Sailing Through Wires
When I Was a Child Performer on Yiddish Radio
New York, 1945–46
WEVD
Waving goodbye to everyone — announcer, orchestra leader, orchestra — I felt happy. A few of the other musicians applauded!
Tati, my father, waited with a big smile. I was almost at the studio door when I heard, Enshuldik mir, efsher kenst du schreiben dein nomen far mir?”
A skinny man, older than my father, wearing a grey suit, and a funny upside-down grey hat on his head. He wanted my autograph?
Tati stood to the side, watching.
“Oif dos,” Grey Suit Man said, holding out a paper from his pocket. His hand shook a little. His face had too many lines to count. His sweet smile was missing a few front teeth. “Ihr kent mich mein Yiddish farshtein?”
“Yoh.” Yes, I told him. “Ich farshtey yedes vort.” I understood every word. In my home we spoke only Yiddish.
I wasn’t that neat yet with cursive writing. My new friend would get my very best printing. The paper’s wrinkles were getting in the way and I had to start again three times. BREINDELE, that was me. Well — it was the name spoken into the microphone. Bernice was my English name.
Tati and I had arrived at the radio station an hour before the program would start. We were met at the door to a large studio by the announcer, Zvee Scooler, a tall, thin man. He shook both our hands, bending down to reach mine. I never heard anyone with such a low voice. I also never heard anyone who spoke every word so you couldn’t miss anything he said. Many years after this meeting, Mr. Scooler was in the movie, Fiddler on the Roof. He played the part of the Rabbi, an erudite man. In real life, Scooler was indeed, a scholarly man.
Once the red light went on, the announcer introduced me to the listening audience. I would say the name of each song into the microphone, and look at the leader of the small orchestra. When our eyes met, the orchestra played an introduction. That’s when my singing voice went sailing through wires, so my mother and brother could hear me at home.
About That Red Light!!
I had had no previous experience with this red light that hung high on a wall opposite from where I would be. The only instructions which were casually mentioned were the following: no speaking, coughing or any noise when that red light was on. No one talked about sneezing — maybe that was okay.
Getting used to the fact that my singing, or my speaking voice were the only sounds I was allowed to make was not immediately easy as pie. There was no break-in time to become familiar with all this. A crash course. Period! I held the words to every song in my hands when at the mike. All the words to each song had to be on one piece of paper — some sort of non-noisy paper. I could keep my pile of non-noisy paper on a corner of the announcer’s desk or on a chair near where I sat in between mike time.
So there it was: a whole bunch of strange instructions to keep my mind on, in addition to whatever thoughts I might want to give to the songs that were chosen. Do-overs were not even mentioned. Obviously, they didn’t exist. What I said or sang was ‘it’. Usually, the announcer would want a word or twenty or thirty of them with me, before any song. I got used to that pretty quickly — talking to people was something I did on a regular basis. These conversations were not rehearsed; a question from him (I never saw a lady announcer) and an answer from me. That was the routine.
I haven’t mentioned the strangest thing of all. My years of performing before I started to sing on the radio consisted of certain expected things. I sang and an audience applauded. AN AUDIENCE! That’s what was missing! Radio rooms sent voices out — somewhere — -through wires, straight to people who I never got to meet and from whom I never heard applause. In that large studio, the one with the small orchestra, there sometimes was an audience; of one or maybe two or three older people. That’s how I met my original autograph-asker. Sometimes, no one came. Other times, there might be a few people waiting right outside the door. They had come too late to get in. Amazingly, these few, usually elderly folks waited until the broadcast was finished. They waited with paper in hand. Or, they waited to just say ‘hello’ .
That day of my first autograph was my first program on this New York radio station, WEVD. I was eight years old.
Sholom Secunda
My eighth year proved to be a new beginning of my life in music. My father was a Cantor. I loved to hear him daven. And he loved what he did both for the joy it brought him, and for what it inspired in others. I was quite young when we actually became a musical team. It came easily to me because being with my father always made me happy. My ties to him were the connection that mattered most in my life.
That same year, I soloed in a concert in Newark, NJ. The accompanist was Sholom Secunda. Tati was delighted, which made it easier for me to be okay with this new happening, this new chapter. He told me that Mr. Secunda was interested in teaching me — mostly the solos he had written. These solos, being part of services with which I was solidly familiar, came readily to me. Whatever Mr. Secunda taught in one lesson, I would happily sing back the following week. Any music related to Cantorial style was forever baked inside of me.
“It’s really nice how quickly you are learning the pieces I give you.” Mr. Secunda’s glasses sat on his nose, a smile on his whole face. “Does your father help you with these?”
I was aware of Tati smiling.
“No, my father is busy with his own pieces. After I come home from here, the first thing I do is play the new piece on the piano. And then — “
“Wait a minute — I didn’t know you played the piano! So what happens next? Maybe this is when your father might come in to be of help?”
“No, Mr. Secunda. My father stays busy a long time. After I play the new piece, I sing it to myself — not very loud — I just need to make sure it sounds the way it did when you played for me.”
By this time, Tati was laughing a little.
Mr. Secunda shook his head. “So, Chazzen, you have a little girl who can do more than one thing well!”
The next time we came, Mr. Secunda was sitting at his desk. He unfolded a chair for me. While he mostly talked and I mostly listened, he sometimes folded his arms on his chest. Years later, watching him as my choir director, folding his arms across his chest for the umpteenth time, I had a memory of the first time I saw him do that.
I took a quick peek at Tati’s face. His eyes were happy. The next moments would prove to be the most consequential conversation Mr. Secunda and I ever had.
“Look at me dear. I’m asking if you ever listen to a radio station called WEVD?”
“Oh yes, lots of times.”
“Good, good. Have you heard people singing on this station? Did you like what you heard?”
I was 8, not any kind of baby. I understood what it meant to tell the truth. “I like most of what I heard on those Sunday shows.”
Mr. Secunda started laughing. He had a long, deep dimple in his cheek. “You know Chazzen, she has a lot of promise.”
What did he mean? Was I supposed to promise something?
When the two men were done laughing, it got very quiet. The man who would make a lot of interesting things come my way looked at me. “How would you like to sing on radio?”
I didn’t really understand what “sing on radio” was. I knew we had a radio in our living room and sound came out of it. I didn’t know where it came from. But I looked back at Mr. Secunda. “Okay,” I said.
Promises
In the studio at WEVD, I handed the autograph to the man with the toothless smile. “Mein neiye freint.” My new friend.
“Teiyere maidele.” He took the paper tenderly. “Ich vel tsurik gekumen di kumendika voch. ” He promised to come back.
I knew that he would.
Heaven takes note of promises made — so I’ve heard.
Click here to get a rare 1946 recording of me, as a child, singing “V’chol Maaminim” with my father, Cantor Israel H. Zuckerberg. The composer, the esteemed Sholom Secunda, accompanies.
