"Davka"--redefining jewish music?

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

So, I've just finished reviewing a new album by Davka, who play
a fascinating, impassioned mix of Middle Eastern sounds, Western
classical, and add some jazz. In writing the review, I find myself
also attempting to answer the challenge on the CD's spine: "Davka
redefines Klezmer." This is something of a challenge when you don't
play anything that acknowledges klezmer roots, but, okay, let's
think on it for a while.

I end up considering that Klezmer, God bless us, has come to mean
"Jewish music" for some people (much to the horror, I am sure, of
some participants and readers on this list, but so be it--zo' hee
oovda). If that is true, we come to a fascinating stream of search
for consciousness which I ended up describing as follows (excerpted
from the review):

"What makes this especially fascinating is the sociological odyssey 
that these descriptions appear to signify. For many people of my 
generation and younger, Zionism was to be the replacement for Judaism. 
Israeli culture the replacement for Jewish culture. For many of us, 
Israeli, and especially Middle-Eastern sounds were far more familiar 
than those of the klezmorim, or Yiddish Theatre, or even Sephardic 
folk traditions. Yet, Israel is also clearly the hope of future past. 
For all that it matters to Jews, Israel is its own country, and to 
define one's Jewish self requires a search for other, deeper and more 
contiguous roots, a re-search into Jewish history and music and culture. 
In the case of Davka that has led to Jewish mysticism 
of the Middle Ages; in the case of this album, pieces influenced by 
their reading of and about the MaHaRal, a famous wonder-rebbe of Prague, 
the creator, so legend has it, of the Golem, one of the most powerful 
Jewish symbols of direct power against oppression."

The full review is at
   http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/bands/davka/lavy/davka.lavy.html
with the full list of the new reviews, as usual, at
   http://www.well.com/user/are/klez/klezlist.html

but let's discuss this a bit. Am I totally off the deep end? 
Do these points resonate at all? a bit?

ari


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