Jewish and Israeli music
Religious
Contemporary Piyyut Zemirot Nigun Pizmonim Baqashot
Secular
Israeli Klezmer Sephardic Mizrahi Secular music Mainstream and jazz Classical Jewish art music
Dance
Israeli folk dancing Ballet Horah Hava Nagila Yemenite dancing
Israel
Hatikvah Jerusalem of Gold
Piyyutim
Adon Olam Geshem Lekhah Dodi Ma'oz Tzur Yedid Nefesh Yigdal
Music for Holidays
Shabbat Hanukkah Blessings Oh Chanukah Dreidel song Al Hanisim Mi Y'malel Ner Li Passover (Haggadah) Ma Nishtana Dayenu Adir Hu Chad Gadya Echad Mi Yodea
v t e

Pizmonim (Hebrew פזמונים, singular pizmon) are traditional Jewish songs and melodies with the intentions of praising God as well as learning certain aspects of traditional religious teachings. They are sung throughout religious rituals and festivities such as prayers, circumcisions, bar mitzvahs, weddings and other ceremonies. Pizmonim are generally sung in Hebrew.

Pizmonim are extra-liturgical, as distinct from piyyutim, which are hymns printed in the prayer-book and forming an integral part of the service. Similar songs sung in the synagogue on the Sabbath morning between midnight and dawn are called baqashot (שירת הבקשות).

Geographical background[link]

Pizmonim are traditionally associated with Middle Eastern Sephardi Jews, although they are related to Ashkenazi Jews' zemirot. The best known tradition is associated with Jews descended from Aleppo, though similar traditions exist among Iraqi Jews (where the songs are known as shbaḥoth, praises) and in North African countries. Jews of Greek, Turkish and Balkan origin have songs of the same kind in Ladino, associated with the festivals: these are known as coplas.

History of texts[link]

The texts of many pizmonim date back to the Middle Ages or earlier. Many are taken from the Tanakh, while others were composed by poets such as Yehuda Halevi and Israel Najara of Gaza. Some melodies are quite old, while others may be based on popular Middle Eastern music, with the words composed specially to fit the tune.^[1] A prolific composer of pizmonim of this last kind was Hakham Refael Antebi Tabbush (Aleppo 1830^[2]-Cairo 1919), who is regarded as the founder of the tradition in its present form. The tradition has since been exported to Syrian Jewish communities in the Americas by his pupils, principally Moses Ashear. Pizmonim are composed for special occasions such as weddings and bar mitzvahs by Cantors in the past, as well as the present, by Ezekiel Albeg, Gabriel A. Shrem (a student of Ashear), Eliyahu Menaged (a student of Tabbush), Rabbi Raphael Yair Elnadav, and others.

[edit] Maqamat (maqams)

All pizmonim can be classified under different maqams (musical modes), of which there are about ten in common use. Maqam Ajam, which sounds a little like a Western major scale, is the thematic maqam that contains many holiday melodies. Maqam Hijaz, which corresponds to the Phrygian dominant scale, is the thematic maqam that contains many sad melodies. Maqam Sikah (or Siga), containing many three-quarter-tone intervals, is used for the cantillation of the Torah. Maqam Saba is the maqam used for circumcisions.

Origins of tradition[link]

The origin of the tradition must be seen in the context of certain rulings of the Geonim discouraging the use of piyyutim in core parts of the prayer service. These rulings were taken seriously by the Kabbalistic school of Isaac Luria, and from the sixteenth century on many hymns were eliminated from the service. As the community did not wish to lose these much-loved hymns, the custom grew up of singing them extra-liturgically. Thus, the original core of the pizmonim collection consists of hymns from the old Aleppo ritual (published in Venice in 1560) and hymns from the Sephardic service by Yehuda Halevi, Solomon ibn Gabirol and others. A few hymns were also taken from the liturgy of the Romaniotes.

Further pizmonim were composed and added to the collection through the centuries. This practice may have arisen out of a Jewish prohibition of singing songs of the non-Jews (due to the secular character and lyrics of the songs). This was true in the case of Arabic songs, whereby Jews were allowed to listen to the songs, but not allowed to sing them with the text. In order to bypass the problem, many composers, throughout the centuries, wrote new lyrics to the songs with the existing melodies, in order not to violate the tradition of not singing non-Jewish songs.

