{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/3j3901zw8c/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Abbott, Jerry "]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[],"provider":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/112/012/small/Abbott.jpg?1621427799","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L1879_MA_Oral_History_Abbott_2017_Logo.mp4"]},"duration":3981.07733,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/112/012/small/Abbott.jpg?1621427799","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/112/012/original/L1879_MA_Oral_History_Abbott_2017_Logo.mp4?1619864160","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3981.07733,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Jerry Abbott transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eLEVIN:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I know you as Shai Engelhardt, and I don’t, only from the phone so far, until today, and, and, but I know you from a piece of music which I knew since I was working with choirs in high school and onward.  The Hayom Harat Olam, which always said at the top, “Engelhardt,” and some versions said, “Kalib Engelhardt,” or “Engelhardt, Kalib,” and that’s my first introduction to you.  That, you started to tell me before, that is an arrangement…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=16.0,47.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eABBOTT:\u003c/strong\u003e Let me clear something up with, with that composition.  When I did the movie, The Voice of Israel, as you know, there were nine cantors there.  Hirschmann, Cantor Hir-, Mordechai Hirschmann, sang that composition.  And now, about, I don’t know — about 15 or 20 years later, Moe Silverman — may he rest in peace — did a recording session, made a record.  And he was looking for some material.  And I told him about that. I didn’t, now the, I didn’t write that thing.  I, there’s part of it that are, that is mine.  Because I didn’t remember.  I didn’t have any music any on it, and it, I just, it was all from memory.  But I added certain things to it. And I told them at the time that nobody knew who composed that thing, and but I, as I say, part of it was mine, so they put my name on the record.  But somebody else wrote that thing.  Again I say, I added certain things, because it was all from memory, like 20 years later.  So I want to clear that up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=47.0,107.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Because Hirschmann, Hirschmann didn’t compose anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, Hirschmann never com- didn’t compose it.  Somebody wrote it for him, and as I say, I, 20 years later, I added to it or subtracted from it, and then…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about the tune in the middle?  The im kevanim…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That was, that was written by somebody else — I added something to it after.  And — from memory.  And Sholom Kalib wrote it out.  I sang it for him, and that’s where Sholom Kalib comes into that thing there.  I wanted to clear that up.  I don’t like to take credit for something that I didn’t do.  I have enough credits that things that I did do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=107.0,140.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Let me ask you the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  What?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you were born in the United States, or do you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I was born in Manhattan.  Yes.  On the East Side, on Columbia Street in Manhattan.  And that’s, and then I moved to Brooklyn.  And I went to the yeshivas in Brooklyn, two of them. And then I went to the one up in Washington Heights, Yitzchok Elchonon, and that’s as far as that’s concerned.  And I became a hazzan at the age of — I sang professionally ever since I was, like, five years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, was your father a hazzan, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, my father was a, just a, a good Hasidic Jew.  I don’t mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You say Hasidic.  You, you have a Hasidic background.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=140.0,180.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I have a Hasidic background.  Because we used to go to the synagogue where there was a rabbi — in those days, if you looked at him, you thought you were looking at God.  The Dembitzer rabbi.  And we used to go there.  My father was a ba’al tefillah — he used to daven, you know, shachris or whatever it was.  And I had four brothers, and we all used to sing, you know, when my father davenned. And, and the, the Hasidic background was every Friday night, naturally, we went to shul.  And, and we always sat and sang z’miros in the house and on Saturday morning.  And so that’s the Hasidic background. My father wasn’t a Hasid in the sense of that, to say, they’re a little wild today.  He was…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you were, you were followers of the Dembitzer Hasidim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s right.  That’s right.  And so, that background is what instilled in me the, the nusach and, and the tradition.  So that’s where I come from, that’s the background I come from.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=180.0,247.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So when did you, when was it discovered that you had this fabulous alto voice?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  When I was, when I was five years old.  And I sang, I think I started to sing in, in a synagogue — my first time was when I was six years old.  And I always loved the cantorial thing, and I wanted to be a cantor. And I’ll tell you what it is, Neil — it was a gift to me.  I don’t know where it came from.  To this day I don’t know.  All the things that I sang in the synagogue when I davenned was I made it up right on the pulpit.  Ten seconds after I sang it, I didn’t know what I sang.  I, I’m not talking about the choral pieces, ‘cause those were written out, you know, by different composers.  But when I davenned, it was all ad lib on the spur of the moment. Sometimes I was great; sometimes I was good; sometimes I wasn’t so good.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When you say you davenned, in other words, let’s say you were six, seven, eight, nine years, in that period of time.  You actually davenned the omed?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=247.0,310.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I, yes, I davenned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Or, not just singing duets with it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, no, no, no, no.  I was the, I davenned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were the ba’al tefillah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I davenned the whole service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Before you were bar mitzvahed?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Before my bar mitzvah.  As a matter of fact, for my bar mitzvah, they charged tickets.  It was the, at the Attorney Street Synagogue in New York.  They charged tickets to come and hear me at my bar mitzvah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At that time, you were already well known…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But then, you, you had a, an alto voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I had an alto voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Big alto voice.  And who did you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I’ll tell you who I sang with as a child.  I sang with a cantor Jacob Schraeder in Borough Park.  And then I sang with Sholom Secunda’s brother for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur one, one year in Crown Street Synagogue, Crown Heights.  And all I was hired for was to sing solos.  I sang seven solos, and that’s what they paid me for.  I didn’t sing pieces with the choir. My voice had the timbre — it was an alto, but it had, it had the timbre of a tenor.  It aggravates me very, very much that I don’t have anything recorded.  I just never re…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=310.0,378.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Nothing at all?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Nothing at all.  And it, it bothers me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Except in the film.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Except in the film, but at the film, my voice had already changed.  But in spite of my voice changing, they still wanted me because of my reputation and my knowledge.  And I was enough of a musician to know if it’s going to be, first of all, if it’s going to be too high, I mean, I’m the one that made it up.  So I made sure that it was in, was in my range, you know. And as a matter of fact, when I davenned, you know the Stone Avenue Talmud Torah…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  …in Brooklyn?  That was like the Carnegie Hall for all the cantors.  The cantors came from all over the world, and if they kind of made it there, if they were successful there, it spread all over the country.  And so I davenned there. As a matter of fact, I went to hear a concert — there was another boy cantor, Yisroel Golraich… excuse me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  We, we did a long discussion with him two years ago in San Francisco.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, I went to hear him on a Sunday night.  He davenned ma’ariv, and he gave a concert.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=378.0,446.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  How old was he then?  He was still a child, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  He was a child yet, too.  I think maybe 12 years old or so, 11 years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He was an alto as well, originally, or a soprano?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  No, an alto.  And my father and my brother — may he rest in peace — they were, they were with me.  And even as a young kid, I kind of called, called the shots.  They asked me how much money, and they told me how much money I’m going to get, and if I said yes, fine; if I said no, fine. And I heard him.  And this may sound egotistical.  And I said to my brother, I says, “I could… I’m a much better hazzan than he is.”  I said, “I’d like you to go up to the president of the synagogue,” a man by the name of Handler, “and tell him I would like to daven here.  I don’t want any money.  I want them just to pay for the choir.” So my brother did, and they said fine.  And I had about 20 pieces in the choir.  The choir director was a fellow by the name of Max Gotthelf. And again, this is a little — you know, let me digress for a second.  When you’re a cantor and you’re performing or whatever, you’re still performing.  You know, and you have to be a kind of a showman, in a, in a sense.  