Re: Klezmer Clarinet

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>Just coming off listening to the new Joel Rubin album, I'd be interested in
>a discussion of the work of clarinet players in the klezmer scene
>(Bjorling, Rubin, Krakauer, Stahl, etc.).  We could also talk about the
>older generation (Max Epstein, Sid Beckerman, Ray Muziker).  
>
>I've grown to appreciate Rubin's work more and more, though I didn't enjoy
>his playing at first-- is it because I'm coming at listening to klezmer
>from an American musical aesthetic?  In contrast, I took to Bjorling's
>playing very quickly-- does it have a bluesier feel?  I'm not a clarinet
>player, so I'd appreciate any help in sorting out these thoughts.

Joel Rubin's playing was always good, and by all accounts keeps
getting better (although many people have commented to me
that they feel his latest recording, in contrast to his live 
playing, lacks an emotional dimension).

David Krakauer, in contrast, to me has always felt more emotional
than deep--whatever that means. On good days I love the emotion.
On bad days I think that this is what Giora Feidman would sound
like if he were thirty years younger and acculturated in the 
United States.

Kurt Bjorling's playing is wonderful, and not just on clarinet.
He also overshadows Eve Monzingo (sp?) in Chicago Klezmer Ensemble.
She can be pretty amazing in her own right. 

I also feel that Ken Maltz gets overlooked a lot. He is the
clarinet player with Kapelye. I could listen to him for hours.
Ditto for David Julian Grey, who started with the Klezmorim and
may be the only one of them to continue to play klezmer twenty
years on. Ditto for Ilene Stahl, who is also one of the most
=exciting= clarinets to watch.

But, I dunno. I'm not sufficiently musically literate to judge.
In time, these folks will surely also sound as deep as Sid 
Beckerman, or Ray Musiker, or Howie Leess, or Max Epstein.
(I'm thinking of Joel Rubins' recording with the Epstein Brothers
as I type this). They're good enough. But maybe the clarinet isn't
the defining instrument right now that it has been in the past
(and that, for a specific part of the past--not soooo far back
as the earlier ensembles with fiddles and tsimbls and other
string things). A lot of what we hear or want to hear is 
influenced by whether we're hearing, or trying to hear,
"klezmer" as sounding like it sounded during it's golden
American age, or one of the still indefinitely-labeled
"fusions". But that might be getting into one of those
discussions about what "klezmer" is today, or should be,
and perhaps we shouldn't go there right at this time. 

The other thing to remember is that a lot of these older
players spent much of their careers playing music other
than klezmer, but klezmer was the mama loshn, what they
learned before jazz or other American popular music. Klezmorim
since the revival mostly started with other, modern American 
popular musics and then discovered klez.

That difference is probably exemplified by Andy Statman, who
may be the greatest clarinet player since the revival. But Statman
started with bluegrass and jazz, moved through klezmer, and today, 
plays jazz that is probably equally influenced by klezmer and by
his own spiritual feelings and chasidic nigunim. Maybe more
influenced by the nigunim.

Anyway, that's a lot of words from someone who doesn't play.
Actual musicians may find much with which to disagree ;-).

ari


Ari Davidow
The klezmer shack: http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/
owner: jewish-music mailing list
e-mail: ari (at) ivritype(dot)com