RE: Julio Inglesias Jewish?

[Eliezer Kaplan <zelwel...>]

Reyzl-
    You talk about dancing. I don't really think much about dancing (except
maybe in the abstract sense, when I'm doing my own music). I think more
about listening. Guess I have a strong intellectual reaction to music, as
well as one that comes from the gut- probably most other people who are
into music do as well. 
    You also talk about the mainstream- I think that as far as the
mainstream is concerned, what goes around comes around. This week the
popular style is line dancing, maybe next week everybody will be doing the
funky chicken and the frug, or, who knows, dancing the hora. Point being-
this week a mixture of music is parochial, and next week it's in. 
    Now assuming that education is obtainable, then you're right about
exposure. Nobody would know that Naftule Brandwein was a genius on the
level of Miles Davis or Frank Zappa (or Frank Sinatra, for that matter),
and just as cool, unless they heard his stuff. And I don't think you'd have
to really be much more of a scholar to appreciate Brandwein as to
appreciate those other three guys- though if you were, I imagine your
appreciation would just go that much deeper.

                Ellie Kaplan




At 11:17 AM 7/8/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Eleizer,
>
>Yes, of course, it's education, but before education comes exposure.   I am 
>sure that you didn't just go searching for Jewish music without first being 
>exposed to some things other than Hava Nagila, Maoz Tzur and Hatikvah. 
>  Most American Jews are not scholars looking for the unknown and the 
>theoretical.  A lot of Jews in America have by now heard of klezmer music, 
>but it's still not enough and their association with non-concert klezmer 
>music are still limited to one or two hora dances at an affair.  I can't 
>remember how many Bar/Bat Mitsvas I have now gone to where there are young 
>black kids leading the entertainment and the dancing, including those of 
>religious and traditional parents and Orthodox grandparents.   Very few of 
>them have researched or brought Jewish entertainers and DJs who will play a 
>mixture of Jewish material and international music.   In the last 
>bat-mitsva I went to (grandchildren of a very wealthy Orthodox family), the 
>DJs taught line-dancing, but no one brought a Jewish line dancing DJ.  Now 
>many of the steps are the same and the dancefloor energy is the same, but I 
>guess they worried that it wouldn't be "cool" enough.   It was not that 
>these very Jewish non-Orthodox Brooklyn parents don't know such things 
>exist or that the bands wouldn't play a mixture of music, but maybe they 
>worried that it would be too "parochial".   I understand that worry very 
>well, but then again, I don't always understand what is being celebrated at 
>these affairs.  I know these kinds of bands exist and I have been to plenty 
>of Jewish weddings that have them.   As for DJ's who specialize in Jewish 
>dancing - maybe the problem is that too few of them advertise.  I don't 
>know.   Maybe we should get Jill Gellerman, a specialist in Jewish wedding 
>dancing, on this list to explain it all to us.
>
>
>Reyzl
>
>
>----------
>From:  Eliezer Kaplan[SMTP:zelwel (at) earthlink(dot)net]
>Sent:  Wednesday, July 07, 1999 9:04 AM
>To:  World music from a Jewish slant
>Subject:  RE: Julio Inglesias Jewish?
>
>Reyzl said:
>
>>   I am annoyed at the fact that
>>most Jews have lost connection to their own music, except for things like
>>Fiddler on the Roof, and what they choose to sing when they want to sing 
>is
>>Black music.   I think they make these choices because that is what is
>>considered the "cool"est and that's what's on the radio.    This is also
>>what Jews from Reform to Conservative to modern Orthodox choose to play at 
>>their rites of passage celebration.   I find all this a cultural Jewish
>>poverty, but I am sorry that I don't have time to write this idea up now 
>on
>>the list.  It will have to wait for another time.
>>
>
>A lot is simple lack of education, and asking one's self 'how could Jewish
>music ever be cool'? Before I got into it, I used to think of Jewish music
>as being Hava Nagilah, Maoz Tzur, and Hatikvah. Without some personal
>research, I never would have heard of Naftule Brandwein or Salim Halali
>(orginally, not an explicitly Jewish artist, though as of now I don't think
>he can not be seen as one)- proof that Jewish music is actually extremely
>cool. Of course, the education thing is true for most streams of music that
>are not the mainstream. Usually it doesn't come over and hit you on the
>head- you have to find it first.
>               EK
>
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>
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