You have to know when to stop, when you’re giving them too much, and so on and so forth. And I davenned there that Friday night, and normally — and in those days, by the way, when there was a boy cantor, even though in the most Orthodox synagogues, they would applaud.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=446.0,528.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"All the people would say, “God, you’re not allowed, you’re not allowed to.”  But they would still applaud, because it was a young boy doing, you know, that the….  As a matter of fact, some of the older cantors were very much against it.  They were kind of a little envious that the attention was given to the young boy cantors.  There were about three or four of them at the time. And I, normally, they would applaud for me, let’s say, when I got through singing Ahavas Olam or Hashkiveinu.  This time, it was right at the beginning of the service, and I’ll never forget, it was right before the Lecha Dodi (HEBREW), you know — and I had a magnificent falsetto, which none of the other boys had.  A very little, beautiful falsetto.  And I used part of it — again, I say it was all ad lib, because I didn’t know what I was singing, you know.  It was the mood that I was in.  And right after that, they applauded.  And I said to the choir, to the choir leader, I said, “Max, I got ‘em.”  You know?  I said, “I got ‘em.”  You know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=528.0,597.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then they, it was, I was very successful there, and then they hired me for Shavuos and then they hired me for Rosh Hashanah.  For the holidays there.  And the, the worst part of it was that right, right before slichas, I started — I was at home, and I started, I sat down at the piano, just to vocalize and sing a little bit, and all of a sudden, I screamed to my father, and I said, “My voice!”  My voice changed.  Just then.  I was maturing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How old?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I was like 13.  It just happened then, and I said, “What am I going to do?”  You know, the voice is…. So we went to the president of the synagogue, was Mr. Handler, and I, we told him.  He said, “You do the best you can.” So I davenned the High Holidays, and even with my voice changing.  But I say, I was enough of a musician to know, and since I did everything on my own, I was able not to hit the high notes, I didn’t go for the high notes, and so on and so forth.  And that’s…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=597.0,667.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Tell me — where did you learn your hazzanas?  I mean, even the basics — what nusach here, where it changes to there, where — to say nothing of the liturgy itself.  But I mean, where did you learn the basic hazzanas?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I tell you, there was a cantor, a cantor by the name of Previn, who came from the same area as Pinchik, who to me, was the greatest cantor of all time.  And — not the greatest voice, but the greatest cantor.  And I think it was some part in Romania or something.  Anyway, as I say, I was gifted.  To this day, I don’t know how.  But let me give you an example.  For instance, if you take a jazz musician who improvises all the time around the melody, that’s what the gift was given to me. So he would sing something for me, like Hashkiveinu or whatever it was, and he would go on and on and on and show me the different motifs, the different ways, the different nusach.  And I absorbed it.  And after he’d get through, let’s say, singing one, one part of the service, for maybe five, ten minutes, I would, he, they, he would say to me, “Okay.  Now you do it.”  Now I didn’t sing what he did, but I was able to make it up with the same kind of, of a motif. And that’s, that’s all the studying that I did.  The other was from listening to the ba’al tefillos.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=667.0,752.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So from going to shul every week…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  From going to shul every, every time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you understood how Shabbos is different from weekday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That, that’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, the basic…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  The basic.  I had a very good ear, and to this day, I’m able to retain melodies.  And I, I’m able to write melodies at the drop of a hat.  And it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things that you…. Very few cantors had it.  There may have been maybe four or five cantors, to my knowledge, that were able to go up to the service without any music.  I’m not talking about the choir pieces now — I’m talking themselves.  Very few, maybe, maybe three or four, you know, that I knew of.  And I’m not even sure about them.  I know Pinchik could do it, you know. So this — in other words, I could sing something for you now — which I won’t, now — but two minutes later, I don’t know what I sang.  I would, it, I, I would just close my eyes when I davenned, and that’s it. As a matter of fact, my, one of my brothers, who sometimes sang with me — he had a very good ear — and let’s say I would start a composition, I would start a piece of the liturgy, and I had my eyes closed.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=752.0,824.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And he would say to me — not he would say to me, but he would look at me like, “Where are you going with this?”  I would start out in left field someplace, and he wouldn’t say nothing during that.  And sometimes — and I would start to weave like something — and sometimes, it would come out great. Other times, it wasn’t so great, and sometimes, when I felt that I wasn’t there with this thing here, I would revert back to the, to the nusach and to the motif that I knew that the Jew in the synagogue, that’s familiar to him. Now, when, when I had choirs singing with me, especially in the last number of years that I did it, just the High Holidays, they would love to sing with me, because they didn’t know what I was going to do.  And they didn’t know what I was going to do because I didn’t know what I was going to do.  And they would accompany me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=824.0,879.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Give you a response.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Give me a response; it was very interesting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, what about set things?  Let’s say, all during this childhood period, this prodigy period, did you sing any of the, the famous things that were written for boy alto duets…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …in other words, Haben Yakir Li?  You never were a Haben Yakir Li Efrayim boy?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Nope.  No.  As a matter of fact, the only time I sang something was when I sang with Sholom Secunda’s brother just for the Rosh Hashanah holidays in this Crown Heights, and there was a solo Haben Yakir Li which I sang, they, it was written out.  But when I davenned on my own, no.  Everything that I have ever done was all my own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What about, you were never involved with weddings as a Vimale boy?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  I sang…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You know what I mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I know, I know.  No.  When I sang with Machtenburg — I sang with him for one year.  And in those days in New York, they had what they called halls, wedding places.  There were maybe ten on one street.  And we’d run from one to the other; I think we got 20 cents a wedding to sing.  And that’s the only time that I — and I think I sang it once, that Vimale that you’re talking about. But other than that, no — I didn’t do many weddings as a child.  I was just going in, I was a cantor, and, and, and that was it.  That was before, I think when I was six or seven years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, what about beyond the synagogue?  In concert hall or in the cantorial concerts, that sort of thing?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=879.0,969.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  Well, we did those.  We, I did those.  For instance, like when I went on tour, went to Philadelphia and Boston.  You davenned normally; you davenned the Shabbos, and then on Sunday nights, we’d, we’d do a concert.  You’d daven ma’ariv, and then you sang some, some songs — folk songs and whatever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you sing Yiddish songs as well?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah, yeah.  Yeah, like the Yiddishe Leid…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  As a child?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  As a child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You’re talking about as a child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Because I see adverts here in the Yiddish press for Philadelphia, for New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And that’s what these are for — these are for kind of cantorial concerts — ma’ariv and then a concert.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Right.  You did a concert.  You davenned ma’ariv on, on a Sunday night, and then you did a concert.  And you sang a few cantorial things, you sang, you know, whatever.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you were the featured soloist?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And I was, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What cities did you do that in besides…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Philadelphia and Boston.  Mostly Philadelphia.  It was a good, good city for me — I sang in…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you have a manager?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  No, at that time, I, I didn’t have a manager.  Before I had this hazzan guy — Zeidel Rovner’s son-in-law, who was also Shmulikl’s manager.  You know.  And then, no — my brother used to make the arrangements.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=969.0,1040.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And these concerts, or these types of things that I see advertised, I mean, were you backed up by a choir at all…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I had a choir.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  Not a big choir — maybe six or eight voices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  All men?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  All men, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who conducted?  Do you remember any of the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I don’t remember his name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you remember any of the names from those days?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  Now, when I davenned myself later on, I conducted my own choir.  Till my arms started getting tired.