re:schmaltz, pandering and Klezmatics

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

If you don't "play to the audience" in the broadest 
(_communicative/presenting,_ not pandering) sense, you shouldn't be (or 
aren't?) performing at all.


>From: Bert Stratton <yiddcup (at) en(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:schmaltz, pandering and Klezmatics
>Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 10:20:30 -0400
>
>Thanks to all for your responses to my so-called Klezmatics review.
>
>Simple self-interest compelled me to write the "review."  Klezmatics, in a
>sentence, didn't do anything positive for the klez scene in Ohio.  Lost
>opportunity.  Chieftains, one night later, same location, primed the local
>Irish scene, like a blow torch at the Kleenex factory.
>
>A woman responded, "Klezmatics shouldn't change a note." (paraphrase).
>
>I suppose if Miles Davis, resurrected, had walked into that Workmen's
>Circle gig he wouldn't have changed a note either.   But we, the
>organizers, took a pass on Miles and invited the most popular klez band in
>the world.
>
>Certainly, as one man wrote, venues plays a role -- you'll get an older
>crowd at a senior center than a college. But interestingly, the 'Matics
>played at a prestigious in-town amphitheater that brings in groups like Don
>Byron, Bobby McFerrin, Ladysmith Black M., Chieftains, B. Fleck.
>
>Another take...the woman who wrote about the  generation gap -- a term I
>hadn't heard lately, but it's probably applicable.  Your typical
>22-year-old college grad is probably not going to feel too comfortable at a
>concert with a slew of elderly people.  (When I was  20-something, I
>attended a Workmen's Circle concert and felt like Margaret Mead exploring
>an exotic tribe. Who were these folks with their Oyfn Prip-a-something and
>their tears for Yiddishe Mama?   Why no tears for Big Mama Thorton?)
>
>Entertainers vs. innovators....... A writer mentioned Duke Ellington's
>ability to do it all. Good point.
>
>Also, a young woman said she got into klez thru the 'Matics.  She initially
>  was attracted to them, in part, because they didn't play to the audience.
>They did not sell out. (Our ex-drummer used to say, "I'm trying to sell
>out, but nobody's buying!")  That's a valid perspective.  As the Duke
>Ellington- writer pointed out, it's a masochistic one -- let's go to a
>concert and not have fun.
>
>Lastly, I didn't mean to deprecate the 'Matics in particular.  I meant to
>deprecate the  klez-as-hip-jazz model, of which the Klezmatics are
>emblematic.  (I know, you peacemakers are saying, "Get under the Big Tent
>of Klez and chill out.")
>
>But if you're the most famous, most popular, best-paid klez band in the
>world, and you play a new town, you owe it to your new audience, and the
>regional klez scene, to put on a performance with the same energy and savvy
>that you would use, for example, at a hard-driving 30-minute Klezkamp set.
>
>PS. Some nuts-and-borscht minutae....  Publicity for the concert was
>excellent, including alternative weekly.  Granted, the local daily doesn't
>have a staff writer who knows and enjoys klez, but a free-lancer does.
>
>I had thought the klez audiences on the East and West Coasts were a lot
>younger than the Midwest audiences, but thru this thread I'm hearing
>otherwise.
>
>And, yes, there was a crowd of younger people getting down at the 'Matics
>concert, but I knew nearly every one of them by name or face.  I, as an
>organizer, had been hoping for a bunch of new bodies.
>
>Finally, what triggered this: seeing the Chieftains the night after the
>Klezmatics.  If the Irish can do it, why can't we?
>
>
>Bert Stratton
>Yiddishe Cup Klezmer Band
>http://www.yiddishecup.com
>
>


_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+