Liturgical and non-liturgical use[link]

During typical Shabbat and holiday services in the Syrian tradition, the melodies of pizmonim are used as settings for some of the prayers, in a system of rotation to ensure that the maqam suits the mood of the holiday or the Torah reading. Each week there is a different maqam assigned to the cantor according to the theme of the given Torah portion of the week. A pizmon may also be sung in honour of a person called up to the Torah, immediately before or after the reading: usually this is chosen so as to contain some allusion to the person's name or family.

Pizmonim, or any melodies, are generally not applied throughout the week during prayer services.

Another occasion for their use is at the gatherings some individuals would hold in their homes on Shabbat afternoons. A gathering of this kind may take the form of an extended kiddush, and is known as a sebbet (from the Syrian Arabic for "Saturday").

Red book[link]

In 1959, the Syrian community of Brooklyn, New York, acted on the need of compiling their own pizmonim book based on their ancient traditions from Aleppo. Prior to this, there were many older pizmonim books circulating around the community, but they didn't have Hebrew vowels, and were generally difficult for the masses to utilize.

The book, which was published by the Sephardic Heritage Foundation, was started in 1949 by Gabriel Shrem and was completed in 1964. It aimed to include the ancient [Baqashot and Petihot], the old [Israel Najara, Mordechai Abadi, Refael Taboush, Moshe Ashear], and the new material (Refael Elnadav, Ezra Dweck, Gabriel A. Shrem, Ezekiel Albeg, Abraham Cohen Saban, Ezra Mishaniye, and other modern Israeli melodies). The book also has innovative features very useful for a cantor, such as a list of Maqams to go with the specific perasha, as well as which pieces of Sabbath prayers fit with the melodies of certain pizmonim. In later editions, more songs were added to the book in their appropriate sections.

The classic red pizmonim book mentioned above serves Syrian Jews today as their official canon of pizmonim.

The book is currently in its ninth edition.

Sephardic Pizmonim Project[link]

The Sephardic Pizmonim Project, founded by David M. Betesh, is a foundation dedicated to the scholarship, restoration and preservation of the ancient music of the Sephardic-Syrian Jewish community. The project is dedicated to the memory of Cantor Gabriel A. Shrem, the former director of Yeshiva University's Cantorial Institute (Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music), cantor of B'nai Yosef Synagogue, and editor-in-chief of the "Shir uShbaha Hallel veZimrah" pizmonim book.

The idea of the project began in the late 1970s when Shrem started teaching a course at Yeshiva University. As a demonstration tool, Shrem recorded the bulk of the pizmonim for classroom distribution. The collection resulting from these recordings encompassed roughly 65% of the Sephardic pizmonim liturgy.

The Sephardic Pizmonim Project organisation re-released all of Shrem's recordings on a large CD collection in September 2004 selling approximately 6,050 CDs throughout the world. The organisation opened a website in 2006 with the goal of "continuing the work that Gabriel Shrem started and preserving all [Middle Eastern Jewish] liturgical traditions". In the process, cantors throughout the world have contacted the organisation and provided recordings to further enhance the project. The project's website (www.pizmonim.com) contains recordings of the Biblical taamim and the baqashot, together with pizmonim not included in the CD collection.

More recently, the project has announced that it has reached the benchmark of only missing 90 melodies of pizmonim from the 'Shir Ushbaha Hallel VeZimrah' pizmonim book. When the project first began, they were missing over 300 pizmonim. The last 90 pizmonim that are still missing will be more difficult to obtain due to the aging population and the general difficulty of those specific pizmonim. However, the project is currently attempting to reach Syrian Jews across the world (from Jerusalem, to New York, to Buenos Aires, to Mexico, and to Panama...) in order to track down those who know the missing songs and then get them recorded for the website.

Significant contributors to this project include the venerated cantor, Isaac Cabasso, of Congregation Beth Torah in Brooklyn, New York, and Joseph Mosseri, the founder and moderator of the Sephardic Hazzanut Forum.

