Origins of klezmer modes?

[W.H. Phillips <wphillip...>]

A musicianly footnote to Stan T.'s question about klezmer "tonalities" -
"tonality" means "what key is it in?" Stan means "modality" as in Lydian,
Dorian, Hijaz etc.

We hear more than one mode in klezmer and Moshe Denburg is right when he
speaks of them as shared across several cultures. A very prominent sharer of
musical modes with klezmer, I think, is Turkish folk music, especially that
of Thrace and Smyrna fraught, with wailing clarinets and weeping fiddles.
The dreaded Kisaoglu Brothers Band sounds like two rowdy Dave Tarras's with
an Anatolian percussion section. Not a mizrahi Levantine style sound; it's
noticeably klezmer-esque.

There is, of course, an old and happy cohabitation of Turkim and Sephardim
going back to Inquisition times when Sultan Bayazid sent ships to pick up
every Spanish Jew interested in moving to Turkey (a happy outcome for many
thousands). But the similarities of the two musics are more of flavour than
of content.

Has anyone else noticed qualities shared by klezmer and "Turk halk?"

Kol tuv,
Bill