Re: schmaltz, pandering and Klezmatics

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Thanks Dick, 

for the kind words. I want to be a bit confrontational and
self-indulgent- just having had a bout with some industry prophets (our
agents, label and some European journalists) the theme of traditional
vs. modern just landed freshly in my kishkes, so here goes...

We were told last week by our label that while traditional music is
nice, it's boring and in need of modernization (see also last month's
Folk Roots arrogant Ry Cooder interview about how Cuban folk music is
boring and dead and how he single-handedly revived it). If we pose the
following basic question to two broad camps of Jewish music, the
*Traditional* and the *modern*:

*What is new in music nowadays?* 

and take 3 limiting parameters: 

1) Instrumentation 2) Style  3) Repertoire and Genres 

let's see what we come up with:  

INSTRUMENTATION:

MODERN CAMP
1) How many people are familiar with the saxophone?
2) ...electric bass
3) ...traps?
4)... Bb Boehm system clarinet?
5) ...modern brass instruments?
6) ...modern accordions?

TRADITIONAL CAMP
1) ...How many people are familiar with the Jewish tsimbl?
2) ...A simple system C or Eb clarinet?
3) ...A 3-string bratsch
4) ...A shoulder-held cello?
5)... A 19th century Bayan?
6) ...A Jewish Fiddle?

STYLE:

MODERN CAMP

1) How many people are familiar with the style mixes in klezmer music
using any of the following music: jazz, rock, salsa, Arabic, celtic

2) ...Amplified music?

3) ...Jazz influenced inprovisatory breaks as a stylistic device?

TRADITIONAL CAMP
1) ...the Jewish contra style of fiddling and Heterophonic interaction
between 2-3 melody instruments?

2)...."Zogn" ornamentation of the melodies?

3) ...micro-ornamentation as a stylistic device

4) ... with the differences between Galizian, Bukovinan, Bessarabian,
Vallachian and Transylvanian styles and ensemble formations?

5) ... with the unexplored modulatations of the shtaygerim in klezmer
music 

REPERTOIRE AND GENRES

MODERN CAMP
1) What percentage of the tunes in the modern repertoire have been
recorded on 78's or by other bands?

2) How much original material is being used by the majority of modern
bands?

3) How many bands play freylakhs and horas as their main core dance
repertoire?

4) How much slow improvisation do you hear in a typical performance? Can
the performer hold your attention with that? How many performers
function as soloists in the band?

TRADITIONAL CAMP

1) Are you familiar with A beygele tants or Jewish Theme and Variations
form? 

2) ...the improvised forms of the Dobranoc?

3)....the slow Zogakhts or Gedenkens?

4)...the kale bazetsns ritual with all the accompanying instrumental
parts that  isn't a theater satire?

I fear that the word modern is nothing more than another term for
*familiar* and an audience that demands this in a performance is doing
nothing more than when it demands Yiddishe Mama or Bay mir bistu sheyn.
Give it a Zogekhts and it says * oh that's traditional and old
fashioned. We've outgrown that and are progressive now.* So the question
beckons: *If it's so traditional, why aren't you familiar with it?*

When early opera composers began their work, they were convinced they
were reviving the true ancient Greek Theater, with the only changes
being in the music. By consciously reaching back into history further
than their actual knowledge had contact, they created what became a
truly avant garde form for their time. Yet they were nothing more than
self-proclaimed revivalists. The only difference being that they revived
something which noone new about, not even they themselves. Yet who today
would question the relevance of opera? And who then would have branded
it too traditional to be interesting?
 
My analysis of the modulations of the Freygish shtayger (which proves to
be the most flexible shtayger in terms of modulation possibilities- the
article will appear in the next Musica Judaica journal) shows that out
of 1500 tunes analyzed, there are only 32 types of modulations used.
What happened to the other 2592 possible ones? Why doesn't their
exploration belong to the *new developments* in klezmer music? And if a
group with an anachronistic instrumentation actually does explore some
of these, will these achievements be overlooked? Will it be seen as
modern on it's own virtues, or will the group be branded as a museum
artifact because its visible attributes are traditional, even if nobody
knows exactly what that entails?  

Tradition is a very elusive thing. I totally agree with Frank London
when he says real tradition is always in motion. But we all know that.
The more relevant question for me is how have we defined motion? Is it
possible that modernist tendencies can be very stagnant and so-called
traditionalist tendencies very dynamic? That may be a post modernist
view, but its modern to be post modern, isn't it?  Josh

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