Re: klez go classical

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Dear Daniel,

Your mail is chock full of contradictions, which makes it fun to deal
with but difficult to keep on a leash. As devil's advocate, do you mind
if I rip it to shreds and then put it back together again ?

In your response you mention 3 possible venues for the performance of
klezmer music:

1) The concert hall
2) The JCC Function room
3) The Dance club

In your own words, these 3 outlets offer varying degrees of 
1) relevance
2) evolution  
3) disaster 

Your definition of relevance and evolution are based upon 2 a priori
assumptions, with disaster as the implied result if they do not occur in
music:

1) That music is relevant when it can be danced to (you mentioned
several times your preference for breakdancing)
2) That it allows "change and development in a variety of directions at
once"

That "variety of directions" excludes the classical venue, seemingly
because it doesn't allow for you to breakdance and also because it
encourages the act of listening (in your former email, you refer to this
as the "sit-in-yer-seat experience"). 

In spite of the fact that listening was a part of the original context
(the wedding) in which klezmer music developed, and represents a further
possibility for "change and development," it is banned from your list of
outlets which allow klezmer music to evolve.

Rather than antithesize the contradictions in your argument, I would
rather manipulate them into a synthesized Socratic summary, using your
own vocabulary:

*Klezmer music in the concert hall does not allow klezmer music to
remain relevant for people who want to dance to it. It cannot be said to
evolve in this environment and is disastrous to its development.
Development in klezmer music can be said to take place when it can
accommodate breakdancing, which is what I like to do to it. The
evolution of this music is possible when it " keeps a good solid eye on
where the music has been, while still remaining part of a *living
culture* which allows change and development in a variety of directions
at once". This "variety of directions" can best be defined by what I
like to do to the music (breakdancing) but excludes what I don't like to
do (sit-in-a-seat-and-listen).*

In spite of actually sympathizing with some of your sentiments, Dan,
it's hard to resist uncovering a hidden agenda in your ideology. Josh
 
ganzl azoi freyl wrote:
> 
> sorry to prolong/revive this thread (sorta sorry anyway),
> but i've been away from the machine and busy at work (where the email is)
> for the last three days and wanted to respond to a few things.
> 
> i think the point i was trying to make about klez in the concert hall went
> completely by the boards in the discussion which followed--
> 
> ari writes that brave old world's project is "building on tradition and
> creating something, appropriate to a formal concert hall, that is new", and
> again, to "create music that is appropriate to the formal classical setting
> in the light of what they feel compelled to create as musicians".
> 
> joshua responds that this raises the question of who (and with what economic
> interests) decides 'what is appropriate to the concert hall'.
> 
> while joshua's point is well taken, the question that i was trying to raise
> was about the value (and effects) of making a klezmer that is "appropriate
> to the concert hall/formal classical setting" in the first place.
>      to mildly overstate it:
> ***why do we want to be in the concert hall, anyway?***
> 
> when i talk about classicalization i'm not talking about musical elements so
> much as about the context in which the music is presented, the venues it
> sees as its goal-- the concert hall, the JCC function room, or the dance
> club, to name three.  by me, taking the first two of these (and especially
> the concert hall) as the goals of where klezmer should live is in the
> medium/long-term a recipe for musical disaster and irrelevence, while the
> third holds more promise for the survival of klezmer as a living, evolving
> genre.
>     i'm not dismissing brave old world or any other groups's music or
> choices of venue (as everyone seems to agree, variety is good)(and i love
> "beyond the pale", and find michael alpert's rhyming flow on "blood oranges"
> very inspiring in my own attempts to put some breakdancing on the klezmer
> dancefloor), just pointing out what i see as a big-picture problem in the
> state of the 'revival'...
> 
> i think i actually agree to some extent with henry sapoznik's assessment,
> though with a different emphasis...
>      he writes:
> "I think klezmer suffers from both high artification and from the
> promiscuous fusionizers who meld it with music forms they understand far
> better than they do klezmer."
>      i can't really argue, henry, if by "klezmer" you mean klezmer as played
> by brandwein, tarras, and the other pre-khurbn luminaries.  but 'promisuous
> fusionizers' are what makes genres evolve, and the ones that don't evolve
> die out quicker.  if "klezmer" can include the music made by kletka red,
> cayuga klezmer revival, and the klezmatics more 'out' moments, rather than
> excluding them from the chosen fold, i can't agree that it's suffering from
> their experimentation.
>     the fine and problematic thing (IMperhapsHO)is to make sure that
> evolution keeps a good solid eye on where the music has been, while still
> remaining part of a *living culture* which allows change and development in
> a variety of directions at once.
> 
> a last word, i hope.
> sholem in gerangl,
> 
> daniel
> 
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