Search - Judy Frankel :: Sephardic Songs of Love

Judy Frankel, may her soul be bound in eternal life

Howard Metzenberg | Evanston, IL United States | 04/02/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was sad to hear of the death of Judy Frankel today (March 20, 2008). I've owned all of her albums since their re-release on CD, and I've seen her perform. (The final album is actually a compilation from others, and does not contain new material.) Her recordings were very pure and genuine, not overdubbed, almost as if she were performing live. She was a guitar technician too. She achieved a very pure tone and precise technique on acoustic instruments.



I only have some idea of what she accomplished. I know that she carefully sang each song in the dialect in which she learned it, and they she documented much about the history of the song and the community where it survived. When I heard her perform, she gave explanations and background, but it was not excessive or pedantic, and did not detract from the music. It was enough to show that she was conveying traditions.



Some artists who recover traditional music try to slavishly imitate styles that are impossible to convey. Judy Frankel's recordings were the right mix of tradition and innovation. She added enough modern idiom to ancient Sephardic folk songs to make them timeless. She is more out of the tradition of the 1960s fold revival, whereas the Klezmer revival owes more to Jazz.



Judy sings in Ladino, which is so startlingly similar to modern Spanish that you can understand it if you speak Spanish. Her Ladino accent sounded California-Mexican to me, not Iberian, but I am sure it was carefully learned from the vanished peoples who taught her the music, grandmothers from Rhodes, Salonika, or the Maghreb.



I recommend "Songs of Love and Hope" as the first Judy Frankel album you purchase. It will make you want to own the others."