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How much did, how much, do you remember how much you got paid for a concert like that when you were 12, ten years old, 11 years old, then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, it was on, they charged tickets.  They’d charge admission.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And whatever we, we took in was, was mine.  So a few hundred dollars a concert, you know.  Which was big money then.  And…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about for the High Holy Days, let’s say, for davenning Rosh Hashanah…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  The High Holy Days, I think, in Stone Avenue Talmud Torah, I think I got about $1200.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s a fortune in those days.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1040.0,1101.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eABBOTT:\u003c/strong\u003e Which was — oh, yeah, it was a lot of money, yeah. And then, after my voice changed, and not only that, but the cantorial so-called “business” of boy cantors and others and charging admission kind of waned away and, and, and people weren’t going and weren’t paying anymore, and I say, my voice changed.  And I was listening to Bing Crosby.  And I fell in love with his singing.  ‘Cause he sang so easily, and so nice.  And I liked it very much. And then I switched and I started singing popular songs.  And then I sang in, in theaters.  But then, I also sang with a big orchestra at the time.  It was the number-one band in the country — Shep Fields, Rippling Rhythm.  That was in the same era of Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. And then I, after I left the band, after two years, I went out on my own, under a different name.  Under the name of Jerry Abbott.  And then after a few years of that, I decided no.  It’s not for me.  The touring and the nightclubs and so on and so forth.  And ‘cause I said I was either going to be a star in that business, or I was going to get out; I wasn’t going to be one of those guys that continues on.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1101.0,1181.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I always knew I had the cantorial background, and I decided to go back to that. And a Cantor Moe Silverman in Chicago — may he rest in peace — we, we became very fast friends, because we had kind of similar background.  Moe was a very, very good hazzan.  And he had me audition for the Agudas Achim in Chicago.  And that was — well, they hired me right away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How’d you meet Moe Silverman, and how’d he know you, how did you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I met him through a choir leader — all of a sudden, I forgot his name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Jospey?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Not Jospey.  The other one.  Oh, my God, he was a very famous choir leader.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Where was he?  In Chicago?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  In Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Uh, uh, Hyman Resnick?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Hyman Resnick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did you meet, but how did you know Hyman Resnick?  ‘Cause he was in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  Well, I lived in Chicago then.  I’m sorry…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, that’s what…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I moved to Chicago, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, I didn’t, so you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I moved…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …how did you get to Chicago?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1181.0,1240.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  Well, when I was in, in, when I sang with the band, I lived at the hotel, the New Lawrence Hotel in Chicago.  And I got sick one time — I had the flu.  And it was a residential hotel, and there was, was some people there, and they took care of me like, like I was their child.  And the people in Chicago were so warm and wonderful that, that when I was — then when I went back to New York, and I couldn’t get any work in New York, I said, “I’m going to Chicago.” I moved to Chicago, and from the first day I arrived in Chicago, I got work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: What kind of work?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Singing in, in nightclubs, you know?  Through a friend, a friend of mine that used to live in New York in the music business, he introduced me to an agent, and boom! I got work right away…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  By this time you were what?  Twenty, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  About 20, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  About 20.  Alright.  So that’s how you knew, so you met Hyman Resnick in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I met Hyman Resnick…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How’d you meet him?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Uh, I can’t remember.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: ‘Cause he wouldn’t have been involved… I mean, he was only involved in the — I’ll tell you, he was involved with schools, the Board of Jewish Education.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah, but he also was the conductor of the synagogue, B’nai Zion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  For many, many years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And I met him and we became very good friends, and he introduced me to Moe Silverman.  And there was also, I think, a doctor, Dr. Ben Seid, who was, loved music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1240.0,1316.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Right.  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And I think I met him through Ben Seid too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So Silverman got you the job at Agudas Achim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Silverman called and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He was at Anshe Emet still.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  He was in Anshe Emet, yeah, all the time.  And I auditioned, and they hired me right away.  And at the same time the South Side Hebrew Congregation, where Rabbi Teller was — wonderful, wonderful rabbi — they offered me the position, but I decided to stay North and, and take the Agudas Achim. And I was there for a number of years, and I had nothing to do all week long but — you know, five-and-a-half days I was free.  ‘Cause I didn’t have to, uh, I, I wasn’t teaching any bar mitzvahs, it wasn’t, that wasn’t my, my job, and so on and so forth. And then, the, the fellow who was my agent in Chicago, I said to him one day, I says, “Joel, I’m going crazy.  I have nothing to do for five-and-a-half days.  And I have too much background.” So he introduced me to somebody by the name of Fred Niles, and they started a television commercial division.  And I said to him, “Look.  I have nothing to do for five-and-a-half days.  I have an income from the synagogue, you know.  So I’d like to learn this business.”  And I learned the business.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1316.0,1393.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then he asked me one day, “Could you write a, a jingle?”  Well, melodies always came to me, so I wrote a jingle for, I think the first one was for O’Henry Candy Bar, and they bought it, and then they bought more and more and more.  And then I was very, very successful.  I wrote some of the top, top…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Chicago?  While you were there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  In Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Was, and, and how long did that last?  How long did you stay there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It lasted all these years.  I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How long did you stay in Chicago, I mean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Uh, well, let’s say I, I, I live out here what?  Fifteen years?  About 25 years in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, you’ve only been here 15 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, I thought…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Thereabout.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Okay. So you were in Chicago… so you knew Dick Marx \u0026 Associates?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s funny.  Dick has been my arranger — one of my arrangers, but mostly — for 35 years.  Matter of fact, I just got a box of chocolates from him, which he’s been sending me for years.  Yeah.  Dick’s worked for me many, many, many commercials. As a matter of fact, his son Richard, who’s a, a big name now in, you know, Richard said to me one day, he says, “Jerry, you paid for my house.”  Because I put him on some Wrigley commercials. I’ve done most of the music for Wrigley for like 30 some-odd years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1393.0,1466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I didn’t write all of it, but in the last number of years, I did write some it.  But I produced about 90% of all their commercials. I, I recorded the Four Seasons, the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Rascals, Glen Campbell… I put Orson Welles on Perrier.  Now, there’s a little story with Orson — who by the way, may he rest in peace, was the most brilliant person I’ve ever worked with in my life.  He was the voice on Perrier. I have a nephew in New York who’s in the advertising business — he’s a marketing consultant.  And he and his client came to me to try and get Orson Welles, which I was able to through contacts of mine, and so on and so forth.  And I put him on Perrier.  We started out in three markets, then we went to eight markets, then 16, then we went national. And I had a great rapport with him — the man was brilliant.  And I recorded him about 30 times or some, thereabouts. Now, this brings me to a recording which ties in, in a way to the cantorial thing.  I was listening to a T.V. show — I think it was Gary Collins, I’m almost certain.  But I got so excited when this thing happened I forgot who it was.  And there was a little girl on the show who was talking to Gary, and she said she belonged to an organization in Chicago called the Little Brothers or the Little Brothers of the Poor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1466.0,1547.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And what they do is they take — so Gary Collins said, “Well, what do you do there?”  And she said, “Well, we take elderly people to the movies, the grocery store, the doctor — wherever they have to go.” So he said to her, “Well, you’re only 20 years old.  What motivated you to be doing this?”  And she says, “Well, one day, I was taking this nice old man to the grocery store,” or wherever, “and he said to me, ‘Darling, I know what it is to be young.  