Mickey Katz

Initially Katz had a hard time finding work, and he bopped around from one small, unsuccessful job to the next. Finally Katz ran into Ed Fishman, a man he knew from Cleveland, who helped him find a job playing in Howard Phillip's orchestra at the Manger Hotel. Read Less

Finally, at the end of his career, Katz began playing the Florida condominium circuit, often playing two shows a night.

Katz was largely a jazz musician. All of his parodies have a distinct klezmer flavor, though, either throughout the entire piece or as a brief "break" in the middle of the song.

Mickey Katz emphasized Jewishness during a time when most people wanted to pretend that Jewish ethnic differences didn't exist. The Holocaust left many people afraid of the potential consequences of delineating differences between those who were Jewish and those who were not. Many Jews ended up distancing themselves from things that would designate them as Jewish. Katz, on the other hand, reveled in the unique identity of Jewish Americans. He created parodies with Yiddish lyrics, sang in a Yiddish accent, and included a klezmer "break" halfway through each song. His particular style allowed him to make fun of America's most popular, traditional, and stereotypical songs while at the same time providing an inside joke for his Yiddish-speaking audience. The cleverness of his work lies in his ability to make fun of both sides, Jewish and stereotypical American. The obvious manner in which he enjoyed performing his songs seems to communicate a desire to appreciate differences and laugh at the blatant stereotypes we create about others and ourselves. Whatever his purpose, his parodies paved the way for artists like Allen Sherman and "Weird Al" Yankovic. Read Less

Katz died in Los Angeles, California.

One evening when Katz was eleven his father took him to a concert at the Talmud Torah, where Katz heard a clarinet solo. On the way home Katz told his father that he wanted to play the clarinet. However, expecting his father to pay for a clarinet and lessons was out of the question. The next day Katz asked the bandmaster of the local high school for a school clarinet, and within a few days he received an old and dusty clarinet. The next step was to find a way to pay for clarinet lessons. Katz went to his Uncle Sam and offered to clean his tailor shop if he would pay for the lessons. His uncle agreed, and soon Katz was studying under Joseph Narovec. Katz excelled with the clarinet, and he quickly learned to play saxophone, too. Read Less