Re: Music at Jewish affairs.

[Owen Davidson <owend...>]

You are absolutely right about that Reyzl!

I have a memory like the proverbial sieve (actually, chicken-wire would be
closer to the truth: at Klez-Kamp two years ago, Merlin played a tune for the
dance ensemble.  "Has anyone ever heard this before?"  he asked.  "Nope," I
said confidently.  The guy next to me, whom I'd just met minutes before, turned
to me and said, "You recorded it on your last album."  Ohhh, yeaaah... in one
year, out the other.)  Anyway, as I was saying, I think, I've got a terrible
memory.  But there can be no mistaking Brandwein's trademark tone.  One day, en
route to a rehearsal, our trombonist, Brian Bender, whose memory is like a
colander, said "I think I wrote a new tune, but I'm not sure," and began to
sing it.  "It's Naftule,"  I said.  I knew I'd heard it, and the melody alone
brought the clearest recollection of that particularly brilliant tone.  At the
rehearsal, Sherry, whose seykhel is the stuff of legend, instantly diagnosed
the tune as "Lebedik Naftule."  Brian was crestfallen, and I was left wondering
at the recognizability of Brandwein's sound.  I don't think there's another
musician that could cut through my mental haze as clearly.  Trend-setters like
Dave Tarras or Miles Davis, however distinctive, have been so often and so well
imitated that I could never be sure.  You'd have to ask someone more
knowledgable, like a head of cabbage, maybe.

Owen

P.S. "Owen is right!"   -I. B. Kapusta



Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:

> >znip<
>
> I don't know about the other 3 guys, but I totally agree about Brandwein.
>  In fact, I will never forget the first times I heard Brandwein.   Henry
> Sapoznik had just found "Firn di Makhetonim Aheym" in the YIVO archive for
> my husband to put into his film "Image Before My Eyes" and I was just
> bowled over with the unique, haunting sound of that music.  It was
> sssssssooooooooooooooooo extraordinary.  Once you hear the original, you
> don't forget that sound.   It's the kind of experience similar to a first
> time hearing Paul Robeson or the Italian tenor Gille sing.  Once you have
> heard it, you KNOW that sound, you will always recognize it, and you will
> not forget it because it is so unique and special.  "Firn di Makhetonim
> Aheym" played in brain for years and years after the opening of Image.   So
> the question is what occasions do you create where you can expose people to
> Naftuli Brandwein?    The fact is that, although many klezmer bands have
> tried to copy the sound for the last 19 years, no one, absolutely no one
> has yet been able to capture it.  So what do you do?  I don't know.   Put
> the original in some commercial or Hollywood film so that as many people as
> possible can discover it?   That's all I can think of right now, but I
> don't know if it's doable.   Put it on a web site that plays it 7/24 ?  I
> know that it's not good for line dancing.
>
> Reyzl
>

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