survey

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

     I guess I want to put my 2 cents in on this survey because I am
     coming from a pretty different place than most.  I am a composer
     and guitarist and do everything from writing orchestra music to
     performing in free improvisations groups (I stay away from the
     term "jazz" these days).  I studied with Morton Feldman (to me
     the greatest Jewish composer of the 2nd half of this century) and
     have performed and recorded with people like Lester Bowie, Oliver
     Lake, Joseph Jarman and Leroy Jenkins.
     
     Until 5 years ago, I very seldom heard anything in my music that 
     was specifically Jewish.  The turning point was the death of my
     father, who was a concentration camp survivor.  I began to write
     a piece in his memory and it came out sounding Jewish; the first
     time I had ever used a traditional key signature.  Since then, I
     have written more music dealing with the Holocaust.  In a piece
     commemorating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of
     Buchenwald, I used "Shlof In Der Ruikeit," a Yiddish lullaby from
     Vilna, as the basis of one of the movements.  Right now, I am in
     the middle of a cantata (for lack of a better name) about survi-
     vors and their children, with all the text taken from oral
     conversations with member of my family.  The older generation's
     musical material has a Jewish flavor to it, the second generation
     (2G), more rock and jazz.
     
     One critic has said that I "devour world traditions."  So I don't
     even know if what sounds Jewish to me comes off that way to
     others.  Case in point:  I developed a solo piece for myself that
     I thought had an Eastern European Jewish sound to it.  I played
     it for my Italian-American wife and she thought it sounded
     Italian.  Over the years I have gotten all kinds responses from
     people who hear it in concert: everything from Irish to American
     (whatever that may mean).  Given that I am an atheist, folks in
     my old 2G kinship group pointed out that my 2G identity is much
     stronger than my Jewish identity.  So just as I don't really care
     whether others consider my music "classical" or "jazz," I don't
     particularly care if I am labelled as someone who is involved in
     "Jewish music."  I know that it's there, and that's enough for
     me.
     
     Jeffrey Schanzer