Re: greetings from oz

[moshe denburg <denburg...>]

On Thu, 19 Sep 1996 14:04:56 -0400 (EDT), Fred Jacobowitz wrote:
>Seth,
>       I think you have fallen into the trap many people do, of believing 
>that Klezmer is a mongrel art form, just as many people still mistakenly 
>believe that Yiddish is nothing more than debased German. While there may 
>be quite a few outside influences (just as there are many Oriental 
>influences in the music of the French composers of the late romantic 
>period), this does not mean that there are no rules and that "anything 
>goes". Klezmer music has its own specific, idiosyncratic rules and 
>traditions. And they can be quite specific. No, you can't just throw any 
>old thing into the mix and say, "look, it's still Klezmer", assuming that 
>"anything goes". You may call it "something new" but don't call it 
>Klezmer. A tangerine is NOT an orange.

I take exception to the underlying 'authoritarianism' of these remarks. No
one can create anything new without experimentation. To saddle the artist
with strict definitions just won't do, imo. I'd rather have a 'mongrel art
form' than dry bones.
Your insistence that it shouldn't be called Klezmer may be justified to some
extent, since, I assume, you have spent a great deal of time and effort
authenticating your form of musical expression. But what people do and do
not call a thing depends primarily on how educated they are in it. As I
tried to express in some of my former posts, the word 'Klezmer' has become a
catch-all word for Jewish Music for many people. Though I admit, and know,
that this word is inappropriately utilized, it has such marketing strength
that it will take a long time to educate the general populace to the fact
that there are many forms of Jewish music, even many forms of Klezmer. Is a
Clarinet *absolutely* necessary for Klezmer? Or a Violin? I dare say not. 

It seems that the result of insisting that _artists_ try at every turn to
rename what they are doing, just to please the academic purist, is unfair,
if not unwise. The artist has enough tsuris to worry about without this
additional competitive disadvantage. 

As far as utilizing the digeridu is concerned, I think it would work very
well - a drone always fits modal music - especially if a rhythmic groove
with a digeridu drone serves as a pad for a modal improv. It may not be
Klezmer in the purist sense, but it will preserve many of the salient
features of the music (the mode and the rhythm, in this case).

You may argue, and intelligently at that, that this is not *Klezmer*. In the
context of explaining just why it is not Klezmer, we may all learn a few
things about Klezmer, and even learn to differentiate it from other forms of
Jewish Music. I wish we would. But perhaps the onus falls not only on
_non-Klezmer_ Jewish Musicians to use the proper labels, but every bit as
much on Klezmer musicians and afficionados to educate themselves regarding
the many significant forms of Jewish Music *outside* of Klezmer. As long as
the Klezmer practitioner thinks of Klezmer (and advertises it) as if it were
the whole world of Jewish Music, the 'confusion of tongues' that we are
presently experiencing will persist.

Moshe Denburg
Band Leader/Manager
Tzimmes