Re:Klez from childhood

[Jennifer R Goodman <jjg34...>]

Greetings to the list - it has been too long since I was able
to write. I have been reading the latest threads with interest
and pleasure. Some remarkable material is coming out - it
gives me a sense of the history of klezmer, the klezmer revival,
and of the personal musical histories of performers and audiences
that I never had before. It may be perplexing to many of the
participants now, but one of these days it will be good to
look back on this - or to put it more elegantly, as  a goyishe poet once
said, forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.)

The most useful note I can put in, I think, is a comment on
my own experience in trying to learn about Jewish music. I grew
up in St. Paul, where my parents belonged to a Reform synagogue.
The Jewish musical environment consisted entirely of either
German Reform liturgical music in the old style, some very
traditional cantorial music from the (non-professional) cantor,
and Israeli and contemporary Jewish pieces. (My sister tells
me that at one time Debbie Friedman was music director of
the religious school, but I don't remember that myself, so
maybe she came a bit later. I do recall a lot of recycling
American popular tunes with Jewish words for a Chanukah
pageant.) The one representative of traditional Jewish music
in my own family was my grandmother, who insisted on singing
during parts of the service when we were supposed to listen
to the choir, and who also encouraged me as a musician. From
her I got the motivation to perform and participate in Jewish
music.

In the 1970s and 80s, when I was studying in Boston, I first
heard klezmer, live, as performed by the Klezmorim on a
small stage in a basement coffeehouse, and by the Klezmer
Conservatory Band in the days of Don Byron. I didn't think
of cartoon music at all, because I came from a culturally
deprived professorial family and hadn't seen enough of the
right vintage of cartoons. I enjoyed both bands very much indeed;
more than that, I enjoyed discovering that there was a whole
universe of Jewish music that I had never heard before. It
spoke to me in a way that the latest Israeli and American
Jewish popular pieces never had. By comparison, it was an
unquestionably Jewish sound. When I listened to the albums,
the pieces that appealed to me the most were the songs,
because I was and am a singer. 

Even then, I still had no context in which to place this
music. I had never attended a traditional Jewish wedding.
The weddings in my family were performed to standard classical
pieces, or to no music at all. 

It wasn't until I got to Texas and found myself in a Jewish
community with no musical resources that I became motivated
to study Jewish music myself. That journey began with
an attempt to sing Yiddish songs in a faculty study group,
and led through the organization of two bands in Texas, a
joint concert for a conference on the Holocaust and the arts
at Texas A&M University (which might still result in a 
recording), Klezkamp 96 (a mechaye!), and now the study of
Yiddish and Jewish music and band management in New York.

Why tell you al this? First, because I think I am in many
ways typical of my generation of listeners - and of some
performers of Jewish music. This long story may suggest some
of the difficulties a Jew in the further reaches of the
diaspora may experience in trying to figure out what klezmer
is and where it belongs. 

It's good to know I'm  a beginner, and that there is too
much I don't know about my  own heritage. (In my experience,
this is a common problem, not confined to Jews or Americans.)
So I am here to learn. It's also good to come to the subject
fresh, without any prejudices. And the more I learn, the more
I appreciate the beauty and the diversity of the universe of
klezmer and of Jewish music. It is a world in itself, and
a world too little known either to Jews or non-Jews. It is 
also our treasure, along with the Yiddish and Hebrew languages,
and - need I say - our faith itself. It is good to see that
so many good people care so deeply about the preservation
and the transmission of these precious things to a new
generation. On that note I am glad to report that my three
nieces are all musicians who are taking an interest in Jewish
music - the youngest especially enjoys that masterpiece of
Yiddish swing, "How big is it?" 

Zayt gezint,

Jenny Goodman