•
44 Friday, March 22, 1 985
,
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
N.
"Herb's Hemish Deal" .
bruce m. weiss
AUTO RUST REPAIRS
Jewelers
26325 Twelve Mile Rd.
S outheast corner Northwestern
Arc & Gas Welding
Behind Gabe's Fruits
In The Mayfair Shops
Free Estimates at Your Home or Office
Free Pick up and Delivery
Vinyl tops, rotted floors
— Same Location Since 1972 -
Mon.-Sat. 10-5:30
Thurs. 10-8:30
SHOP 493-0212 HOME 356-3677
353-1424
-
—
MUSIC
Fiddling
Continued from Page 104
JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
FRI., MAR. 22 THRU SAT., MAR. 23
ALL MATERNITY CLOTHES
30% OFF
TODDLER BOYS & GIRLS DRESS CLOTHES
40% OFF
Mon.-Sat. 10-5
Benyas- Kaufman
Thurs. 10-8
APPLEGATE SQUARE
Northwestern & Inkster • Southfield
352-9799
• All Sales Fi la' • No Charges
Joe Greenbaum and Larry Bassin tune up for a performance.
A
/f0
The Haggadah was read.
The goodbyes were said.
Cup after cup,
The coffee was Brim.®
,
C al
111.111.
Fill your cup to the rim
With the richness of Brim.®
.111.
GENERAL FOOOB
.1985 General Foods Corporation
Not bad for a couple of musi-
cians whose only publicity, up
until recently, was through
word-of-mouth — and whose
"business cards" were once
paper plates or napkins on
which their names and phone
numbers were scribbled in
pencil:-
"Yiddish has been part of
my life since I was a kid," says
Bassin, taking a break from a
recent rehearsal session • at
Greenbaum's home. "My
grandparents, my aunt, my
mother spoke Yiddish. And
I've always heard Yiddish
music. I can remember my
grandparents coming over to
our house on Sunday after-
noons and, once we ate, we'd
start to sing and we'd spend
hours singing. I'd play the
guitar, too, although playing
is not the big thing for me —
the main thing for me is sing-
ing."
Bassin and Greenbaum feel
that, musically, they comple-
ment each other. Greenbaum,
born in Poland and the
grandson of a Klezmer musi-
cian, does not sing, but has had
a classical training as a vio-
linist since the age of 6, and
has played in the Flint,
Kalamazoo, Saginaw and Bay
City symphony orchestras.
Bassin, on the other hand, has
had little formal music train-
ing and does not read music.
"It's just natural, there in
my heart," he says. "Joe's a
perfectionist and he drives me
crazy sometimes. Practice is
painful and sometimes we'll go
over a song four-five times.
But that's fine. It's a new
discipline for me; I've never
had that discipline."
"I don't think of it as just
some kind of leisure time ac-
tivity that's fun to do," adds
Greenbaum, who came to the
United States when he was 13,
and is employed as an automo-
tive engineer at Ford , Motor
Co. "I think of it like a second
job — a professional endeavor.
It's not something that you
just kinda go out and mess
around with."
They say they've managed
to develop their act mostly
through a trial-and-error
method — seeing what works
for them and for their audi-
ences, and what doesn't. Dur-
ing most performances, each
has a solo number, and they
usually do at least one Russian
number and maybe an Irving
Berlin medley, along with the
Yiddish music. Sometimes,
Greenbaum might even throw
in a popular bluegrass piece,
The Devil's Dream.
The two met at a Sholem
Aleichem Institute function
four years ago. At the time,
Bassin was beginning to per-
form as a solo act for local
groups such as B'nai B'rith
and Hadassah. Last fall, after
eventually discovering their
shared commitment to
Kleimer music and the Yid-
dish theater, the two decided
to get together.
Their first booking was a
night to remember.
"We went to play for a
Masonic lodge in Ferndale,"
Bassin explains. "It was sup-
posed to be a Jewish Mason
lodge although, at the time, I
.