Re: klezmer trumpet

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

Itzik-Leyb,

I especially don't want to detract from a wonderful post
by being verbose, so let me just comment on a couple of 
items:

>Last time I checked, the Balkan Music home page one
>the Internet had a link to Ari's klez shack (Ari, please confirm or deny),
>which I take as a sign of  interest and respect, in no way belittling.

I can only speak to the fact that I happen to like Balkan Music,
and happen to like the Balkan Music home page and the people who
maintain it. I would claim that many people who like klezmer, will
also, or do also enjoy Balkan and Slavic music styles. And, clearly,
in many of these countries Jews and non-Jews played each others
styles, often in the same bands. Zev Feldman talked about "three
repertoires" in a talk he gave at last summer's Ashkenaz Festival
   http://www.ashkenaz.org/daily/sounds/970831.feldman.ram
   to hear the talk (~60 minutes)
Jewish, Moldavian (if memory serves), and shared, that were 
common to musicians of that area. I'm oversimplifying, but
Feldman's point, and one that I have frequently heard echoed
(this is also brought up a lot by Bob Cohen on "Virtual Ashkenaz",
   http://www.ashkenaz.org/virtual.html)
is that Jewish <> other Balkan/Central/East European repertoire,
but that they were related, and the same musicians often played
each other's music, together. (Bands tended not to be only gypsy
or only Jewish, but to be mixed "musicians"--a lot like today.)

Okay, so the other issue I wanted to raise is the question of "why
so few trumpets." Mostly, I don't know, but it =is= worth pointing
out that Jews in the Pale, at least, and possibly Austria-Hungary
(this is where I rely on Josh Horowitz or Henry Sapoznik to step
in with real knowledge) forbade Jews to play "loud" instruments.
This is one reason why earlier Jewish ensembles contained no reeds
(the fact that the sax is relatively recent is another issue) or
horns. But, as Itzik Leyb and others have pointed out, there are
Jewish horn players, even today, and many pictures of European
Klezmer ensembles, especially the big ones from the YIVO archive
photos of the first quarter of this century, have horns. A picture of
Harry Kandel's band, featured in the liner notes of Henry Sapoznik's
"klezmer pioneers" compilation, clearly shows a couple of horns
as well as a couple of clarinets. Other photos of European bands
similar show a horn or two along with the violins, perhaps a 
clarinet, maybe a tsimbl, and a bass or cello.

One thing I =can= say it that in American music, in general, the
trumpet seems to be less popular among people playing European
music of various kinds (even, to my surprise, many polka bands)
than reeds, accordions (okay, double reeds) and stringed instruments
of so many types. But I have no explanation for this, any more than
I can explain why the horn is such a critical and wonderful part
of jazz and Afro-Cuban and soul musics.

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