Re: Bacharach (was: What Is Jewish Music?)

[tanya kalmanovitch <stump...>]

Hello list:

I have been reading with interest the provocative posts on this topic. Further
provocation, below:


S. Austen & B. Woods wrote:

> One can think of Jewish music as having certain types of modal melodic 
> structures . . . However, Flamenco, Gypsy, Arabic and Indian classical 
> music also use this same scale. Thus, what makes something written in 
> this mode distinctly Jewish? Obviously other considerations, including 
> rhythmic variation, stylistic interpretation, and even spiritual intention 
> come into play...

Further to this: an ethno- (or otherwise) musicological analysis could be used
to determine what music is "Jewish". This would comprise of a rather
traditional analysis of the movement of various musical structures and Jewish
peoples through the world, and for all the exhaustive work entailed, is a
rather straightforward process.

By way of contrast, a postmodern musical analysis would take into account
(among other things) the culture and context of the music, the interests of
the commercial music industry, the structures and interests of institutions,
and the psycho-social landscape of individual musicians and composers:
something rather less tangible than a traditional structural/modal analysis. A
postmodern analysis of contemporary popular music could almost certainly be
used to suggest that Burt Bacharach is, indeed, a Jewish composer, or by
contrast, that Mendellssohn was not. Although, as much as I ascribe to various
shades of postmodernism in my thoughts, writings, playing and actions, I do
feel compelled to comment that postmodernism is itself a privileged position.

As a musician foremost, I can attest to the musician's desire to transcend the
limits of genre politics. The task of being a musician entails a primary
loyalty to the spirit of the music itself, and only secondarily to the context
of music making.

Which is not to say that musicians do not engage in prolonged (often
ludicrously so) deliberations on what music fits which label. Be-bop players
are prone to this. But it seems to me that, far from being the province of
marginalized peoples/musics, such deliberations are the hallmark of privileged
peoples. It takes a considerable degree of education, economic power and
liberty to engage in these discussions.

Someone (I've forgotten who) commented that the tagline on the Bacharach CD
("Great Jewish Music") was a marketing ploy, and I would have to agree. But it
worked, didn't it?


Eliott Kahn wrote:

> Why don't we applaud the people who really work with Jewish musical
> idioms, themes and ideas (several people on this list) and just accept the
> fact that someone may be of a particular ethnic background but unless
> they're exposed to, nurtured, or even vaguely interested in it, they won't
> necessarrily express themselves in that fashion.

Why don't we accept that Jewish musicians make music, and their Jewishness, to
a greater or lesser degree, informs whatever music they make, even when the
manner in which their Jewishness is expressed fails to correspond with
institutional and political aims?


rlc wrote:

> Question: If you tax-deduct a proportion of your computer usage, 
> can any time spent reading or responding to this missive count as remotely 
> work/professional-related? 

If you earn a portion of your income from music related work, a corresponding
portion of your computer use on this, or any other musical topic, should be
tax-deductible. But the question remains, are we getting any work done?


Tanya Kalmanovitch

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+