Klezmer in corporate hands?

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

Ingemar Johansson wrote:

> Dear list-members,
>
> An American friend of mine sent me this, apalled, angered and distressed by
> recent developments in the US. The reason why I forward this bitter
> statement to the list is that he included some words about Jewish Music.
>
> > US remains the country with more people held in jail than any police
> > state in the world. The criminalization of Black and Latino youth
> > continues unabated. The death penalty has become an acceptable
> > "liberal" position. There is an escalating war on immigrants, with raids,
> > concentration camps, and militarized borders. The actual ability of women
> > to obtain abortion is methodically stripped away through gangster action,
> > parental consent, waiting periods, and the denial of government funding.
> There
> > is no foreign military venture of the Bush-Reagan years to which Clinton
> has
> > not wholeheartedly subscribed. The openly racist, misogynist, homophobic
> > and murderous Christian-fundamentalist demands for "family values" and
> > preparation for Armageddon continue to fester in growing organized
> > networks. The censorship of music and culture has passed directly into
> > corporate hands. This goes for rebel culture and odd music, too - like
> Jazz
> > and Klezmer, both of which you're very fond, I know.
>
> Any comments?
>
> Ingemar J.

Ingemar:

Of course this depends on your political point of view.  In general, I agree
whole-heartedly (more about "censorship" below), except for the hyperbole
about concentration camps (as far as I know there haven't been any of those in
the US since the Japanese-American internment camps in WWII).  I have been
involved in the struggle to free death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
for over a decade now (long before the liberals got on the bandwagon), and
views on the death penalty keep moving to the right.  And it's not just the
fundamentalist Christians.  For example, New York's Cardinal John O'Connor
threatened to excommunicate former New York governor Mario Cuomo because he
supported the right to abortion.  The Catholic Church is opposed to capital
punishment too, but you never hear the good Cardinal threaten to excommunicate
any of his flock who support the death penalty.  And to continue, it's not
just the Christians.  A number of years ago, the late Lubavitcher rebbe was
asked by his followers for guidance on which political candidates to vote for.
He answered that Lubavitchers were free to vote for any candidate who met 3
criteria:  1) opposing abortion rights, 2) opposing gay rights, 3) opposing
pornography.  I was quite taken aback by this statement, particularly since
this would leave Lubavitchers the option to vote for any candidate of the
American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan.

As for "censorship," this is a tricky question in the US, for cultural control
of the arts is more economic than legal, which is what I understand the term
"censorship" to be.  Many of the more alternative forms of music in the US
relied upon government support through the 60's and 70's.  That support has
almost entirely dried up.  Those types of music which are commercially viable
outside that support have continued.  Example:  New York's World Music
Institute began as part of the new music/world music series at The Alternative
Museum.  It grew and flourished with funding from the National Endowment for
the Arts (NEA), state agencies, etc.  It grew to be too big for the
Alternative Museum, and they created the World Music Institute, which now has
a multi-million dollar budget and is much less dependent on government funding
(which it still does receive).  The Alternative Museum continued with a
primarily new music series, one which I ran for a season, and my wife for 2.
There used to be dozens of similar artist-run and artist programmed series
like that, ones in which to a greater or lesser extent musicians were
guaranteed a decent fee.  However, in the 80's, with the furor over
Mapplethorpe and other controversial artists, the NEA cut off funding to many
of the more cutting edge institutions, and other government agencies followed
suit.  Today, the Alternative Museum no longer has a music program, and there
are only a handful of artist-run alternative music spaces left in New York
City.  So the scene has become much more driven by "cut of the door" type club
gigs, especially ones where you have to deal with scummy club owners like the
folks at the Knitting Factory.  Luckily for klezmer, it now seems to have
reached a critical mass where it is supported by enough of an audience to be
commercially viable.  And the straight-laced jazz of the Wynton Marsalis
school certainly has plenty of corporate backing these days.  So is this
censorship?  Perhaps not.  But when my friend and mentor Leroy Jenkins, one of
the greatest living composers in the US (IMHO), someone who has played in most
of the main jazz clubs in the world, and has also had an opera performed at
the New York City Opera, calls me up and complains about how tough things are
these days, I figure if it's not censorship, it might as well be.

Jeffrey Schanzer