Re: Correction (long)

[MaxwellSt <MaxwellSt...>]

In a message dated 01/06/1999 12:35:26 AM Central Standard Time,
yoel (at) netvision(dot)net(dot)il writes:

<< I think that we can all agree that in modern Western culture, hard rock
music like "Sunshine of My Love" is loaded with hedonistic, explicitly sexual
musical symbolism. >>


I agree that rock/disco styles have that sexual pulse.  But in my opinion,
it's not as driving or earthy as the traditional freilechs rhythm, which I
find much more soulfully sexual.  That's why I'm disappointed that the
Chassidic community seems to prefer the pop rhythms rather than the klezmer
beat.  Now let me take my tongue a little out of my cheek and add that the
mystics teach that the yeitzer hara (the inclination to evil) is the driving
force of human nature--so we understand that the sexual urge can be either
base and animalistic or as holy as the original act of creation.  My problem
with pop rhythms for Jewish dance music is that they are associated with the
former--as you say, sex in a hedonistic society.  But please don't read the
sex out of my klezmer music!  It's just a different type.  We may wish to be
pure, but not Puritans.

Lori Lippitz
Maxwell St.