Ari Davidow as an authority

[Ingemar Johansson <hebanon...>]

Dear friends of  Jewish music:

I would like to draw your attention to the issue of  Ari Davidow's 
position as an authority on Jewish music, and the responsibility that
follows herewith.

First, I'm grateful to Ari that he has drawn my attention to a lot of Klez
that is unknown in that nook of mine in western Sweden. He apparently knows
a lot about traditional Klezmer, and in this respect he has made it
possible for me to find some fascinating music.

Nevertheless, there is a flaw which I've grown more and more aware of. When
it comes to musical genres and/or experiments that Ari is not really
familiar with; he tries to uphold his position of authority rather than
realize that he is actually skating on a very thin ice. This I find as
outright foolhardy as that very act itself. I will give you a few examples.

In Ari's reviews of Anthony Coleman and John Zorn, for example, it's
painfully clear that he doesn't know what he is talking about. In this
<reviews> there is almost nothing substantial on  _the music_ - just a lot
of wordshitting about the possible connections between a Jewish descent and
experimental music. Nothing wrong about this if these pieces of composition
were intended as essays on things cross-cultural, but they are not. They
are presented as _critical_ reviews of the _music_! Unintentionally, I
reckon,  Ari Davidow states that he is unqualified to review this records.
It would have been better if he had left those discs to someone else or
frankly admitted that he was incompetent.

I'm also surprised by the fact that an <authority> like Ari is unaware of
the Austrian group Gojim, especially as this group is quite well-known in
Europe, mainly - I think - due to the fact that their first CD >Ess firt
kejn weg zurik> (Jewish songs from the ghetto of Vilna - Extraplatte EX 139
CD) was made in collaboration with the Simon Wiesenthal Institute. Here,
too, mr Davidow is very evasive when in comes to musical criticism, but
what really surprises me is the very fact that he declares that he himself,
_the_ authority of  Klezmer - Yiddish music per se - does NOT understand
Yiddish! Well, I don't myself, but I'm a goy and I try to learn all the
time, mainly because Yiddish is, in the words of Leo Rosten (<The Joys of
Yiddish>,  W.H. Allen, London 1970)  <a language of exceptional charm> -
tender, free, very poetic in its sounds and syntax. I have heard bourgeois
Swedish Jews say that they are ashamed of Yiddish and the former Jewish
culture of eastern Europe - but I hadn't expected to have to meet this
stupid attitude on this mailing-list (this said apropos the discussion on
"Yiddish on this list").

This leads me further, to my third example.  Ari's review of Wolf
Krakowski's CD "Transmigrations" (Kame'a Media, KAM 7001) is scandalous, it
almost sounds as some sort of Jewish revisionism. Ari, are you ashamed by
the <six million>?  Or why do you keep accusing Wolf K as presenting the
view of the victims? Did those Jews who were exterminated like vermin had
themselves to blame? You should know, as well as I do, that the
nazi-program was very elaborated. For an ordinary _mentsh_ living in his
(or "her" as we say in Swedish) ordinary everyday life it should have been
almost impossible to hold out this  scientific attack (it was no mere
chance that Eichmann was a specialist in things Jewish). And what is left
except for the very human worthiness of these people (who had themselves to
blame as little as any raped woman ever has had), the poetics, the
wonderful testimonies that Wolf Krakowski brings to our minds? Referring to
the above-mentioned first CD by Gojim, by the way, I find the "fighting
songs" of this CD (<Partisanenmarsch> for example) much less interesting
than those poetic songs that _as much_ are testimonies of, yes, human
strength (although Ari mindlessly blames Krakowski for not presenting songs
of strong people),   <Ess is gewen a sumer-tog>, <Friling>, <Ess schlogt di
scho> to mention a few.

Just <Friling> is one of the wonderful numbers of Krakowski's CD.
Surprisingly or not, Ari doesn't mention the music of this CD with one
single word, although there are some excellent musicians present, above all
 Jim Armenti, playing guitars, mandolin, violin, bouzouki and saxophone. I
guess that our dear <authority> on Jewish music is annoyed by the fact that
this music is presented in an Afro-American setting. These are original
Yiddish songs of great poetical value presented as blues, reggae, rock.
This merging of  underdog-cultures could of course be a little irritating
to any good middle-class American. But, nonetheless, the result deserves to
be scrutinized by someone who knows what he is talking about.

I think Ari should take his responsibility and open his site to other
reviewers. His position is not a sane one.

All the best,
- Ingemar Johansson