Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 24 July 8, 1992 1) Mickey Katz (Ellen Prince) 2) Mickey Katz (Gerald M. Phillips) 3) Mickey Katz (Henry Breitrose) 4) Mickey Katz (Paul Weichsel) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 07 Jul 92 10:26:03 -0400 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: RE: Mickey Katz i don't know anything about his personal life except that he's dead and that he was the father of joel grey (the actor in cabaret, among other things). many of his old records are available on cassette. if you'd like them and can't find them down under, let me know and i can send you some. but, if you like mickey katz, you'll love menasha skulnik. do you know of him? his old records are likewise available on cassette. and, believe it or not, i've transcribed a bunch of his songs and can send you my transcriptions. (it was for a study i did on language-mixing--vos den?) let me know. (they're on-line--it would be no problem to send them.) i have some transcriptions of mickey katz too, now that i think of it. ellen prince 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Jul 92 10:27 EDT From: GMP@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Subject: RE: Mickey Katz Some news on Mickey Katz. Mickey Katz was a little older than I, a graduate of Glenville High School in Cleveland Ohio in the early 40s. You know his son Joel Grey, a graduate of Heights High School in Cleveland. Mickey had a band, quasi-klezmir, played weddings and bar mitzvahs in the Cleveland area, and also did club dates as a "big" dance band. He was not bad, had a couple of shots at national status but didn't quite measure up. Back when I worked at radio station WJMO in Cleveland as commercial announcer for "Jackele the Jockele," Cleveland's only Jewish disk jockey, we would feature Mickey Katz records. Katz also did the obligatory Catskill summer shows and was, for a time, regular band at Herman Pirchner's Alpine Village until the Jewish-German began to look too peculiar. Gerald M. Phillips (Professor Emeritus) Speech Communication Pennsylvania State University 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Jul 92 9:46:48 PDT From: hbreit@leland.stanford.edu Subject: Mickey Katz Myron (Mickey) Katz dictated an autobiography, Papa, Play for Me: The Hilarious, Heartwarming Autobiography of Comedian and Bandleader Mickey Katz / by Mickey Katz, as told to Hannibal Coons; introduction by Joel Grey. Published by Simon and Schuster in 1977. I believe that the entertainer Joel Grey, perhaps best known for his role in CABARET, is Katz's son. Katz also composed for clarinet and several of his works were performed at a New York jazz festival in January, 1990. As I recall, his most commercially successful recordings consisted of faryiddisht versions of popular songs. Who can forget Die Geshrey fun der Vilder Katschke, to the tune of The Song of the Wild Goose? I wish that I could, but that's a matter of personal taste. A Seymour Rechtzeit he wasn't. -Henry Breitrose Dept. of Communication Stanford 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1992 16:57:37 -0500 From: Paul Weichsel Subject: RE: Mickey Katz I heard a good deal of Mickey Katz's work in the forties. He was a prominent member of that school of Jewish entertainers whose main contribution, in MY opinion, was a vulgarization of Yiddish song and story. We all owe him a debt of gratitude however, as he is the father of Joel Gray, an artist of very high accomplishments. I don't know if he is still alive. Paul M. Weichsel weichsel@symcom.math.uiuc.edu ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.24 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.