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

[S. Austen & B. Woods <acoustic...>]

Hi everyone,


>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.

Absolutely true, many of us as Jews have the educational base, and maybe
some of us the economic as well, to engage in this process. I do wonder, as
a full time musician living below the national poverty scale, about the
widespread mythology of the wealthy Jew, is this perhaps something our
detracters spread to fuel the fire of anti-semitic thought? and for that
matter, we spread to look better?...

>
>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?

I agree with this perspective as well, we should all find ways to allow
ourselves to create the art that moves us from our fundamental core as
artists, regardless whether it fits anothers ideology.


>
 But the question remains, are we getting any work done?

Back to it now...

Seth

McDuffee's General Store & Recording Co.
Seth Austen & Beverly Woods
3 Pork Hill Rd Ossipee, NH 03864
(603) 539-8301
acoustic (at) landmarknet(dot)net


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