Re: Identity in Klezmer

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Dear Richard:
You make some good points.
But note, in America (and elsewhere) culture is a business.
And those who are invested in the business of culture are anxious to
maintain the status quo.  Therefore,  in recent years, as klezmer music
has come to define East European Jewish music, those creative musicians
who venture beyond the perceived existing parameters are marginalized in
the marketplace or at best, have to fight for mere existence.   
The people who distribute and sell records and mount productions are
fearful that their consumers will split away from the usual fare if they
should discover other records and acts that they , the businessmen/women
do not yet  control, or are in the hands of  competitors.  So those with
the larger promotion budgets 
consistently beat out the others because they have the means to reach
people with hard  advertising .  

With Seagram's recent acquisition of Polygram,  99.9% of all records
sold worldwide will be handled by  5 multinationals, leaving thousands
of small independents competing for one-tenth of one per cent of the
world market. 

What does this mean?   People with next to no cultural awareness, but
mere musical technicians can be elevated as culturtal icons because
they  can play the notes or make the right noises and are deemed
marketable.  The public, of course, has no clue and will flock to see a
gentile klezmer band or buy the record of  a Yiddish singer who had to
be coached to sing  in his so-called 
<mameloshn>. 

So , what are we left with?  A musical culture exemplified by people who
have spent their  lives outside the tradition;  less than 5% of klezmer
musicians can even speak Yiddish, let alone have the cultural
proficiency to write a Yiddish letter or plow through a Yiddish novel. 
The audience, raised on a diet of corporate mass-media "artists", 
gobbles up  what it is offered and,  in the case of American Jews, 
become giddy  just seeing  one of their own  on stage.  And to top it
all off,  the artists and music are "explained" to the public by
so-called "critics" who themselves do not speak the language of the
culture of which they claim expertise.  

"Money doesn't talk, it swears".  --Bob Dylan

Have a good shabes, everyone.
Wolf Krakowski
http://www.kamea.com