But you don’t know what it is to be old.’” I jumped up and I said, “Oh, my God, what an idea!”  And things started to come back to me.  Because when I was a little boy, when I was a little boy hazzan — also when I was singing — there’s a prayer we say on, on Yom Kippur — Shema Koleinu — and the other part is al tashlicheini le’et ziknah, with, with kichlot kochi al ta'azveni, which says, “Please, God, do not throw us away in our old age when our strength begins to fade, to wane.” And all those years, I kept saying to myself, there’s a song there somewhere, but I never could find the device — what they call in, in this business, in the show business “the hook.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1547.0,1615.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, when this girl said that, I said, “Oh, my God, after all these years, I got it.”  And I went to a friend of mine — may he rest in peace — Sammy Cahn, who was a great, great lyric writer, and I didn’t even get a chance to tell him — this is just incidental — to tell him about it, because he was telling me how depressed he was.  He had five Oscars, and he couldn’t get a song played. Anyway, I was so depressed I went home.  And then I said, “Let me see if I could write the lyric.”  And I sat down and in 20 minutes, I wrote the lyric.  I never wrote a lyric in my life before.  But you know, when something is right, it just flows.  And I wrote the lyric and then I, I finished the melody — oh, I wrote like a couple of bars of the melody when I heard the line, “I know what it is to be young.” And then I finished the melody, and I called Orson Welles — no, I had to see him, as a matter of fact, the next day.  And after we’d recorded this stuff for Perrier, I said, “Orson, let me tell you what happened to me.”  And I told him what happened.  He said, “Gee, Jerry, that’s a great idea; what are you going to do with it?”  I says, “I’m going to write a song.”  Fine.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1615.0,1680.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Now, I wrote the song, and I cut a little demo, and then I was trying to think, who should I get to sing it?  Should I try for Sinatra or Como or whoever?  It just didn’t feel right; it wasn’t important enough.  So I called Orson one day and I said — or I woke up in the morning, I said, “I got it.  Orson Welles.” And I called him and I said, “Orson, do you remember the idea I told you about a couple of months ago?”  He says, “Refresh my memory.”  So I did.  He says, “Jerry, I told you then it was a great idea.  What do you want with me?”  I said, “I want you to make a record.” There was a pause.  He said, “Are you crazy, Jerry?  I don’t sing.”  I said, “If I wanted a singer, I would have tried for Sinatra.” He said, “Read me the lyric.”  And I read him the lyric.  He said, “I’ll do it.”  Didn’t ask me for money, nothing.  He says, “I’ll do it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, I hired Nicky Perrito, who I call My Beautiful Italian.  He’s been Perry Como’s arranger and conductor for many, many years, and many others.  And we sat down and Nicky wrote the most gorgeous, beautiful orchestration ever.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1680.0,1753.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I had the Ray Charles Singers — about 20 singers — and a big orchestra.  And we recorded the music.  And then I brought Orson Welles in two days later, and in like 20 minutes, Orson recorded it. This record is all over the world. And I have to tell you that, after the first take, before I brought Orson in, when we, when we did a playback, the musicians and the singers stood up and applauded. It’s, it’s a magnificent piece, piece of work. And then I brought Orson in.  And he recorded in about 18 minutes.  Now, you want to talk about a thrill?  Or, first of all, I've got to tell you — Orson Welles, this is the genius of all time.  And fortunately, we had a great rapport.  He loved everything about the Perrier stuff and so on. After we recorded the song, Orson gets up to say goodbye, and he grabs me and he gives me a kiss and he says, “Thanks for bringing me into this.”  This is Orson Welles thanking me for bringing him into something without any money.  Talk about something. This recording, by the way, is all over the, practically all over the world.  Matter of fact, I just got a check, and I got, I think four dollars from Korea.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1753.0,1823.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  What’s the name of the song?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I Know What It Is To Be Young.  But, and I, and subtitled…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And what year was that recorded?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  This was recorded about ten years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, it’s only ten years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah, that’s the copy I gave you, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So you, so you were here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, you were here, when you recorded it here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Actually, when I made that record, I lived in Phoenix for a couple of years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But I mean, you had left Chicago.  This was, this was a fairly recent thing…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Oh, yeah, yeah.  Oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …on a relative scale.  Oh, I see.  Now, but then, let me ask you this — why — and it’s been translated into other languages, then?  Or no?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I don’t think so, no.  As a matter of fact, I, I got a call, I got a letter, from a kind of a musician in Turkey.  And he wrote me, he says, “Your song is the biggest hit” — he got my address from ASCAP — “Your song is the biggest hit in Turkey.  They play it all day long.” Well, somebody pirated the record.  I don’t know who it was.  And so, fine.  So I, he says, “Could you please send me a lead sheet, and I’ll pay for it?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1823.0,1881.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, I sent him a copy of the song, that’s all there was.  And, and that was that. I called ASCAP — this is the little, funny little thing — and I said, “Hey.  Somebody pirated the record.  In Turkey.  And I understand it’s the biggest smash hit in Turkey.”  I says, “What do I do about it?”  He says, “Jerry,” — the guy from ASCAP said, “Jerry, if you get a strong cup of coffee from Turkey, you’ll be lucky.”  As a royalty.  ‘Cause they don’t have — whatever it is, the licensing thing. Now, another interesting story is just a few years ago, I get a call from Bobby Vinton.  And his daughter lives in, in Greece.  And she called him and she was coming to the States here and she said, “Dad, I heard a song.  You must record it.”  He said, “I won’t record any foreign songs.”  She says, “It’s not a foreign song.”  Anyway, the bottom line was that he said, Bobby said to his daughter, “What’s the name of the song?”  He told her.  He said, “I am going to record it now.”  And he recorded it with George Burns.  They both recorded the song, the same song. So as I say, it’s all — it’s in Israel, it’s all over.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1881.0,1953.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But in English.  Even in Israel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT: In English, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It hasn’t been translated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah. A very interesting thing — a few years ago, I get a call — and I have the letter someplace — from a synagogue here in, in the Valley.  And they heard the song and could I send them the music, and they want to do it for the Rosh Hashanah service.  So they did the song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And, and of course, most people don’t realize that this is inspired by Al Tashlicheini Le’et Ziknah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s, that’s exactly what — well, I told you — when, when, when I heard that…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You don’t incorporate… I mean, it’s not incorporated into the song — the words of…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Oh, no, no, no.  No, no.  It’s, “I know what it is to be young, but you don’t know what it is to be old.  Someday you’ll be saying the same thing…” — well, I don’t want to be doing the whole lyric there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  But it’s a very, it’s a very warm lyric.  And I say, Orson, when he heard the lyric, he says, “I’m going to, I’ll do it.”  So….\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now.  Tell me about Chicago.  You, so you, how many years were you at Agudas Achim?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I was at Agudas Achim I think…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Agudas Achim North Shore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  North Shore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I, I don’t know — for five or six or seven years — I don’t remember exactly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  You had a choir there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Uh, for the High Holidays.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you remember who conducted the choir?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=1953.0,2018.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  Well, Ralph Sterling was a musician, and first I had a fellow by the name of Barney Schlutz.  And then, later, I, I had Ralph Sterling.  He was a singer.  And I made him the conductor, as I say, because my arms were tired…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  …from conducting, and, and — you know, there was a shortage of singers in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, I know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Jewish singers.  And I needed a baritone.  And one day he says, “Listen.  I got a singer with the most magnificent voice.”  And I said, “Okay, bring him around.”  And he sang about four bars for me, and I didn’t ask any questions, and I says, “Okay.” This singer — it’s the first time I ever had a non-Jew singing for me.  His name is Sherrill Milnes.  Then he wasn’t with the Metropolitan Opera, but a couple of years later.  Well, he sang for me at the South Side He- I had left Agudas Achim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did you get to South Side Hebrew?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2018.0,2078.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I left Agudas Achim because I got so busy in the commercial business, I just didn’t have the time.  I just didn’t have the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So what, South Side Hebrew was less time, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, they don’t, I didn’t da—, not for the year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, oh, you mean, just, like it, what…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  They called me, a fellow by the name of Dave Lefkowitz at the time, he wanted me to go to South Side before I took the Agudas Achim position.  