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Re: Klezmer Clarinet

I think that the clarinet is the distinctive klezmer instrument because it
sounds not simply like the human voice but like a voice speaking Yiddish.  The
krechts, for example, just doesn't work so well on the xylophone (or even on
the bagpipes).  Other instruments are more malable.  Trumpet can sound
emphatic and Yiddish or bluesy.  

Sitting with Giora Feidman at lunch, I was amused to hear him say to a
clarinetist, "You don't speak Yiddish?  Then how can you play the clarinet?!"

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