Re: What is Jewish Music?

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Dear Shira (et al.):  I probably should have avoided the superlative and 
just described it as a distinctive body of indigenous American-Jewish folk 
music--which, as it happens, I celebrate and sing (isn't that what Whitman 
said?) and have helped, modestly, to promote/present/share over the years.  
Putting it the way I did I guess gets us very quickly to (unproductively) 
comparing apples and oranges.  As it happens, the klezmer/Yiddish revival 
material (of the 70s and since, i.e.) I would of course not regard as 
indigenously American at all, as it represented a 
reviavl/restoration/Americanizing of an essentially European repertoire.  It 
certainly could be argued, though, that contemporary fusion/"radical"/"new 
Jewish music" styles reflect an indigenous only-in-(contemporary) America 
product--and, yes, a distinctive one.  As it happens, I enjoy some of that 
music (as I may have mentioned, a cousin of mine is actually an important 
presence on that scene) and certainly find it an interesting phenomenon, but 
I personally connect much more deeply to music that is (a) more folk-based 
in style and (b) liturgically/religiously grounded.  And I think that some 
of the liturgical music--responding, as I think it does, to the spiritual as 
well as aesthetic needs of many American Jews today--is (and, in fact, has 
been) far more likely to take hold among _amcha_--at least, as music that 
Jews _sing._  The radical/fusion "klezmer" is, perhaps, a more esoteric 
taste (though, obviously, most Jews today don't relate to liturgical music 
either)--though for some Jews, such music is obviously an important cultural 
connector and means of Jewish expression and affirmation.  I will continue 
to listen (sometimes) to it and observe w/ interest its reception by Jews 
and others; there's an original and creative vitality to it, and I wish 
it--and all our music--well.

>From: meydele (at) ix(dot)netcom(dot)com
>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: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 19:12:04 -0500 (CDT)
>
>On 07/08/99 12:20:42 one of the Roberts wrote:
> >
> >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... 
>contemporary liturgical folk
>music [is]in my view, our most distinctive
> >indigenous American-Jewish music in this generation....
>
>Oy, now, maybe we're back to the Debbie Friedman thread...I'm sorry, this 
>is such a startling idea
>to me, that I am forced to ask: Just who, Robert, do you consider to be the 
>people composing and
>performing this "most distinctive indigenous American-Jewish music in this 
>generation?"  Do you
>listen to any modern "klezmer" at all?
>
>Shira Lerner
>
>


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