He called me and he said — ‘cause they had a second service, they had an overflow service — “Would you do it?”  And they, I think they paid me $6,000 for the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So this was just, this was for the overflow, for the second service…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  For the overflow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …at South Side Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, one day we’d go in the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I understand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  …in the synagogue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  This was when they were at 71st and Chappell, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s correct, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When they, and the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And, and, and so, Janowski was there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Janowski wasn’t, was, wasn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  He wasn’t involved.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  …never at the South Side.  He was at a, at a Reform…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I understand.  But he was involved with South Side for a number of years…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Not, not, not to my knowledge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\\LEVIN:  …with his choir.  He sent his choir in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  Well, maybe — not for me.  I had my own choir.  No, they had another choir.  I don’t know whether Janowski did it or not.  I don’t think so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So who was your, who was your choir director over there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Ralph Sterling.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, oh, oh — in South Side Hebrew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  Right.  And he brought me Sherrill Milnes…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2078.0,2143.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But there you had men and women?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  I only had…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Really?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  …I only had a quartet, I think, of four men.  Four or five men.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At South Side Hebrew you had only men?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I only had men in the choir.  I never had women in my choir.  Not that I was against women in the choir, but Agudas Achim was, was Orthodox, you know…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Agudas Achim was Orthodox, but…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  …and South Side was mostly Ortho-, was really all traditional, you know.  More to the Orthodox.  And, and, and Rabbi Teller was there, who…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, who was the cantor there, the regular full-time, I can’t think of his name…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Slavensky, Pavel Slavensky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Pavel Slavensky, and there was another one there…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  There was another one before.  There was, there was somebody before Pavel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I don’t remember.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Whatever it was — I don’t remember his name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Before and after…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, all right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And, so then I davenned there for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur about four or five years.  And, and that was that.  And then I didn’t do it anymore.  I loved doing it; I enjoyed it — that’s why I did it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2143.0,2191.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"`\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And since then, you haven’t done it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Even here, you don’t take a holiday job?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  No.  I haven’t done it.  In a long time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUh, so that’s the story with Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And then, what, you, you left Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I left Chicago.  Well, I used to come out here maybe 20 times a year from Chicago to record or film the commercials and do the music and the sound — you know, the tracks and so on and so forth.  And then I decided to move out here.  My son is out here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Where did you get your musical training?  I mean, just already, just the basic…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, I, I studied a little piano, and I studied, I had sight, sight-reading, sight-singing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  As a child?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  As a child — oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But isn’t that unusual for somebody of that milieu, I mean, that you’re, that you had music lessons?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, if you’re going to be a can-, you’re going to be a singer, you should learn how to read music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I agree, but you and I both know that, that some of them, a lot of them didn’t — they just…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  They didn’t.  Well, I did.  I studied piano for a year or so, and then I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Brooklyn, or where?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  With a piano teacher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Brooklyn?  Or in Manhattan?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  In, in Brooklyn, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And also sight-reading.  And then…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2191.0,2257.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But that was a bit progressive, wouldn’t you say?  Wasn’t that the good foresight on the part of your parents?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Usually people in those circles didn’t…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I knew I needed it, I mean, and, and why not?  And, you know.  Especially if you’re going to sing with a choir. As a matter of fact, this choir leader that I have, that I had at that time was, didn’t know a note of music.  But he conducted so beautifully.  And I used to have to give the pitch for the choir to start to sing.  You know. Well, it’s, it’s a part of it, you know.  Part of your, if you’re going to be a hazzan, you’re going to be a cantor, you should, then you’re going to sing with choirs, you better know some music.  Or there are a lot of them that don’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, what about, let’s, let’s go back to this film.  Now, tell me how you got involved in the — was it called The Voice of Israel?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  The Voice of Israel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  You were how old then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I was about 14.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So your voice had changed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  My voice had changed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who came to you, and how did that whole thing happen?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Uh, oh, I, I think I remember.  When I sang for Sholom Secunda’s brother, Willie Secunda, with a cantor by the name of Nieminski — and by the way, there, there, I think was one that didn’t know music.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2257.0,2324.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"‘Cause he gave the wrong pitch once and the, and I kind of saved the, the night.  It was slichas service.  With the falsetto.  ‘Cause my, when they came to my solo, it was so high.  You know.  Anyway. And so Willie Secunda, I think, talked to Sholom, because Sholom was the music director of the, of the film.  You know, did most of the conducting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, I didn’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  Well, he, he did the, he had the choir.  See…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Secunda?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Sholom Secunda.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I thought Machtenberg had one…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  Machtenberg had a choir.  And they sang Yismachu.  But he had a big choir there.  But Sholom Secunda accompanied, I know he accompanied me, and I think he accompanied some of the other cantors.  So I think that’s how it came — Willie Secunda talked to Sholom and I think, and then somebody called me — Joe Seiden called me or somebody — and they asked me about the film, would I do it.  And I said, “You know, my voice changed.”  They said, “But you, you, we, we want you — you’re the youngest cantor.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2324.0,2381.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You were living then in, in New York, still?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  In New York, yeah. Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  All right.  So where, what did you sing in that film?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I sang Layel Baruch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you remember whose, whose…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Mine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, this is your own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It was my own.  I sang it. Now Secunda — see, as I, as I said to you before, normally, I would just sing it, and as I… but Secunda said, “Look — I need it in writing, because I’m going to have the choir.”  So I sang it for him, I just sang it as it was, ad lib.  And then he wrote it out, and then, made the arrangement for the choir.  And, and that was that.  And I, I remembered, he played it back to me.  He played back to me what I sang, and then we got together, and he accompanied me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, where, where did you, where did you do the filming on that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  In New York.  I don’t remember where, but in New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But the filming itself was done in New York.  It wasn’t done here; it wasn’t done in Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  O, no, no, no, no.  It was done in New York.  