Re: Ari Davidow as an authority

[richard_wolpoe <richard_wolpoe...>]

Is this email on the level, or did is it in the spirit of Purim?



______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Ari Davidow as an authority 
Author:  <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org > at tcpgate
Date:    3/2/98 11:03 AM


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