Re: Buena Vista Social Club

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Hi Gerben,

What you observe about the Dutch audience's reaction to klezmer music I
can confirm, though my group has had vastly varied audiences there. I
have to say that, whereas in other countries you find a wide range of
different types of venues (i.e. looser clubs to concert halls) in the
Netherlands there only seems to be antiseptic concert halls to play
klezmer music in. The venue itself does bring with it a general
expectation, though I've heard that Taraf de Haidouks, for instance,
gets away with anything. What it comes down to in my experience is a
simple thing: If the Dutch don't get what they expect, they are
disappointed, and the concert setting houses a certain implied
aesthetic, though there is hope that this is changing.  

There is another aspect of this expectation though, if I'm allowed to
speak about it candidly, and I may get lynched on this one...There is a
general feeling I get in the Netherlands that Jewish culture is first
and foremost high culture- the cliche of Turn of the Century Jewish
artistic modernism, Jewish Nobel Prize laureates and the figure of the
precociousness of Anne Frank floats over our touring van in a huge
subconscious mono-cultural blimp every time I set foot there, and it's
not exactly easy to explain that klezmer music didn't have it's origins
in the ephemeral pastels of a Chagall painting. 

So if you're playing in a fancy shmancy concert hall, and you rip into a
sloppy kolomeyke with beat one running into very crack in the stage
floor before finding its final destination, you might find the audience
with furled brow. Yet what neither the Dutch nor any other audience
we've played for knows, is that we actually play different styles of
music in one concert. A south Polish Nign using a Gorale style of
accompaniment is quite different than a Vallachian Sirba is quite
different than a Russian Korohod, etc etc. Whereby when we play each of
these, they will have clear aspects of Jewish style, they are actually
regionally and stylistically miles apart from each other. Some of the
genres are rough and ready, while others are filigree, and it's funny
that the same repertoire can receive a standing ovation in Utrecht, and
yawns in Groningen.

It's sad for me to hear that the Vinnitsa band wasn't appreciated in
poor overeducated Groningen. True, they are not a *concert* band in the
sense of innovation or subtlety, but they play a style of klezmer music
which is very close to what it sounded like played by your average
kapelye in pre-war west Ukraine, with no frills. Like it or trash it,
you're right, its as close to the real Mccoy as you can find and I have
yet to hear a revivalist klezmer wind band get as close to the pre-war
military band sound as they have. I've never heard them liv, though.
Izaly Zemtsovski, who discovered them and yanked them into the studio in
St. Petersburg, played me all the recordings back in 1993 when he stayed
at my house in Austria. Joy of joys, I thought, non-Jews playing Jewish
music without the bait and hook of a profitable trend. Studio recordings
never give you the atmosphere of live playing, so I imagine they are
pretty raucous live.

You're right in assuming that the classical world covets and propogates
a latent aesthetic, in spite of the trend to include mixed programming.
The parameters of subtlety used in folk music are simply not taught in
schools, so there is no differentiated listening possible by an audience
weened on the 4 B's, unless they've taken the time to get into them on
their own. I personally don't expect this in an audience, though it
would be nice. 

But it should be remembered that western classical music makes up only
4% of the worlds' consumed recorded music in hardly more than 25
countries, as compared to the rest of the market serviced by the majors
which includes between 60-80 countries altogether and buys mostly pop
music and world/folk music, local and otherwise. In the countries in
which classical music makes up 4% of the market, you should look at the
relationship to public funding and compare this to the other *worlds of
music* Then let's talk about democracy and its role in the arts...

If you don't get depressed, I won't either. Josh

Gerben wrote:
> >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.
> 
> I get the feeling that klezmer audiences are more and more judging a
> performance on (first world) standards of classical music, i.e. artistic
> level of playing and sophistication. This is purely based on what I've seen
> in my town (that beautiful city called Groningen in the north of the
> Netherlands). The average klezmer audience here seems to judge a concert on
> the level of virtuoso playing displayed, a group like Brave Old World is
> very popular. The thing is also that groups like BOW have created a certain
> expectation about what "klezmer" is in terms of approach and artistic level
> (and the mere fact "klezmer" is being staged in classical concert halls and
> theatres alone creates this expectation of course).
> 
> I remember a Budowitz concert here which made this quite clear to me (but
> maybe Josh can comment on that also): I felt the audience had expected a
> more sophisticated sort of playing like BOW and had trouble with the more
> raw and folky Budowitz approach. The whole case was illustrated very
> clearly in a double concert with the duo Kurt Bjorling/ Kalman Balogh and
> the Ukrainian Brass Band from Vinnitsa (Doyres track 15): quite a contrast
> indeed. The audience admired Krut & Kalman but could hardly prevent an
> outburst of laughter when the Ukrainians played. They were staged as some
> sort of musicological interesting act, a non-jewish band still playing
> jewish melodies, and are a simple village orchestra (not meant derogatory)
> indeed; clearly this was not what the audience wanted. Although it was
> clear this band belongs in a more natural setting, a party or wedding or
> whatever, nevertheless the way the public reacted to them showed the lack
> of understanding where the music originally comes from> its FOLK music by
> origin. The dedain for the Vinnitsa band was annoying somehow..
> 
> So much for my few uncrystallized cents..
> Gerben

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