It was done in New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, alright. So now you, you were in Chicago a significant number of years, you knew the, you knew the establishment there in Jewish music, even though, you — like Moe Silverman and…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2381.0,2449.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  Moe was my closest friend in Chicago.  He and I, we had similar background and we were two good, good cantors.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And what about Resnick?  Did you ever sing with, you ever do anything with the Halevi Choral Society, or…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  I was very close friends with Hy.  When the cantors did a concert, I think — I’m not sure, I think Hy conducted one time.  But I never sang with the Halevi Choir.  But Hy and I had a deep mutual respect. As a matter of fact, it’s bec-, in a way, it’s because of Hy that I got involved in television.  Because he had said to me, “Jerry, you got so much time, you know.”  And so that’s when, when I got into it.  I said, “He’s right.  You know, what am I, I got nothing to do for five….” Some of the other cantors, they went around talking about this rabbi and talking about this rabbi — it wasn’t me.  It wasn’t my style to do.  And that’s when I got involved in the, and I said that… ‘Cause I didn’t have to rehearse outside of the Rosh Hashanah holiday, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2449.0,2510.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Sometimes, I’d have a choir for Passover, so when I would talk the synagogue into paying for it.  Because it was enjoyable for me — I loved it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you, did you, did you know some of the old-timers there, like Joshua Lind?  Did you ever meet Joshua Lind?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Sure.  I met Joshua Lind, and I know Phil Lind.  And Maury Lind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No, Murray’s gone a long time already.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Maury?  I did not know that. And you see, Dovidl Lind — Dale Lind — was just about, around the same time that I was a can-, that I was a boy hazzan.  You know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, he would be, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah, just around the same time.  And, but I think he came out just a few months later than, than, than I did, I’m not exactly sure.  But it was around the same era.  There was Zevin and there was Schreiber, and there was — Reich came later, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Tell me… yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Around the — not too much later, around the same…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  About the same — yeah, that’s about right.  Reich, Reich was, Reich started, he has a recording somewhere, I heard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2510.0,2571.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I don’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Of a soprano or alto voice, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I have a nephew who went up to San Francisco and he had yahrzeit.  And he goes to synagogue quite often.  And when they said the name Engelhardt, they invited him up.  Said the name Engelhardt, Reich came over to him and said, “Are you related, by any chance?”  And he said, “Yes, that’s my uncle.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s the last I heard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But what about, there was another, I wonder if you knew — I’ll think of the name in a second.  There was a boy, it might be even before that — I don’t know — it was also a boy hazzan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It’s getting to you too, huh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s terrible.  But that’s all, that’s nothing to do….  Peysele Karras.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yes.  Yes.  He was around the same time, too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Was he around the same time?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you know, did you ever meet, know him, on this…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I think I may have met him once. And there was another one, too, by the name of Glatt.  Shimele Glatt.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2571.0,2638.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"That I, I remember, because he was, lost his voice, his voice has changed too, and he came to me and his father, could I do the service together with him.  And we did, I think I did it once or twice in some synagogue in Baltimore or Boston or wherever it was — I forgot where.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  If you’re not bar mitzvah yet, how could you be shaliach tzibor for the congregation?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, that’s — I’ll tell you something very interesting.  That’s what the other cantors, who were kind of kind of envious at the time, kept saying.  “You know, you’re not bar mitzvahed yet.”  So they went to the rabbis.  So one of the rabbis, one of the chief rabbis said, “You know what?  They’re better off with the young boys who haven’t sinned yet, they’re fit to be the shaliach tsibor with the davenning.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s true.  There’s no question about that.  But…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And that was the reason, and that was the answer, and then they stopped bothering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But I mean, still, it still doesn’t answer, I mean, that’s, that’s, it’s nice, and it’s, and it’s probably true, but it has, from a legal point of view, I’m curious, you know.  I mean, in other words, when you, when you served as the hazzan…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2638.0,2710.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you didn’t have, you were, you didn’t do anything differently than you would have done had you been bar mitzvah already.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You just started from the beginning, went straight through.  You started…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I went straight — I did the whole service.  As a matter of fact…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You started with Hineni?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Oh, yes.  I started with Hineni, all the way through.  As a matter of fact…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  As a ten-year-old, you were doing Hineni?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Oh, yeah.  Oh, yeah.  I knew most of the service by heart.  Many times, I would just have to glance at something, and I knew the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  All right, what happened when you came to, to, for example, to Fal Koreh for Avodah and…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I did.  I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I mean, I suppose these things could be answered and not, from the rabbinical point of, but from the cantorial — in other words, it was accepted that even though you were not…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It was accepted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …you were not — you see, it doesn’t make any sense for this reason — the argument that the Orthodox used — one of the arguments — against why a woman cannot be a cantor, why a woman cannot…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Aside from the nonsense about a woman’s voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, this is silly, that doesn’t — I mean, you like it or you don’t like it, but it’s a stupid legal argument against it.  Because a man’s voice is just as attractive, can be just as attractive to a woman as a woman’s voice can be to a man — that’s a silly thing.  But there, they had raised another issue — they say, look — a woman is not legally obligated to pray.  At all.  Ever.  Right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2710.0,2792.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I don’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  No.  It’s not.  Only a man is obligated, in the law, to pray.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, I just learned something now, see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  See, three times a day to say Shema.  A woman is exempt from those obligations.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT: Mm-hmm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: She can do it, do it, but she’s, doesn’t, she’s not obligated to do it.  Therefore, if she’s not obligated to do it, you can’t assume that she did it.  Therefore, how can she lead others in prayer? Now, if, of course, the modern answer to, in the Conservative Movement and the Reform Movement answers the following:  you’re right.  A woman has to have taken — whoever is leader — man, woman, doesn’t matter — whoever it is has to have, have, be fulfilling the obligation of prayer.  But in today’s world, it’s possible for a woman to take that obligation on herself, because we have, because she’s not necessarily bound to the, to the home in the way where she doesn’t have the time to pray three times a day.  Therefore — but she still has to do it. Now, my question is, if you, at the age of ten, you see, are not bar mitzvah yet, it means you’re not obligated yet either to pray.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2792.0,2851.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  But I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But, but you’re not obligated to, though.  The Torah doesn’t obligate you.  Didn’t anyone ever raise that question?  How can you lead others in prayer?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  They never raised the question.  Because first of all, there were a couple of other boy cantors that started a little before me, and that thing was answered, I say, in the way I told you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And they were happy to have it, and there was never a question raised, except of a few jealous people, and maybe a few rabbis that, that brought it up.  But it wasn’t an issue anymore with me, when I was around.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, what about compositions?  Did you sing, when you had the choir, was it only their responses and humming…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, no, no — we had compositions.  Max Helfman wrote some beautiful music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  So you, you actually, and you sang…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Oh, I sang.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ‘Cause by that time, you were a mature voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  And there, and, and there were compositions that were written that I had the music for many years ago.  For instance, this Jacob Schrader — I’m pretty sure he wrote \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTevieinu.  And the choir themselves, when I hired the choirs, for instance, before I had my own choirs, you know, they had the comp-, they had the compositions by Machtenberg and other composers…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you remember any of those things from Machtenberg?