people you know the village gate and so forth but i wonder maybe you could go back share your own background little bit if you could let this be a programme about art and look off and where did it all get started and where were you raised you know going to give us some of your own background and how you got into the into the into the music in concert business and so well i got into the music in concert business sort of by default and i'll go and get into that music well i come from a jewish in common need all around yes yes it was in there wasn't there wasn't the type of crime we have now and yes we did have alcohol and alcoholism but we didn't have the type of  drug problem we have today which drives people to to rob and steal and to also forsake their own education and their own ability to get onto a job or a textile plant in palestine ok i wasn't i mean you know when if the jews offer up the st one who did that and they had they had scholars and rabbis and teachers and i think one of the most famous of the scholars much and the reform world as well they were against the idea of a separate jewish state because they were worried about dual national and nationality well also like that right i mean when they st announced that i mean they were like it i don't know i'm not you know jewish and that sort of thing but they were in the you know in the in their they were they were starting to home and that sort of thing i know you don't mind having one that they did and then when they announced that they're going to have the in gathering in israel and so forth a lot of those people who studied the he he died in a fatal car crash so it was very sad but i mean the son was the exact opposite interesting that his father well so far from the tree or something but but your mother came away from that i thought i read some of it yes she gave away well my grand parents were orthodox but liberal orthodoxy my uncle wanted to become an engineer he was so he went to germany right and they didn't want to live anymore in palestine and then on the turkish will they went to holland and i mother came to this country did for me and for others he would go all over new york tunnel into religious jewish schools and non jewish schools but he went for your society for the advancement of judaism which is a reconstructionist non orthodox synagogue in eighty six street and  he was a cantor and they wonderful musician and a great teacher well i got from him the love for music folk music liturgical music and i'll tell you what i found out just about six months ago when i picked up a book at strand books  other year and a half and mostly in china i was in india and in china a little bit in burma saw a lot of the world yeah yeah ok that was good and then and then and then you what about you were you political do you when you know well it was that was a defining i mean that was an important thing of course obviously everybody's life is like a warning that that ended forty five was an optimistic time you came back and then well i remember traveling when it's right getting to where you look at that i travel in a train yeah past the taj mahal over there and i was thinking about the poor people were yeah i went back there was a feisty time i mean intellectually and you were on the left side of no no no no you were no no no no i came back and let's see i want to do something i had done in high school i was in the st radio tiriel i would be an actor in radio and so i finally ended up at n y u because i asked for a radio courses so we don't we don't have such a thing so i didn't have radio passes no way as i asked around the different think that henry wallace in the the y p a young progressives and all that we're going to win something yeah and the rest of the country wasn't exactly like that but they pose a threat yeah to the vote in new york state yeah right in a way it drove a truman to the left yeah and i just looked around for different jobs and i work for you and your lecture would union for a while and then i found out that i was blacklisted blacklisted because i went for the compas because you were for the compass right well this is  producers were more i would say open to the two ideas they think so as a liberal you know you think the black with ink is still going out in terms of a political thing no i don't think so but i think i think somewhere it is yeah ok i'm not sure but  jobs there were a number of other job opportunities and it wasn't because you were all beyond the pale of what the system wanted or something no no no i was one of them just a plant and he said the other day mr flynn is and he said these and that thing when he didn't go to vietnam and he said that i'm going to put my name in for the this one is young man and he said i want to put my name in for the draft thing because it i've decided that i want to be able to maintain and opening a viable opening to be within the system politically into the future he had that thought in mind you know if you do something that's a little bit outside of it then you don't have a chance to be inside the system well i don't know and it was just i don't know going to my head be it wasn't you were you it wasn't you couldn't find work because you your thoughts put you outside of this no no not at all you know  maybe i can make a living putting these guys on because this was in the middle of the mccarthyism business so did i so this is a baby a commercial business as a st for didn't have to just depend upon people blacklisted you know i didn't do this just simply because i was going to put on a thing with paul robeson or what i  that's one of those kind i went around to all the coffee shops in the village yeah places like the limelight and a lot of different coffee shops of of that era a lot of people came from all over the coffee shops of the village exploded was a place for people just know i miss them well here's a statement he i can't perform any more because it says no he says now that the nobel prize has been given to mr kissinger i find that there was no more me to say there's no more sat you can clock the workers you were born with and well not quite ok ok i know where you are yes so you're working around the clock there around the clock so i didn't see any reason i needed to shave yeah all right right right so what i did i would just get up in the morning go to work come back late the st one that i produced there yeah i wasn't sure how much as attainment i would put on i tried out different things yeah but i continued with the idea of using folk but there weren't that many folk artists of the caliber of p way of the creative artistic expression and it rightfully so it's called the link the people's lincoln center is the village gate and you've been in touch with them all i mean jazz already many of them i mean i missed some of them they got too big for ok and i found out that they would rent me the place there for eleven o'clock and after a list like i did of the circle to square so i got in touch with the village voice and use my head i figured i would use the village voice to promote my concerts right why not physical and she's on a half a twenty two and a half hour in the police look at the other way and listen to nothing nothing and nobody left the theater yeah no but i think the admitted mission must have been crazy had not three dollars four dollars five nothing nothing so a documents we had a great group of people yeah i got a lot of publicity good will be front page of the times and finally the city council and especially john lindsay god bless them yeah we finally over see that not over through the whole thing in the about six months old i mean holding it in while we were sitting at a table to get a he a lady who was then why well he he died because of the pressure put on him the whole story was in the village voice and norman mailer wrote about it commissioner worth we're truly patriots and came along and said it's the freedom of speech you know you know i mean running a business you know like like i was running you know i had to take my chances but i felt that mean sides see so you don't drop in here so anyway we had a discussion afterwards and i said that you know you're a racist this is that you shouldn't do that and i said you can't accuse anybody of racism made the i mean what you what your basis and finally i said ok cecil i don't in chicago to get a one yeah it's for they used to advertise this follow a nightclub for people who hate nightclubs in a way we weren't just the typical my club hail hail the gang's all here the most men a lot of nights like that where it was not said but always like that i would say it's more so like this now than it has ever been i've never seen such greed such ferocity and such claim that people can die i'll take that back oh yeah how do you get away with killing half a maybe two inches a year to be in the times ok well listen you know we can go and we're going to have that we're going to have a meeting i want to come over and bring all the material i want to meet my daughter i want to say hello and i did a lot to do everything but i really want to thank you for what is i'm going to call it an institution where they didn't they threw away the key they didn't need to with an extension at the new yorker's was justly proud of and i like that of the lincoln center for the people and it was you and your initiative that put it together to bring all this mighty talent it was put before the should be new places and i look off thank you very much for everything that you've done in your life i really do have it and particularly for coming in here to conversations and sharing some of that with you look forward to that biography very much thank you for the opportunity not at all it's been your pleasure that such as i look off that he's a legendary figure in new york city the know and where else there's a lot of play the lower east side no no yeah yeah