Re: greetings from oz

[Seth Rogovoy <rogovoy...>]

On Fri, 20 Sep 1996, Fred Jacobowitz wrote:

> 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. 

what a great way to start off a clarification. "Many of you don't know 
what you're talking about." how do you know?

>       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. 

talk about your straw man arguments! I suppose we ought to toss out the 
Talmud, after all, it came AFTER the Torah, and therefore must be a 
violation of its essence, by your logic!

> 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.

Well, I think you're finally showing your true colors here. Thanks for 
finally coming clean about your ideological foundations.

>       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. 

By your logic, Charlie Parker denigrated and negated all that Louis 
Armstrong did. I suppose Charlie Parker isn't jazz, becuase he somehow 
"violates" the format set down by Louis Armstrong?

*****************************************
Seth Rogovoy                        
rogovoy (at) berkshire(dot)net
http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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