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2851.0,2918.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I remember the one thing which Machtenberg sang was Yismachu in the picture, which was magnificent.  But I don’t remember — there were a lot of compositions that Machtenberg wrote.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, of course, there’s that disgusting kind of Shehechyanu that everybody does now.  But that’s…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I don’t even know it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You heard it — it doesn’t sound…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I don’t even know it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Shehechyanu… But how about, do you have any music of these things?  Do you have any manuscripts?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yes, I do.  As a matter of fact, my nephew, the one I’m talking about, I sent it to him, ‘cause his cantor heard, I had recorded the Slichas service one year.  Right at the service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Where?  Where was this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  At Agudas Achim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  At Agudas Achim.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  And so he said, he told him about me, and this cantor evidently had heard about me, and I sent him, the, the choral pieces of what I used.  And evidently, he must have made copies of it — I think he did.  Then he sent it back to me.  Yes, I have that at home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So you do have… now, and among those choral pieces — all right, the things that you mentioned, like Helfman, I mean, this is published music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But I’m talking about the, is there among that…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2918.0,2984.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I have, yes, I have some of those, as I say, some were written by this cantor Jacob Schrader.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You have it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I think he was.  I think he wrote it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So that would be good — if you could send it over, we could get some…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah, I have, I have, I have that whole book of pieces.  But I sang with, and a lot of it was when I was a little boy and I remembered by ear, and I sang it, I think, for Kalib — Sholom Kalib — and he wrote it out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, so this is…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  For choir.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …his notations of your, of your, what you…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  What I remembered singing…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So none of it is choral music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It was choral music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But he…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It’s what the choir sang, but I remembered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But you remembered the melody.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I remembered the melody lines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So it’s Kalib’s harmonizations, then.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  That’s right.  And I gave it to Kalib, and I sang it…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Machtenberg, is there Machtenberg in it?  Do you have any Machtenberg pieces?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I don’t think so.  I doubt… but I’ll look — I, I doubt it very, very much.  ‘Cause I didn’t sing long with Machtenberg.  I, I was with him maybe for about six months.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, just if it was in that collection and so forth, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah, yeah.  I doubt it.  I’ll have to take a look.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You were talking about Pinchik’s concerts in Milwaukee…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=2984.0,3040.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eABBOTT:\u003c/strong\u003e Pinchik… First of all, I, I loved him.  I loved him.  And he kind of liked me.  He kind of heard about me a little bit.  And, because I thought he was the greatest hazzan.  Not the greatest voice, but the greatest cantor ever, ever. So he was doing a concert in Milwaukee — it was not a concert, it was a party or something, and he was invited and I was invited.  And he started, he started to sing something.  They had a piano player there.  And the piano player was struggling, ‘cause Pinchik was ad-libbing, he was just singing.  And Pinchik was looking at me and I was sitting near the piano player.  And little by little, I moved myself over to the piano player and I kind of inched him off, and I took over, and I accompanied Pinchik.  On the piano.  ‘Cause I knew what he was going to do — I knew the chords and everything else, you know. And he looked at me.  He was so thankful, because the man was, was playing some chords that, that almost destroyed what Pinchik was doing.  So he thanked me after, he said thanks, man. I, I had to do it, because the man was struggling. But that’s as far as Pinchik is concerned — the man is, was the greatest, and some of his records, as you know, you know… Go ahead.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3040.0,3121.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.  You were, we were, we were talking about the milieu, the surrounding in Borough Park and so forth, when you were young and how you absorbed it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I was very lucky because within a radius of six or seven or eight blocks, I had Rosenblatt, Hirschmann, Kwartin, and then I had the second- or third-rate cantors.  So I used to go. In those days, the cantors davenned Rosh Hashanah — Rosh Chodesh every month, and they had the full choir there, they had choirs of 50.  Hirschmann had choir, Leo Low was the conductor of 50 voices and, and Rosenblatt had Herman Wohl, and you know, of 30 voices and so on. You couldn’t get in the synagogue, it was so jammed.  There was no charge during those, you know, every month, Pesach or, Pesach or Shavuos.  So I had these cantors, and it soaked into me. Then, I used to go, the other Shabbosim, to listen to some of the other ones and to find out why they’re not great.  Because they didn’t know when to stop.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3121.0,3184.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"They repeated and repeated and repeated.  And they nudged the people.  So it was wonderful for me to say now I know the difference, why Rosenblatt is so great, and why Hirschmann.  Because they knew when to stop.  They didn’t nudge the people, they didn’t keep them there too long, and so on and so forth. And in those days, the people didn’t come to hear a rabbi.  And the rabbis are going to love me for this.  The rabbi spoke, I think, one day a year — on Rosh Hashanah, on Yom Kippur.  The people came to listen to the hazzanim, to the cantors.  And they, say, most of them, the big ones especially, had big choirs.  And it was such a wonderful, and there was an, an aura in those synagogues, that you knew — even though if you didn’t know what they were, what the translation was — but there was something in the air. And unfortunately, the rabbis, I have to say, have destroyed that.  They started becoming, doing with the, with the jumping up like jackrabbits with the pages and so on and so forth.  It took away all of the warmth, the fire that they had in the synagogues. As a matter of fact, I’ll tell you something interesting.  My son Elliott went to college and he belonged to a fraternity, the Sammys, in Illinois.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3184.0,3260.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And when — this was when I davenned at the South Side Hebrew Congregation, also with Agudas Achim — and as I said, it was very interesting, and the choir loved singing with me, ‘cause they didn’t know what I was going to do, as I say, because I didn’t know what I was going to do.  And when, when my son met the fraternity brothers and they realized this was my son, they said, “You know, Elliott, we used to stay ‘till the end of the service when your father davenned.  Because we never knew what he was going to do.  It was always excitement.  There was always a warmth.”  This is from young kids, you know. Because when I davened, let’s say, especially at the South Side Hebrew Congregation for the High Holidays, Rabbi Teller, I would, sometimes I would look at him like, “Give me a little rest.  Come up and you know, say something.”  He said, “I don’t want to interrupt your ser-…” — I mean, he did for me, because he asked him.  ‘Cause on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is, you know, it’s a long service.  To give me a rest.  But he wanted to sit and listen, because it was the real Orthodox service. And these young boys — when I say, they, they wouldn’t leave the synagogue.  They told that to my son.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3260.0,3324.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  How has, if at all, I mean, would you say there’s been any influence of this whole milieu, that you, musically, was in your head — hazzanas and the, and the choral music, and that whole style of music and that whole thing that you absorbed inside — has there been any influence of that in your other music writing — in your songwriting?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yes.  Because as I say, as I composed, as I sang, you know, on the spur of the moment, melodies — melodies come to me very easily.  And I must have written a couple of thousand commercials, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What are some of your most famous commercials?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, this “Self-styling Adorn,” and Dippity-Doo and “Get Suave, you suave,” for Helene Curtis.  Numerous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What are some more?  Ones that we might recognize.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  ReaLemon — “We squeeze; you pour.”  And I wrote, for Wrigley I wrote… one for Extra — I can’t, don’t remember the melody now.  And also for, for Double Mint.  I wrote so many, I don’t… I even wrote one for a client in Ohio called, for Pavelka’s Cold Cuts — I’m not going to sing it to you.  But O’Henry Candy Bar, Baby Ruth Candy.  Many, many, many of them that you’d know if you heard.  And… yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3324.0,3416.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And I mean, would you say your gift for melody is, has to do with…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It was God-given.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …it has to do with, I mean, after all, you can’t say that any of the jingles are Jewish melodies or Jewish tunes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  No.  