A Really Big Shew

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• Irving Fields
• Johnny Yune

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In 1959, Irving Fields cut a record called Bagels and Bongos, and listening to Emusic samples we have to say, Irv, you got down with your bad self. The bells, the skittering drums, the tinkling piano, the lots of bongos, all laced with Jewish and Latin rhythms -- it makes for easy but fantastic listening. Track four is “Havannah Negila” (yes, that “Havannah Negila”). It puts us in mind of another Jewish recording curiosity, the 1975 album Ose Shalom, which is a curiosity not because it was sung entirely in Hebrew and Yiddish by a Jewish nightclub singer in the ‘60s, but because the singer was Johnny Yune, a Korean-American actor who would go on to star in the movies They Call Me Bruce? and They Still Call Me Bruce. The reason we’re thinking of these two stars of yesteryear is because -- weirdly, strangely, greatly, and more than a little confoundedly -- they both appear tonight, at the Jews on Vinyl Revue, singing their classic tunes. Prepare to lounge.
Thu., April 30, 7 p.m., 2009