Of "Bagels And Bongos"

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency via the Baltimore Jewish Times, this past Tuesday a non-profit record label re-released "Bagels and Bongos," an album of traditional Jewish songs played to a Latin beat. 

"In 1959, when Irving Fields was playing piano at the Sherry Biltmore Hotel in Boston, two couples approached him with competing requests.

"'One couple requested, 'I Love You Much Too Much,' a nice Jewish song," Fields recalled, while the other couple insisted, 'We wanna rumba.'

"'So I blended them and played this traditional Jewish song as a rumba, and the crowd loved it,'" Fields said."

Two million copies of "Bagels and Bongos" were sold in 1959 when it was released.  The website of the  record label, Reboot Stereophonic, features a videotaped interview of Irving Fields. It also has a picture of the album's original cover art, which is fantastic.

Well worth a look and listen.