See also[link]

• Baqashot
• Maqam
• Syrian Jews
• Syrian Cantors
• The Weekly Maqam
• Sephardic Judaism
• Central Synagogue of Aleppo
• Ades Synagogue

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

Books[link]

• Aboud, Ḥayim Shaul, Sefer Shire Zimrah, Jerusalem, 1936.
• Aboud, Ḥayim Shaul, Sefer Shire Zimrah Hashalem im Sefer le-Baqashot le-Shabbat, Jerusalem, 1953, repr. 1988.
• Antebi Tabbush, Refael Yiṣḥaq, Shirah Ḥadashah, Aleppo, 1888.
• Ashear, Moshe, Hallel Vezimrah, Jerusalem, 1928.
• Cohen, Refael Ḥayim ("Parsi"), Shir Ushbaḥah, Jerusalem, 1905 and 1921.
• Shrem, Gabriel, Shir Ushbaḥah Hallel Vezimrah, Sephardic Heritage Foundation, New York, 1964, 1983.
• Sefer Shirah Ḥadashah Hashalem (second edition), Zimrat Ha'Aretz Institute, New York, 2002.
• Shir Ushbaḥah, Machon Haketab, Jerusalem, 2005.
• Sefer Pizmonim Hameforash - Od Yosef Ḥai, 2006/7.

Secondary literature[link]

• Langer, Ruth, To Worship God Properly: Tensions Between Liturgical Custom and Halakhah in Judaism. Hebrew Union College Press, 1998. ISBN 0-87820-421-0
• Shelemay, Kay Kaufman, Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance among Syrian Jews. University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN 0-226-75211-9
• Sutton, David, Aleppo - City of Scholars. ArtScroll Publications, 2005. ISBN 1-57819-056-8
• Sutton, Joseph, Aleppo Chronicles: the Story of the Unique Sepharadeem of the Ancient Near East – in their Own Words: Brooklyn 1988
• Sutton, Joseph, Magic Carpet: Aleppo in Flatbush: Brooklyn 1979
• Kligman, Mark, Maqam and Liturgy: Ritual, Music and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn, Detroit 2009
• "Pizmonim Book Goes Digital", Community Magazine, Aleppian Publication Society, November 2004.

External links[link]

• Piyut (in Hebrew), also contains hymns from other traditions.
• Sephardic Pizmonim Project by David M. Betesh, includes samples of pizmonim and a table of contents of the Shir Ushbaִhah Hallel Vezimrah Pizmonim book; identifies songs currently in active transmission.

Chubby Checker
Chubby Checker in 2005
Background information
Birth name	Ernest Evans
Born	(1941-10-03) October 3, 1941 (age 70) Spring Gulley, South Carolina
Origin	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
Genres	Rock and roll
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1959–present
Labels	Parkway, MCA
Website	ChubbyChecker.com

Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans, October 3, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He is widely known for popularizing the twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard's R&B hit "The Twist". In September 2008 "The Twist" topped Billboard's list of the most popular singles to have appeared in the Hot 100 since its debut in 1958.^[1]

Early life[link]

Ernest Evans was born in Spring Gulley, South Carolina. He was raised in the projects of South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived with his parents and two brothers.^[2] By age eight Evans formed a street-corner harmony group, and by the time he entered high school, learned to play the piano. He would entertain his classmates by performing vocal impressions of popular entertainers of the day, such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Fats Domino.^[3] One of his classmates and friends at South Philadelphia High School was Fabiano Forte, who would become a popular performer of the late 1950s and early 1960s as Fabian.^[2]

