (Cantor David Putterman)

• “Kiddush” (Cantor Edgar Mills and the Oheb Shalom Quartet)

• “Ma Nishtana” (Orquesta de Camara and the Zimra Quartet)

• “Go Down Moses” (Andy Warner Band)

• “Da-Ye-Nu” (The Burton Sisters)

• “Dos Pintele Yid” (Pepi Littmann)

• “Das Pintele Jud” (Jakob Fuchs and Choir of the Jewish Theater, Lemberg)

• “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” (Rusian Sirota)

• “Hava Nagila” and “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” (Tikvah Records)

• “Hello, Schmendrik!” (Morris Goldstein)

For more about the music and musical artists featured in Pintele, see the episode pages on this website, or even better, listen to the series again!