RE: forgetting one's own music

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I wonder if forgetting one's own creative work can be a function of one's 
prolificness (or whatever).  Shlomo Carlebach, zt"l, I'm told, could also 
forget that a niggun he liked was actually his!--long since, like so many of 
his, become part of the contemporary folk music of the Jewish people.  Now 
I'm trying to think if there's some radio program I did or article I wrote 
that I've forgotten about.  There _must_ be....BTW, I wish Reyzl had advised 
us that the D. Hammett PBS movie (OK, not about music) was Josh's.  It was 
borderline for me to make time for or even tape, and I didn't.  But I would 
have.


>From: Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl (at) flash(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: Music at Jewish affairs.
>Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 09:52:22 -0400
>
>I know about those sieves.   I am married to one and his 250 IQ just
>doesn't make up the gap.  It may be related to that Y chromosome.   My
>husband can't remember his own compositions either.  He just went to a camp
>reunion and old campers sang him whole songs that he had written, songs
>that they have sung to themselves and their kids for the last 25-30 years
>and he had completely forgotten about.  He wound up being very impressed
>with some of them and has been singing them himself finally.
>   UGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!   But now my elphantine memory is going fast.  But, I
>say, that I the difference is that I know the datum I is missing when I
>need it!*!*!*!*!*!*!
>
>I think that everything about Brandwein was unique.   Even if you master
>one or two or even three elements, you still haven't gotten him down.   I
>am trying to convince Josh to make a film about him, but he is still be too
>busy with other films.   (His film about Dashelle Hammett just played last
>week on PBS.)
>
>
>Reyzl
>
>
>----------
>From:  Owen Davidson[SMTP:owend (at) tp(dot)net]
>Sent:  Friday, July 09, 1999 5:29 PM
>To:  World music from a Jewish slant
>Subject:  Re: Music at Jewish affairs.
>
>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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