The Middle East nightclub version comes from the Ljuba Davis Ladino Ensemble’s “East and West.” Davis, who also grew up in a Sephardic family, is a veteran of the Bay Area folk and Jewish music scenes. She put the production of “East and West,” her first Ladino recording, into the very capable hands of Avram Pengas. Houstonians will remember Pengas from his nightclub-style concert at the ERJCC last year.

Pengas did what he does best. He assembled a band of New York’s leading Israeli, Arabic and American Jewish club musicians and dressed the eight songs on the CD in Greek, Turkish and Balkan arrangements. The album contains two CDs: one with Davis’ vocals and one with instrumental versions of the tunes. These would be the sorts of pre-World War II and pre-Israel musical settings that an older generation of Ladino music fans might associate with the music.

Ladino, as a distinct Jewish language, faces a bleaker future than Yiddish. Outside of Israel, Ladino-speakers live mostly in mixed communities. None of the young people study Ladino in Jewish schools. Nor is there an equivalent of the ultra-Orthodox Yiddish-speaking community to preserve the language.

In Israel, Ladino secular and sacred songs are still performed in ethnic communities. Outside Israel, any musician who sings in Ladino is going to have to figure a way to reach a larger public. I think that Sarah Aroeste has found a way to build an audience although I don’t see dancehall versions of “Scalerica” as a way to preserve secular Ladino language and culture. I only see that happening in the area of sacred music, a form that values tradition and is deeply resistant to change.