Being sensitive to a Yiddishe crowd

[MaxwellSt <MaxwellSt...>]

In a message dated 07/21/1999 9:22:19 PM Central Daylight Time, 
KLEZMER313 (at) aol(dot)com writes:

<< Could be that being a rather simple  simcha musician has it's 
rewards.....one 
 of which being free of the almost arrogant attitude that you seem to 
 attribute to the concert musician. 
 
 Maybe (let's hope) we are having a semantics problem rather than a 
 philosophical one!!!! >>

As a musician, I would say it's probably a philosophical difference.  I have 
great respect for musicians who perform for the pleasure of creating original 
music, and there is almost always at least a part of the public who responds 
to his/her sincere act of talented creation by appreciating the music, albeit 
almost as an accidental onlooker.   But I am bothered when simcha music (that 
IS the origin of klezmer, after all) is performed as art to the exclusion of 
being simchadik (or when the performer is more into his thing than how it 
communicates)--because jazz is great, but it's not the wellspring of Jewish 
music.  Nor does it sit well with me when a klezmer fancies himself a sort of 
contemporary atonal/angry artist.  Many in New York would disagree with me, 
but if it loses its chen (charm, sort of) and its Yiddish character, I think 
klezmer's on the wrong path.  And I don't blame the audience who is 
disappointed when they've come to connect to their warm past and have more of 
the cool present foisted upon them.

Example: Once I hired two very good jazz musicians (clarinet, piano) to play 
background music at a person's house.  The client called me back, distressed, 
saying that although the music SOUNDED good, the two never cracked a smile, 
seemed aloof and made her feel depressed!  Get the idea?  People who are 
looking to this music for sunshine and humor, the touching sound of Yiddish 
voices and the krechts of emotion--if instead they get Jeremy Cohn-trane on 
sax, it's confusing and disappointing.  (Likewise, I suppose the band who 
breaks out in Yiddishe Mama at the Knitting Factory is going to turn up some 
noses--as the person who titled this thread "shmaltz" must feel.)

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