Re: What Is Jewish Music?

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

Responding to the message of <001201bec0d4$b0b675a0$4607f7a5 (at) bob>
from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
>
Great comments and questions, Bob.  I don't have definitive answers for a lot of
this stuff, I'm just thinking out loud and in public.  

I wouldn't consider Randy Newman to be in the line insofar as he started out as 
a singer-songwriter.  Carole King, on the other hand, started out as a composer 
and started performing (and writing lyrics only later.  Menken and the Disney 
musical as a whole, to my way of thinking revived this line after it had largely
been supplanted by the dominance in pop music of singer-sngwriters, some of 
whom, like Elton John and now Phil Collins (in the new Tarzan) are writing 
musicals, too.

I'm just sort of formulating here.  Help me out, please.  I haven't accounted 
for Sondheim either, whose more recent work strikes me as a bit removed from the
older Broadway shows  for which I have some affection.

Good question about why we cut so many records as well as diamonds.  Some of the
reasons could be the same or similar.  Like so many businesses Jews made it in 
in the early 20th century, show business was one from which we weren't de facto 
excluded or restricted and it was risky/speculative (especially the early movie 
industry) and Jews have tended to be willing to take chances investing where 
more settled and accepted peoples were less likely to venture.

I also think that the wordplay that informs so many great American pop songs by 
writers like Berlin, Hart, and Ira Gershwin is a very old fascination for Jews, 
including the use of anagrams in sacred texts (none of which I can recall right 
now, darn it!).  I did a lot more speculation of this nature in my lecture 
series.  My Polish students were very interested, but they were certainly not 
able to make informed contributions about this literature.  They can now, 
however, sing Puttin' on the Ritz and Dayenu (among other items) and have a 
pretty good idea what they mean.

> 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 ---------------------+
> >