Re: Cartoon music klezmer?

[Sapoznik <Sapoznik...>]

Several years before getting into klezmer music I was a college student
majoring in ethnomusicology and minoring in film history. My specialty was
American animation and had the great good fortune to watch dozens and dozens
of early cartoons, mostly of my favorites, the work of the Flesicher
brothers. My end term project in fact was a index of the music scores for the
cartoons including the Betty Boops and the "Bouncing Ball" series. 
Imagine my surprise, then that when The Klezmorim started up and I heard for
the first time that there was klezmer music in those cartoons.I was puzzled.
Going back to the actual films I failed to find a single example. In fact,
locating several of the Betty Boop cartoons which featured Jewish characters
in them (for example "Betty's Medicine Show") there was no Jewish music on
the soundtrack --that one, for example features the playing of Ukelele Ike. 
In fact, there IS no klezmer music in early cartoons. In an interview I did
with master klezmer clarinetist Max Epstein he told me he had worked at the
Flesicher studios when they were still in New York. I asked him about playing
Yiddish music for the soundtracks and he looked at me like I was crazy. The
myth of klezmer in cartoons is is like UFO sightings: everyone claims to have
seen one but when it comes to conslusive proof...If there is anyone out there
who can come up with ONE concrete example of klezmer music in animated
cartoons, (especially the Flesichers) I will be thrilled to rewrite the
chapter in my upcoming book on klezmer music and give them a acknowledgment
in the credits. As to the issue of klezmer musicians not having the skill to
play music for cartoons, try listening to the sophisticated arrangements of
Alexander Olshanetsky of some Abe Schwartz recordings before you make such
uninformed snap judgements. They COULD have, they just didn't...

Henry Sapoznik
author
"Klezmer! A Social
History of Yiddish Music
in America 1897-1997"