RE: What Is Jewish Music?

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>>And what of Israeli composers?  If the creative spark of Jewish music
>>is outsider status, we might conclude that Israelis cannot compose
>>Jewish music.  
>
>Some people have already made that conclusion and I agree with them.   
>Israeli music since the 60's has been mostly derivative of American and 
>European popular music.  They have seemed till now more interested in 
>proving that they can produce American and European rock 'n roll and 
>European pop music in Hebrew than anything else.  It is only here and there 
>that one finds a unique blending of Middle Eastern and Western sound, e.g., 
>some songs of Yehudit Radnitz, and Esta.   Yet one feels that a unique 
>blending or crystallization of these musical traditions for people who sit 
>on the bridge of both cultures is yet to happen.  Same goes for some other 
>unique Israeli musical style.  

I'd have to disagree regarding the unique nature of Israeli music,
some of which =is= both wonderful and unique. Is it Jewish? Some, absolutely, 
albeit a "Jewish" that blends a much wider variety of sources from around 
the world than we are used to hearing as "Jewish." Esta may be lightweight,
but there are better examples of the genre.

One of the major landmark albums would be the Mati Caspi/Shlomo Gronich
album of the late '70s, "Behind the Sounds" (=not= the new concert of a
few years ago). The music of Yehuda Poliker is less revolutionary in a 
Jewish sense, but is emphatically both Jewish and Israeli, melding
music styles from around the Mediterannean into a rock soup that would
never be done that way musically, and even less, that way lyrically,
elsewhere. In a similar "meld," many people would point to the techno
of the "Ethnix," or the world-beat fusion of "Atraf 2". Certainly, in
terms of the discussion of what is Jewish music on this list, the Ethnix
are very much part of such a definition.

I would also argue that some of Yehudit Ravitz' work, in particular her
work with Shem Tov Levi back in the last '70s, is also very Israeli.
And, certainly, that early Israeli clunking together of everything, as
sung by the likes of Shoshana Damari or the Gesher Hayarkon Trio meets
all of these criteria (as well as being worth listening to today).

It may be worth considering, however, that "israeli" is not the same
Jewish as "ashkenazi" or "mizrahi" or general "sepharadi". 

ari


Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
the klezmer shack: http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/

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