Bitchin' about the role of percussion in Mideastern influenced Jewish Music

[Eliezer Kaplan <zelwel...>]

    This talk of things Middle Eastern (in this case Persian) is bringing
on a rant (no, not Udi Hrant, who was Turkish anyway).
    Jewish music which has a Mideastern flavor in general seems to be
missing the hard and dirty rhythms of the music commonly known in the West
as bellydance music. (An immediate exception would be certain Israeli bands
- but I do wonder whether most of that kind of thing is Jewish music, or
just regional music performed by Jews?) Case in point: the CD by George
Abdo and 'his Flames of Araby Orchestra' (not to be confused with 'James
Brown and his Famous Flames')- I think it's called 'The Joy of Belly
Dancing' or something like that. Now listen to that funky hard drumming
here, on dumbek, claves, tambourine, zil...- the rhythms are wild, and
there's no keeping them down. The fifth track (A Nada) - a perfect case in
point. It's essentially a simple Balladi rhythm (the same one that keeps
popping up in Jewish music when the band wants to sound exotic in a Mideast
fashion- ONE AND two AND THREE and FOUR and), but Abdo's piece sounds as if
somebody's lit it afire. There is precious little distinction between
rhythm and melody- you can play the melody on your dumbek.
    The hand percussion playing in most Jewish music (already a rare bird)
that I've heard, and with occasional rare exception (Klezmatics version of
'Fun Tashlikh', for example) always sounds oh-so-skilled and
oh-so-restrained. I do not mean this as a cut at some very good percussion
players or bandleaders, but there seems to be a general tendency to place
the percussion in the background- mostly as a time keeping device- rather
than letting it sizzle up front the way it does in so called 'Belly Dance'
music.
                        EK


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