Re: Klezmer in corporate hands?

[Elliott <enr01...>]

Note from elliott--
Please don't be taken a back. Many Lubuvitchers live here in the New Orleans 
area in David Duke territory. I know many who worked against him last time he 
ran. And I'll bet there are Many Jews in Israel,especially in Mea Shearim,  who 
would vote for a David Duke type if he opposed the State of Israel.
        elllllll

Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:

> >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.
>
> But Jeff, he didn't have to mention this issue because the chance of a 
> candidate of the American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan running in Crown 
> Heights would be virtually nil, so why are you holding this against him?  
> That the Lubavitcher rebbe would have been against the Klan and Nazi party 
> are all givens.  I even remember when he spoke out against them in the 70's 
> and early 80's.  I guess only the Lubavitchers in David Duke, Trent Lott, and 
> Jesse Helmes country needed to ask about the Klan and Nazi Party - a very 
> small percentage.
>
> Reyzl
>
> ----------
> From:  JeffSchan (at) aol(dot)com[SMTP:JeffSchan (at) aol(dot)com]
> Sent:  Thursday, December 31, 1998 3:52 AM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant.
> Subject:  Klezmer in corporate hands?
>
> 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