After school Evans would entertain customers at his various jobs, including Fresh Farm Poultry on Ninth Street and at the Produce Market with songs and jokes. It was his boss at the Produce Market, Tony A., who gave Evans the nickname "Chubby". The store owner of Fresh Farm Poultry, Henry Colt, was so impressed by Ernest's performances for the customers that he, along with his colleague and friend Karl Mann, who worked as a song-writer for Cameo-Parkway Records,^[4] arranged for young Chubby to do a private recording for American Bandstand host Dick Clark. It was at this recording session that Evans got his stage name from Clark's wife, who asked Evans what his name was. "Well", he replied, "my friends call me 'Chubby'". As he had just completed a Fats Domino impression, she smiled and said, "As in Checker?" That little play on words ('chubby' meaning 'fat', and 'checkers', like 'dominoes', being a game) got an instant laugh and stuck, and from then on, Evans would use the name "Chubby Checker".^[5]

Career[link]

Checker privately recorded a novelty single for Clark in which the singer portrayed a school teacher with an unruly classroom of musical performers. The premise allowed Checker to imitate such acts as Fats Domino, The Coasters, Elvis Presley, Cozy Cole, and Ricky Nelson, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian as The Chipmunks, each singing "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Clark sent the song out as his Christmas greeting, and it received such good response that Cameo-Parkway signed Checker to a recording contract. Titled "The Class", the single became Checker's first release, charting at #38 in the spring of 1959.

Checker introduced his version of "The Twist" at the age of 18 in July 1960 in Wildwood, New Jersey at the Rainbow Club, "The Twist" went on to become the only single to top the Billboard Hot 100 twice, in two separate chart runs. (Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" had done so on Billboard's earlier chart.)

"The Twist" had previously peaked at #16 on the Billboard rhythm and blues chart, in the 1959 version recorded by its author, Hank Ballard, whose band The Midnighters first performed the dance on stage. Checker's "Twist", however, was a nationwide smash, aided by his many appearances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand, the Top 10 American Bandstand ranking of the song, and the teenagers on the show who enjoyed dancing the Twist. The song was so ubiquitous that Checker felt that his critics thought that he could only succeed with dance records typecasting him as a dance artist. Checker later lamented:

"...in a way, "The Twist" really ruined my life. I was on my way to becoming a big nightclub performer, and "The Twist" just wiped it out.. It got so out of proportion. No one ever believes I have talent."

—Chubby Checker

Chubby Checker during a TV interview in 2008

Despite Checker's initial disapproval, he found follow-up success with a succession of up-tempo dance tracks and produced a series of successful dance-related singles, including "The Hucklebuck" (#14), "The Fly" (#7), "Dance the Mess Around" (#24), and "Pony Time", which became his second #1 single. Checker's follow-up "twist" single, "Let's Twist Again", won the 1961 Grammy Award for Best Rock and Roll Solo Vocal Performance. A 1962 duet with Dee Dee Sharp, "Slow Twistin'", reached #3 on the national charts. "Limbo Rock" reached #2 in the fall of 1962, becoming Checker's last Top Ten hit.

Checker is the only recording artist to place five albums in the Top 12 all at once. The performer has often claimed to have personally changed the way we dance to the beat of music, as when he told Billboard, "Anyplace on the planet, when someone has a song that has a beat, they're on the floor dancing apart to the beat. And before Chubby Checker, it wasn't here." Clay Cole agreed: "Chubby Checker has never been properly acknowledged for one major contribution to pop culture—Chubby and the Twist got adults out and onto the dance floor for the very first time. Before the Twist dance phenomenon, grownups did not dance to teenage music."

In 1964, he married the Dutch model Catharina Lodders, who was Miss World in 1962. Checker continued to have Top 40 singles until 1965, but changes in public taste ended his hit-making career. He spent much of the rest of the 1960s touring and recording in Europe. The 1970s saw him become a staple on the oldies circuit, including a temporary stint as a disco artist. In 1983, he fathered a daughter, Mistie, with Pam Bass. Mistie Mims is currently a professional women's basketball player in the WNBA.^[6]

Later years[link]

His material during his 1960s heyday was recorded for Cameo-Parkway Records and along with the label's other material, became unavailable after the early 1970s because of the company's internal legal disputes. For decades, almost all compilations of Checker's hits consisted of re-recordings. A dance-floor cover version of The Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R." was released in 1969 on Buddah Records, but only charted at #82. It was Checker's last chart appearance until 1982 when he hit #92 with "Running".

