Re: What is Jewish Music?

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

That my writer colleague George Robinson approaches liturgical folk music 
with the notion that it is (all? or mostly?) "dorky folk-pop Judaica" I 
think is unfortunate--I don't think it's helpful to dismiss an entire genre 
of music that way, rather than being open to whatever you hear.  (Can you 
really be so, when you're about to listen to what you think of as "another 
dorky folk-pop Judaica" CD?)  George has always been out-front in his 
columns about his biases/likes & dislikes, but I still think it's 
unfortunate in a reviewer to approach new music w/ such a hard-edged bias.  
I obviously have my own bias, as a lecturer about and historian of, 
occasional writer about, and even (this fall) producer of (a compilation CD 
of) contemporary liturgical folk music--in my view, our most distinctive 
indigenous American-Jewish music in this generation....In any case, quite 
aside from the content, George, like a lot of writers, is under the 
mis-impression that "begging the question" means deferring answering it.  
Properly used, it doesn't (though "evading the issue" has now become, by 
repeated use, an accepted informal usage); it refers to the logical fallacy 
of assuming as true the very thing you are seeking or claiming to 
prove....Second editorial advisement (not in re George's post):  _graffiti_ 
_is_ a plural; sing., graffito (!).  That's right, a spaghetto is a single 
strand of; ditto (!), raviolo (which I think is a neat-sounding word, 
anyway; makes me want to burst into Italian song.  Actually it rhymes w/ 
[Pete Seeger's] "Abiyoyo"--new verse possibilities?).  This is actually of 
some mild Jewish interest, as the word "ghetto" is an Italian singular of 
the same sort--only we never plural it the Italian way in English, as we do 
spaghetti, ravioli, graffiti, etc.  Hope anybody found this 
interesting--Robert Cohen


>From: George Robinson <GRComm (at) concentric(dot)net>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: What is Jewish Music?
>Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 17:16:09 -0400
>
>
>
>JeffSchan (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
>
> > I just got back from a few days in the Adirondacks and caught up on 
>several
> > days of digests.  So, I may be responding partly to what people were 
>saying a
> > few days ago.  I know John Zorn, although not very well, and on his
> > motivation for classifying Bacharach as a Jewish composer, I think that
> > people have to understand that Zorn is an iconoclast.  So, besides 
>liking his
> > music, he probably wanted to release the CD in order to push the 
>boundaries
> > of what people think is Jewish music, both in terms of Bacharach, and in
> > terms of the musicians who did the covers.  I don't care for Bacharach, 
>so I
> > haven't heard the CD.  I know George Robinson reviewed in for Jewish 
>Week, so
> > if he has time, he might be able to contribute his opinion.
> >
>
>Actually, I had hoped to avoid commenting on this thread, coward that I am, 
>but
>since Jeff has invoked my name, like a demon summoned from the depths (do 
>Jews do
>that sort of thing?), I hereby arise to take the challenge.
>
>First, let me say that I am in general agreement with much of Jeffrey's 
>posting.
>I have tried whenever possible to write about contemporary "avant-garde" 
>Jewish
>music in the pages of Jewish Week (and more recently the Detroit Jewish 
>News and
>Jewish World Review as well). The earth, Thomas Jefferson wrote, belongs to 
>the
>living generations, and while I think it is a matter of honor to render 
>homage to
>our musical forebears, helping the dead collect royalties strikes me as a 
>lower
>priority than expounding the virtues of the all-but-forgotten living. (Or 
>as a
>sports scout once said to me in a different context, "Sure there are
>Hall-of-Famers in this year's draft. We just don't know who they are yet.")
>
>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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