Ladino Sephardic Songs -Los Guisados de la Berenjena, Yağmur Yağar Taş Üstüne, Si Verias Rampi Rampi

All songs are in Ladino (also known as Judeo-Spanish), the language of Jews that had been expelled from the Iberian Peninsula during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions of the late fifteenth century. Originally the bulk of Judeo-Spanish was made up of Medieval Spanish/Old Castilian, Navarro-Aragonese, Astur-Leonese, Old Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, Mozarabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic. As a result of their settling in the Middle East and North Africa post-expulsion, the language has become imbued with French, Turkish, Persian (through Ottoman Turkish), Arabic, Italian, Greek, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, and Romani. A Spanish speaker would find most of the lyrics intelligible. The first song is a traditional cooking song titled "Seven Ways to Cook Eggplant.” This is a favorite of mine because the usul (rhythm), Mürekkep Nim Sofyan, is contrasted with a famous rhythm often used in Moroccan and Andalusian music. To western ears this is a switch between 3/4 and 6/8. For the sake of time, we go only through three recipes: eggplant skewers, stuffed eggplant, and eggplant gratin. The chorus is about a drunk uncle drinking more wine because it makes him happy. The second song is titled "Korona Kantiga." I composed the Ladino lyrics about the Coronavirus to the tune of the Turkish folksong "Yağmur yağar taş üstüne." I kept the original Turkish chorus, which translates to "Oh birdy, servant of God, I loved you. Oh birdy, oh," because when placed in this lyrical setting it implies the death of a loved one and the singer's dread of the inevitable, contrasting that with the recognition of perpetuity at a time when the world is on pause. The gibberish word "dili" imitates the sound of a bird's chirping as the singer recalls her loved one's nickname, juxtaposing the cessation of life with the living sounds of singing birds that are clueless to the situation at hand. The third song is a mash-up of the traditional song "Si Veriash," another cooking song, with the popular Rembetiko tune "Rampi Rampi." I took a Ladino poem I had found, "Bre Alberto!" and imposed it on the melody of "Rampi Rampi." The chorus of "Si Veriash" is in Turkish: "I love you, I love you very much." The chorus of "Rampi Rampi" is the repetition of a meaningless Greek word, ending with the exclamation, "mashallah!", which translates roughly to "magnificent!" Jenny Luna, voice Jonathan Salman, clarinet Brandon Wallace, kaval Alyssa Mathias, violin Simone Salmon, oud Kira Weiss, cello Joseph Alpar, darkbuka Ensemble direction and lyrics by Simone Salmon Video, mix and mastering by Jonathan Tompkins Made possible by the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience and the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies Please request permission before sampling or using for other purposes.