Artist: various
Album: Kosher Nostra Jewish Gangsters Greatest Hits
Released: 2011
Quality: CBR 320
Size: 140 MB
…This incredibly strange, exceptionally deep and exceedingly broad compilation of songs related to Jewish American mobsters offers a series of fractured takes about the situation. The music covers a wide time period, from the ‘20s to the ‘60s, and seems sequenced in random order, but the juxtapositions of the different material force the listener to make connections. Further complicating the issue is that many of the songs and artists are not Jewish. While one may appreciate the three titles by Italian-American teenage heartthrob Connie Francis (nee Concetta Rosa Maria Franconera) emotionally sung in Yiddish, or even Welshman Tom Jones’ torch song take on “My Yiddishe Mamme”, you have to ask why Chubby Checker’s rendition of “Misirlou” that ends with the line “Heave will guide us\Allah will bless our love” is here at all. The only clue provided in the liner notes is that the original was a popular folk song in the Jewish communities of Asia Minor. Well, maybe that and it sounds Middle Eastern (re: Semitic) and has found its way into Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction as done by Dick Dale… ~ read full review by Steven Horowitz
