Re: world music

[Ari Davidow <jmusic...>]

>I incorporate the idioms of avant garde ... jazz.... Is it still Jewish?

By me, I have no problem with the possibility that you could be
exploring avant garde jazz and still sound Jewish. The Bay Area's
"New Klezmer Trio" does just that very successfully.

In a broader sense, I think that one of the things that distinguishes
American klez is that original fusion with jazz--there are some wonderful
examples on the recent Yazoo release of the Dave Tarras retrospective.
And a lot of current klez bands have repeated the process. In fact,
we could be purist and note that even the so-called "traditionalist"
klezmer bands are most often fusion bands. They might be sticking to
Jewish sources, but it's no longer just klez--they'll include some
Yiddish theatre stuff, or Israeli tunes. Given that klezmer started
as sort of an Eastern European Jewish fusion music, I think it's
entirely appropriate and rather neat that we're =still= listening
to new types of music and pulling them into the soup.

Of course, the opposite is not necessarily true--Listening to Harry
Belafonte sing "Hava Nagilla" is fun (and I'm a big Harry Belafonte
fan), but it's not necessarily Jewish :-).

ari
jmusic (at) israel(dot)nysernet(dot)org

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