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But is there a less, a less obvious carryover?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Like what?  I don’t understand what you mean.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Style — I mean, look — we find, for example, in, even in, some people find even in Gershwin’s music certain carryovers from the sounds that he absorbed in the Lower East Side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Well, the one, the one that’s, that’s, in the minor key, well, it’s a little, if you’d want to say it, on the Jewish style, is the Orson Welles thing I did — the I Know What It Is To Be Young.  That’s a little bit of it, because it, it, called for it; it was, you know.  But others, I would say no.  No.  Not really.  Because it just didn’t fit.  You know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3416.0,3481.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Have you heard, since, since yourself, have you heard any boy sopranos or altos in the, in the cantorial world?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  I, no.  As a matter of fact, I was talking to some people, and they said, “Jerry, you know, your, your music and your this and that.  Would you ever teach somebody?”  And I said, “If I found a little boy that had, that I felt had the talent, yeah, I would teach him.  I would give him whatever I, I could, if I thought he had the talent.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It, today, it’s a non-existent thing.  I mean…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  There’s no, I mean, I don’t know of any.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  The background, the Jewish background.  Now, it’s important. Yet, I see, see, now I see a lot of, of children out here, with the payos, the really Orthodox thing.  And I think maybe from, from those kids, maybe something could come.  If they’re living the life that I lived, where Friday night they go to shul, and Saturday morning they go to shul.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3481.0,3545.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I think maybe, but I, I haven’t, I haven’t heard or heard of… But I say, maybe that would be the only time that I would — like some people ask me, “Would you ever daven again?”  And I say, my, my, Ralph Sterling and I had this discussion and I said, I would maybe love to if it was a real Orthodox synagogue, where I would have my kind of an audience that I was accustomed to.  Where the rabbi wouldn’t, wouldn’t jump up and down, you know, every minute.  And where it was real, real Orthodox.  Then I could, I could enjoy it.  Maybe I would.  But I would have to go into training for like three months to get my voice back, ‘cause I haven’t sung in, in a long time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, all, the various boys that you mentioned — there were about a half a dozen who were well-known as…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3545.0,3603.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …as famous boy cantors.  Were any, were they always altos?  Or any sopranos?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, I think they were all altos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Always altos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Dale Lind. Dale had a, a very high voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  He, as a matter of fact, I, I really didn’t like his voice as a child. Now, the second voice — magnificent!  Magnificent!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did you ever hear, or did you know, Teveleh Cohen and his son there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Jordan?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  Very, very well.  Yeah.  See, Teveleh…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Wasn’t Teveleh at Agudas Achim at one time?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  He, he went there after I left.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  After you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  I left there.  I didn’t like the rabbi.  And I had some thing with him, and I decided I’ve had it with him.  And he was very — unfortunately, poor guy — he was very jealous of me.  There was, there should be no jealousy between a rabbi and a cantor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3603.0,3666.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  One sings and one speaks.  But it was very, very annoying, and I just said fine.  That’s when I went to the South Side, just for the High Holidays.  And I enjoyed it very, very much.  It was a, it was for me that I, that I did it, you know.  And that was that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s a lost, a whole lost world, and it’s an un- completely unwritten chapter.  I’ve never seen anywhere a, even a, even a four-page essay, let alone a chapter, about the phenomena of the boy hazzanim.  Now in Europe, I don’t know whether — I mean, there were some who had that talent also, but, but I think it probably is an American phenomenon, with that kind of hype, anyway, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yes.  I, I think so.  Well, I, I don’t know about Europe.  I, but I, I, I agree with you.  I think Zevin was the first one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Zevin.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3666.0,3722.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"ABBOTT:  I think Leibele Zevin was the first one, to my knowledge, that I remember.  And you know, I never heard him.  I never heard him.  He’s the only one I didn’t — I mean, that I really thought about who was very big.  Because if he was davenning, I was davenning, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Who taught you how to use your voice as a child?  Because you can, you can ruin it if you don’t have the right technique.  Who gave you the, I’m talking about the physical technique.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  You know what?  That comes naturally.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  To some people.  To some people, no?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Uh, you either have it or you don’t.  Now, you take Jan Peerce.  Do you remember Jan Peerce?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  His, we used to call him Pinky.  Pinky Pearl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ‘Cause that was his real, Pinky Perelmuth, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Right.  Jan sang at my, and played in a, in a little band of Harry Lubin years ago and played weddings, and he, he played and sang at my brother’s wedding.  I was about 11 years old or ten years old then, and I, as I told you, I had a magnificent voice, which unfortunately, I don’t have recorded.  And all of a sudden, I hear — and it was customary for me to sing at my brother’s wedding or this one — and I hear this voice.  I’ll never forget the song he sang — he sang a popular song called Crying for the Carolines.  He played violin.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3722.0,3794.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  And he sang.  And I hear this voice, and I said, “Oh, my God.”  And then later on, he became Jan Peerce. That was a voice God-given.  God gave him the voice.  Nobody taught him.  Now for the opera, that’s something else. And nobody taught me.  This was it — I didn’t have to, they didn’t teach, have to teach me how to breathe — I breathed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How about Yiddish?  Did you ever sing Yiddish theater things or things like that when you were…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Uh, one time, Sholom Secunda called me.  And he says, “My brother Willie told me about you.”  He says, “I would,” oh, he called, and he called my father.  And he said, he, he was the music director of the Roland Theater in Brooklyn. Brownsville.  And they had a show where they wanted somebody to sing Haben Yakir Li.  And I was in the yeshiva at the time, I was in class.  And when I came home, my father said to me, “Listen.  Sholom Secunda called, and he wants you to sing the solo in the theater.  And he’ll pay us $150 a week for you to sing it — just the solo — one night, every night, you know.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3794.0,3865.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I says, “Friday night, too?”  I was very Orthodox.  And he said, “Yes.” I said, so, so I got angry at my father.  I said, “What did you tell him?”  He says, “Well, I have to wait till Shaya comes home,” to ask me.  I said, “Why didn’t you tell him right away that I won’t do it?  You know I won’t sing in a theater.”  And my father, he, he laughed.  $150 a week was a lot of money. And because I remembered that Rosenblatt so-called destroyed his career when he sang in the theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In vaudeville, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  He had to sing in the theater because he invested money in a Jewish paper called the, The Yiddishe Licht, I think it was.  And it went bankrupt, and in order to pay off the debts — ‘cause that was a very, you know, you pay off your debts — he, he went and sang in a theater, and the Orthodox, the Orthodox Jews went, oh, my God, a terrible thing.  And I remembered what he did, and I wouldn’t sing in a theater, so I turned it down.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3865.0,3929.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012/transcript/25044/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  At the age of what?  Ten?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Nine, ten.  I said, no, I will not sing in a theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s like, God, I don’t know, $2,000 a week now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  It’s more than that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  More than that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  But I, I was very Orthodox.  I didn’t write on - write on - didn’t do anything on Shabbos, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  But that’s how I was brought up.  My…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So you never did any Yiddish theater.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, I wouldn’t do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And later on?  As an adult, you didn’t?  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No.  No.  They didn’t call me.  They didn’t come to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Right.  Maybe because some people crossed the…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …theater…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  No, I, I…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  …like Peerce, for example.  I mean, Peerce, who else…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eABBOTT:  Yeah.  But no, I, I never did that.  And… I had a most interesting life.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40379/file/112012#t=3929.0,3981.07733"}]}]}]}