Re: What Is Jewish Music?

[robert wiener <wiener...>]

Alex,

I hope that Bacharach is not the last of the list.  How about Randy
Newman?  Anyone for Alan Menken?

I imagine that convincing historical arguments can be advanced for
Jews in the diamond cutting business (e.g., that this profession does
not require land ownership once unavailable to Jews in Europe and took
advantage of trusting business relationships Jews developed with  Jews
in different countries).  What would you advance as a reason why Jews
seem to have been statistically overrepresented in this field?  And if
you think that the representation is declining, why do you think that
is?

Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Alex J. Lubet <lubet001 (at) maroon(dot)tc(dot)umn(dot)edu>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Date: Sunday, June 27, 1999 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: What Is Jewish Music?


>Responding to the message of <37759B97(dot)51217A87 (at) kamea(dot)com>
>from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
>>
>>
>>
>> Klezcorner (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
>>
>> > In a message dated 6/23/99 6:05:19 AM, media (at) kamea(dot)com writes:
>> >
>> > <<
>> > > I would be interested in a justification
>> > > of the CD "Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach" on Tzadik.
>> > > >>
>> >
>> > THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS CD!
>>
>> Right on, Simon.  Thank you for your candor.
>>
>> For decades in America,  Jewish entertainers went to great pains to
hide
>> their Jewish origins, changing names and noses in their quest for
the
>> "bitch goddess" Success.
>>
>> With the ascendency of the Jewish upper middle class, it's now cool
to be
>> Jewish.  But not "too Jewish".  That would tend to make  audiences
>> uncomfortable because it would demand an awareness and cultural
literacy
>> beyond the "bagels and lox" <yidishkayt>  being marketed by the
>> multinational corporations that control the culture industry;
those that
>> foist and strongly promote the "big sellers".
>>
>> The grandchildren of those who abandoned their culture flock  to
"Jewish
>> Music" programs, hungry to fill the  bottomless void of having
grown up
>> in the plastic, shake 'n bake,  cultural and spiritual slums of
monied,
>> privileged suburban America.
>>
>> What Sartre so elegantly called "nostalgie de la boue" (literally:
>> nostalgia for mud).
>>
>>  For  the  Bacharach CD to actually be presented in the marketplace
as
>> "Jewish Music" is an  insult to the intelligent.
>>
>> Since the recently-departed Mel Torme, a Jew, wrote "The Christmas
Song"
>> ("Chestnuts roasting on the open fire...")
>> this fact would make that song "Jewish Music", too, since the
writer was
>> Jewish and an "outsider".  Please.
>>
>> Does the expression "reductio ad absurdum" come to mind?
>>
>>
>> Wolf Krakowski
>> www.kamea.com
>>
>>
**********************************************************************
********
>> *****
>>
>> "Only the violence and duration
>> of your hardened dream can resist
>> the hideous mechanical civilization
>> that is your enemy."
>>
>>             Salvador Dali
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> .  I recently gave a series of lectures (at a Polish university)
entitled
>'Jewish Contributions to American Musical Culture.'  The criteria for
who I
>included were that the artists--composers, lyricists, or performers
who create
>their own material--had to be Jewish and they had to have had
significant
>influence on at least some some part of American culture.  Beyond
that, I would
>always discuss whether I thought there was anything Jewish about
their work and,
>if so, what.  (Dave Tarras and Wolf Krakowski were represented by
more examples
>than anyone else).
>
>Time constraints prevented me from giving the lectures I'd prepared
on jazz and
>rock/pop.  Regarding the latter, I did include among others, in my
undelivered
>text such songwriters as Lieber and Stoller and Bacharach.  No, I
don't think
>there's much if anything Jewish in their work, no matter how hard one
searches.
>Perhaps part of my rationale has the minority pride in those among us
who have
>done, something noted in an earlier posting.
>
>My sense is that more of us on this list would proudly claim Lieber
and Stoller
>than Bacharach as members of the tribe.  I despised Bacharach when I
was
>younger, because those songs struck me as the essence of everything
supeficial
>and insincere:  he was the opposite of Dylan.  Now that I'm a lot
older and I
>earn most of my living teaching college-level music theory, I'm able
to
>appreciate his craft as a composer. Keep in mind that Bacharach isn't
a lyricist
>and that the lyrics were most of what bothered me and, I suspect,
most of us,
>although I can appreciate the craft of his collaborators without
buying into the
>subject matter.  (I never liked the production values or singing
styles of the
>artists who recorded him in the 60's-70's either.)  He is a Jew and
there is
>something to appreciate about his craft, although it's not something
Jewish.
>
>On the other hand, Bacharach is part of (maybe the last of) a class
of
>(non-performing) professional songwriters and producers in which Jews
are
>extremely well represented.  It includes many contributors to
Broadway, Tin Pan
>Alley, the Brill Building, and Hollywood.  I find that interesting.
The best
>work in these genres is literate, articulate, and urbane, qualities I
associate
>(not exclusively) with Jews.
>
>Perhaps though, this kind of songwriting, is more like diamond
cutting, a
>business in which many Jews have succeeded and a lineage has thus
been created,
>without the industry having any inherently Jewish characteristics.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>
>
>Perhaps, though
>
>Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
>Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
>Adjunct Professor of American Studies
>University of Minnesota
>2106 4th St. S
>Minneapolis, MN 55455
>612 624-7840 612 626-2200 (fax)
>
>----------------------
jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+
>