Klezmer bagels

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>Klezmer has been revived, but is now experienced in contexts so
>different from what it came out of, that it seems to be mutating into
>all kinds of things, not only altering the forms, but even the spirit.
>Since Germany seems to be the Mecca for klezmer (pardon the mixed
>metaphor!), and since the context of playing it there would seem to
>be, to a large extent, radically different it came from, and since
>working musicians tend to play what they think the audience and the
>managers want to hear, where is all this going? Without implying
>anything about the German, or Swiss, or Dutch audiences, other than
>that they are German, Swiss, Dutch, respectively, it would seem an
>odd state of affairs if their idea of wjat Jewish music is supposed to
>be, were to set the standards for what is essentially a Jewish folk
>art. 

Well, I won't deny that there is a lot of freeze-dried klezmer
out there, but in its diversity and delight, this is a wonderful
time to be listening to klezmer. IMHO.

You can just read messages that people post to my klezmer pages,
or go through sound samples and reviews to get a sense of how
diverse and different, and often, how good, much of modern klez
is. 

   http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/

ari


Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
http://www.ivritype.com/