Re: Klezmer Clarinet

[Bob Jacobson <bjacobs...>]

Ari writes:

>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.

I have no idea what you mean by the first sentence above, but I'd be
interested in learning more specifically what similarities you hear between
Krakauer and Feidman. I'm a brass guy, but to my ears Krakauer's work with
the Klezmatics was some of the best modern klezmer clarineting there has
been. Sure, he emotes, but not in a way I would call, oh, gratuitous, a
word I think does apply to Feidman. I don't have quite as much against
Feidman as you and some others on the list seem to, but I still don't
really hear the connection. Not that I want to get involved in a Jimmy Page
v. Jeff Beck type of discussion here, or anything.

And btw Owen, don't be too quick to write off bagpipes as a klezmer
instrument. There's some fairly cool sounding use of bagpipe in things like
Transylvanian village music and probably other vaguely related styles that
I'm even more ignorant about. You're right, you would indeed look silly,
but it might sound okay.

Bob Jacobson
Yid Vicious