Re: greetings from oz

[Fred Jacobowitz <fredj...>]

I guess it's time to clarify some remarks:
        As a professional musician and successful Klezmer (yes, I play 
the traditional wedding music style at weddings and simchas), I have some 
first-hand knowlede that I believe many of the respondents don't. 
        To start with, of course it goes without saying that 
experimentation is necessary, and that all life is a series of 
developments. However, let's be clear about what we are doing. I demanded 
that we have some truth in advertising. If you're going to experiment, 
don't try to claim that you are playing Klezmer, any more than calling 
yourself a Dixieland player if you are experimenting with fusing Jazz and 
Rock. I, too, feel it is the responsibility of the artist to state his 
principles. I am not shy about telling audiences and stores 
that Klezmer is a specific part of the large panoply of JEWISH 
MUSIC. Incidentally, drums WERE a standard part of large Klezmer 
bands as far back as the mid- 1800's. Their addition did not constitute a 
change in the style because they didn't play, for example, African rhythms. 
        One reply stated that I had a "very biasied" opinion and that I 
described an "ossified" museum exhibit, not a living, developing art 
form. By that logic, let's abandon the Torah. Who needs that old stuff? 
Anything goes, right? It's good to experiment, right? I beg to differ. 
Rules are ESSENTIAL for artists, as well as for all humans. Ask any 
artist and they will tell you this. For that matter, try to raise 
children without rules and see what you get. A great problem we have in 
our art world right now is that too many artists believe that anything 
goes and so we have travesties like a cruxifix in urine being called Art. 
Expression yes. Art, no. The same goes with the rest of society. Have you 
noticed the seeming epidemic of rudeness lately? If you drive you have. 
The reason goes right back to the basic disregard of the basic rules of 
living together. We have gone hell-bent-for-leather towards FREEDOM, 
forgetting that it is only a relative term and that one can't know how 
to rebel until one knows what one is rebelling against.
        Kind of interesting that Art is a direct reflection on society, 
huh? Again, let me state that experimentation is obviously not bad. 
However, to 
misrepresent it is. This is what I'm going on at the mouth about. I have 
spent lots of time and effort to learn to play a beautiful and 
many-faceted art form called Klezmer. I take great exception at those who 
apropriate the name for sometihing else, thereby denigrating  and 
negating all that I have worked for. 
        

Fred Jacobowitz
Clarinet/Sax Instructor, Peabody Preparatory