Re: What is Jewish Music?

[robert wiener <wiener...>]

Eliott and Robert have discussed definitions of Jewish music by Curt
Sachs and by Herbert Fromm.

I've been surfing the web and looking through my library and the best
I can come up with from those sources are the following:

Curt Sachs
The following quote came up on a Jewish museum web site.  I hope that
someone on the list can confirm the authenticity of the source.

"to borrow the definition of Jewish music used by Professor Curt
Sachs: music 'by Jews, for Jews, as Jews'.2
2 Inaugural speech at the International Conference on Jewish Music,
1957.

Herbert Fromm
In Fromm's "On Jewish Music" (1978) (which, I believe, I purchased at
Eliott's suggestion) in his essay "What is Jewish Music?" (published
in "The Cantor's Voice, December 1963)
(I haven't read the entire book, so there may be more elsewhere).

(At the end of a summary of the history of Jewish music.)
"What, then, shall we look for in Jewish music?  It may come down to
as much or as little as a certain inflection, a particular turn of
phrase, or even in a negative way, the avoidance of certain chords or
cadences, all of which, to the attuned ear, mark music as Jewish.
This becomes more subtle in instrumental music where the absence of a
text robs the listener of the more obvious connections.

There is no infallible yardstick of stylistic criteria by which to
measure Jewish music.  It is a matter of spirrit responding to spirit,
or -- if you will -- the unconscious recognition of origins which shun
the light of analytic search."


As I read them, neither includes music simply written by Jews or
labeled as Jewish.  Also, music defined by one as Jewish may not be
recognized as Jewish music by the other.  In other words, the net is
not so large as to catch whatever a Jew likes to listen to.

Curt Sachs's definition, 'by Jews, for Jews, as Jews', has the
advantage of brevity (and, therefore, may be more easily remembered).
Herbert Fromm's definition seems to be "I know it when I hear it", at
least if the listener's ear is "attuned" (by knowledge of the history
of Jewish (e.g., nusakh, trope...) and non-Jewish/
Christian? music?).

Keeping these definitions in mind while reading George's post, it
seems to me that his net has caught some fish that should be thrown
back in the sea.  Either the music he reviews in his column (e.g.,
Fred Hersch (playing Thelonious Monk), or a collection of George
Gershwin songs...) is Jewish (by some definition) or not.  There are
plenty of publications for reviews of non-Jewish music and so few for
Jewish music that I wish that George would write more about Jewish
music, at least for The Jewish Week (and other Jewish publications).

Bob

George Robinson wrote (in part):

Of course that begs the question of what constitutes Jewish music. (I
said I was a coward.)

I have made it a policy -- stated quite publicly in my column on more
than one occasion -- of reviewing the work of Jewish musicians
regardless of Jewish content. The reasons for this are twofold. First,
out of pure selfishness -- I came to Jewish music from jazz and blues
and those remain my first musical loves; I get great pleasure out of
writing about those musics and my open-door policy alows me to do so.
Second, and more to the point, I know the readership of my
various publications; they are more likely to own recordings by
Carlebach or (much worse) the dorky folk-pop Judaica music that I must
confess I am utterly unsympathetic to than they are recordings by the
people whose work is usually discussed here. So I cast my net as
widely as possible to bring to my readers' attention people as various
as BOW, Naftule's Dream, Fred Hersch (playing Thelonious Monk), Jane
Ira Bloom, Metallish (a Hasidic heavy-metal power trio; don't laugh,
they're good), Jeffrey Schanzer, obscure symphonic work by Leonard
Bernstein, and so on.

So what does that mean in terms of the question on the floor? As
someone else wrote somewhere in this thread, Jewish music is music
made by Jewish musicians, singers, songwriters, etc., often (but not
always) on Jewish themes or with Jewish musical influences or content.
Given the hybrid nature of traditional Jewish musics -- the influence
of gypsy music on klezmer, of goyish military music on Hasidic
niggunim, of American folk forms on, say, Debbie Friedman, of blues on
Bob Dylan, and so on ad infinitum, ad nauseum -- it's hard to be more
purist than that.

Anyway, as I always say to people who ask me, if my definition of
Jewish music is too broad/narrow/parochial/catholic for you, get your
own column and review what _you_ like.

That's a very pragmatic, non-theoretical answer to a very theoretical
question.

I just happen to think that in an era in which corporate decisions
dominate music sales, anyone with access to a readership that pays
even a little attention to what he/she says has a moral obligation to
write about as wide a range of non-corporate music as possible. Which
has nothing to do with Jewishness, or everything to do with it.
Depends on your point of view.

Sorry for rambling on like this.
Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut Amerikanish
George Robinson



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