He also recorded a psychedelic album in the early '70s that was initially only released in Europe. Originally the album was named Chequered!, but was renamed New Revelation in later releases. To this day, Checker dislikes talking about the album.

Despite his mixed feelings towards his biggest hit single, Checker has always been able to capitalize on its enduring popularity. In 1987, he recorded a new version of "The Twist" with rap trio The Fat Boys. The lyrics to this new version implied he was pleased with his association with it. Checker also sang the song in a commercial for Oreo cookies in the early 1990s. In 2008, he performed "The Twist" in venues ranging from the Daytona 500 to The Opie and Anthony Show.

In 2002, Chubby Checker protested to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that his hit "The Twist" was receiving lack of airplay, claiming that "Peppermint Twist receives more airplay". Seymour Stein, president of the Rock Hall's New York chapter and member of the nomination committee, claimed "I think that Chubby is someone who will be considered. He has in certain years."^[7]

In 2008 Chubby Checker's "The Twist" was named the biggest chart hit of all time by Billboard magazine. Billboard looked at all singles that made the charts between 1958 and 2008.

Checker had a single at #1 on Billboard's dance chart in July 2008 with "Knock Down the Walls". The single also made the top 30 on the Adult Contemporary chart. He continues to perform on a regular basis.

In 2009, Checker recorded a public service announcement (PSA) for the Social Security Administration to help launch a new campaign to promote recent changes in Medicare law. In the PSA, Checker encourages Americans on Medicare to apply for Extra Help, "A new 'twist' in the law makes it easier than ever to save on your prescription drug plan costs."^[8][9]

Film and musical depictions[link]

Chubby appears as himself in the 1989 Quantum Leap episode entitled "Good Morning, Peoria" where he walks into a radio station in 1959 hoping to have his demo record played on the air. The show's main character, Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) convinces the station owner to play the song "The Twist".

In 2001 he again guest-starred as himself singing "The Twist" in season 4 of Ally McBeal.

Hit songs[link]

Chubby Checker

1959:

• "The Class" (#38).

1960:

• "The Twist" (#1)
• "The Hucklebuck" (#14)

1961:

• "Pony Time" (#1)
• "Dance the Mess Around" (#24)
• "Twistin' U.S.A." (#68)
• "Let's Twist Again" (#8)
• "The Fly" (#8)
• "The Twist" (recharted at #1 in January 1962)
• "Jingle Bell Rock" (with Bobby Rydell) (#21)

1962:

• "Slow Twisting'" (with Dee Dee Sharp) (#3)
• "Dancin' Party" (#12)
• "Limbo Rock" (#2)
• "Popeye The Hitchhiker" (#10)

1963:

• "Twenty Miles" (#15)
• "Let's Limbo Some More" (#20)
• "Birdland" (#12)
• "Twist It Up" (#25)
• "Loddy Lo" (#12)
• "Hooka Tooka" (#17)

1964:

• "Hey, Bobba Needle" (#23)
• "Lazy Elsie Molly" (#40)

1965:

• "Let's Do the Freddie" (#40)
• "Baby Baby Balla Balla" (with Dutch band ZZ & the Maskers)
• "Stopping is Las Vegas" (with Dutch band ZZ & the Maskers)

1982:

• "Running" (#92)

1988:

• "The Twist (Yo, Twist!)" (with the Fat Boys) (#16)

2008:

• "Knock Down the Walls" (#1 Dance, #29 Adult Contemporary)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955–1990, Record Research Inc., P.O. Box 200, Menomonee Falls WI, 1991 (ISBN 0-89820-089-X)
• Joel Whitburn's Top R&B Singles 1942–1988, Record Research Inc., P.O. Box 200, Menomonee Falls WI, 1988 (ISBN 0-89820-069-5)

External links[link]

• Official website
• Chubby Checker – King Of The Twist – by Dr. Frank Hoffmann
• Chubby Checker says "There’s a New ‘Twist’ in the Law!" (Social Security Public Service Announcements)
• Interviewed March 22, 2010 on WNYC SoundCheck with John Schaefer; Discusses this wikipedia entry and career
• Join The Movement To Induct Chubby Checker Into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame