Re: Cartoon music klezmer?

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

Itzik,

I must object.

>I finally thought of the word to describe my impression of most of the
>Klezmorim stuff: "crass."

While, I don't think that I ever gave any of their albums a
good review, the word "crass" is almost personal in its
dismissiveness. If you had ever seen the Klezmorim live,
you would have understood the shtick and fun behind their
attempts to revive a style of music that, at the time they
were most active, was no longer being performed as living
music. The fact that their albums do not present the music
well has a lot to do with the time and the lack of context--
even the Statman-Feldman album that turned on so many of
us to klezmer sounds less skilled, and much dated, today.

It also has to be acknowledged that the Klezmorim, along
with Statman and Feldman, were the first to understand that
there were sounds to be revived and played live again. In
some ways you have to judge the records just as you record
first attempts at anything: as just that, first attempts
to record a sound that no one had heard played passionately,
live for twenty years. (I do not consider Jewish wedding music 
as it was generally played in the Seventies to fit that 
definition.)

"Crass"? Surely that is an unkind, and perhaps even ignorant
label. The first two Klezmorim albums were attempts to recreate
folk music, klezmer included. Short-time band-member Miriam
Dvorin's rendition of "Mayn Ruhe Platz" is, indeed, one marvellous
track from that period. The band later attempted to broaden its 
appeal by incorporating more elements of early jazz, and had a 
wonderful stage show that included storytelling, and even, in the 
end, a wonderful Russian "break dance." The problem, as Zev Feldman 
pointed out recently in conversation at the recent Ashkenaz festival, 
is that in the mid-Seventies no one was interested in Klezmer.
It was hard to make a living at it. So, you had people rediscovering
a sound, mostly, at that point, off old '78s, that they had never
heard live, trying to invent the sound, and the context in which
to party those sounds, to an audience which was slow to catch on. 
(Although both Feldman and Statman studied with Dave Tarras, and
many other older musicians, some of whom, like the Epsteins or
Ray Musiker or Sid Beckerman, had never really stopped playing, 
were "rediscovered" later, much like Skip Jones and Mississippi 
John Hurt in the days of the blues revival in the early Sixties.)

For what it's worth, Lev Liberman and David Julian Gray, two of the 
group's founders, did some reminiscing about the band and what it
meant at the time for my KlezShack:
   http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/articles/klezmorim.hist.html
Kevin Linscott, former trombonist with the band, also did an interview
way back when for Lark in the Morning about Klezmer and what 
influenced him (yes, this one is from someone else's website):
   
http://www.mhs.mendocino.k12.ca.us/MenComNet/Business/Retail/Larknet/ArtKlezmorimInterview

For other articles, including Charlie Berg's memories about 
klezmer drumming, see
   http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/contacts/klezwords.html

(and, of course, if there are articles on the web about klez
about which I should know and perhaps link, do let me know).

Crass, indeed. Thus speaks callow youth (or callow age, as the
case may be).

Phooey.

ari



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