Re: Buena Vista Social Club

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

> Somehow I guess I have to find a "Jewish" connection to post to this list. 
> This is reaching. IF you have a Cuban Cd, You shouldn't play it on 
> Shabbos!!!???
 
There is a larger context to the *mingle, pillage and elevate* case of
folk culture plundering into which category the Cooder/Wender model
falls, and this indeed includes Jewish culture by virtue of the fact
that it has been subject to the same procedure, as Henry points out in
the case of Tickle in the Heart and In the Fiddler's House. 

For the sake of argument, lets use the 3 basic classes used to describe
the economies of the world, the first, second and third world (this
model was proposed and developed by the musicologist, Professor Alfons
Michael Dauer): Folk culture would fall into the 3rd world of music. It
is seen by the first world as underdeveloped, primitive and weak, though
its resources have potential. They only need to be taken up by the first
world and put to use for the members of its highest class. 

Indeed this has been happening since the Renaissance when it became a
fashion for the schools of counterpoint (Okhegem, De Prez, Orlando,
Machaut, etc, etc) to utilize the French folk song melody, L'homme arme
in all the masses and madrigals and canzones wherever possible. The
quaint idea of *elevating* the primitives' music moves like a snake
through western musical history, i.e. through Bach's use of the folk
song, Kraut und Rueben in his quodlibet of the Goldberg Variations,
Beethoven's trite pseudo peasant song in the 6th Symphony, Liszt and
Brahms' *elevation* of Gypsy music, Bartok's entire corpus of works
taking themes from Hungarian and Romanian folk songs and dances, etc etc
etc. The modern world of classical music (still the first world) turns
its nose up at the recognizable use of folk material nowadays, but the
second world of music, namely the pop world, has taken on the
responsibility of making consummable the folk music of the planet. In
some cases, the old-fashioned first world (i.e Perlman, who can't be
considered avante garde by any standards; and the Kronos Quartet, which
represent the popular side of the modern classical world) still pretends
to interact with their 
*source of inspiration*, in Perlman's case, with actual influence on his
own playing.

Whereas earlier the actual physical interaction of the two cultures (did
Liszt ever play with Gypsies ?) seldom took place, our century has
brought with it the brilliant idea of placing them on a testube stage
together and watching the reaction. But the motives have remained. 

If you want a direct Jewish connection to all this, please observe what
is happening in Germany now with the klezmer epidemic, uh, I mean fad.
Whereas the musicological concept of 
*marginal survival* still exists in the musicological world (this is an
observation that cultures which have been transplanted to foreign soil
often preserve their original traditions more powerfully than they did
on the original turf) modern musicology has yet to deal with the
mechanics of *outsider propogation*, the idea that outsiders of a
tradition may dominate and develop that tradition more omnipresently
than insiders.

This is the case of the Buena Vista phenomenon, and also with Tickle in
the Heart, In the Fiddler's House and the entire 
German-Jewish music scene. Outsider Propogation, yup, that's what I call
it. Claro señor Simone?
Josh

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