Re: Old World vs. New World klez

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

> I recently heard a Zev Feldman lecture in Cleveland, where Zev made the point 
> that  prototypical American klezmer -- what eventually became "the  bulgars" 
> of the 1950s -- was developed entirely from American cloth -- ie. by Tarras 
> and Brandwein in their NYC period. I asked Zev afterward if Brandwein in his 
> 1920s recording wasn't, in fact, playing some stuff that was European.  And 
> Zev said that the recorded tunes were American klezmer.  Zev said he knew the 
> tunes were American because he had played them for a certain elderly NYC 
> Eastern European-immigrant klezmer  -- still living, don't recollect his name 
> -- who said the tunes were not known in his European community.

Dear Bert,

Zev is referring I think to the isolated case of the *Bullgar and not
the whole of the klez repertoire. Without knowing the exact quote of Zev
in respect to how closely American Klezmer and European Klezmer are
related, I can offer a couple of comments. Merlin Shepherd, Zev and I 
also spent several days with the informant you mention, whose name is
Jeremiah Hescheles. Mr. Hescheles led the Galitsian Gliner Kapelye
(Gliniany Poland) before the war. The same kapelye was earlier led by
Pesakhye Wolf, and the legendary Beyresh Katz also played violin in the
group before forming the New York Boibriker Kapele, which recorded in
the late 20's. 

One of the interesting comments Mr. Hescheles makes is that what appears
on the 78 discs is vastly different stylistically and in terms of
repertoire than what he knew. This isn't actually surprising, but you
have to get into detail to find out what he means. Knock it down to a
coupla parameters and the game is a lot easier:

1) STYLE

2) INSTRUMENTATION AND FUNCTION OF INSTRUMENTS

3) REPERTOIRE

4) ACCULTURATIVE PROPERTIES

STYLE:
One of the points he brings up is the fact that the style of the Gliner
Kapelye was much more sophisticated than the NY shellacks (78 rpm
discs). Take it with a grain of salt if you like, but there could be a
lot of truth in that, given that the Brandwein strains have extremely
whittled down arrangements, because the bands are usually not much more
than a platform for Brandwein's solos and are trimmed to fit the
3-minute 78 rpm girdle.

INSTRUMENTATION AND FUNCTION OF INSTRUMENTS:
Mr. Hescheles' kapelye was string-oriented (there was even a tsimbl
player in it, named Moishke Mechel) As soon as Mr. Hescheles hears
something like a piano in a recording, it's already perceived as
modernized and commercial, and many of the Brandwein recordings have
piano in them. The violin is no longer primas and the accompaniment
function are played by trombones rather than secunda fiddles like they
were in the Gliner kapelye.

REPERTOIRE
True the Bulgars Brandwein plays were developed out of the Bessarabian
Bulgareasca mold, (which, according to the percentage of printed tunes
found, say in Beregovski, represent a fraction of the standard
repertoire) but transformed and modernized on American soil. Also to be
taken into consideration is the fact that there could have been regional
differences between the areas of Galitsia where Brandwein, Tarras and
Hescheles came from. True, there seemed to have been a common pool of
tunes shared among all the regions of Jewish settlement, but this
doesn't mean that tunes which were picked up from the Berdichever Rebbe
would necessarily be known by everyone. Likewise, the Piotrkower Rebbe
may have sung tunes which only reached 200 km. One simple way of
determining the overlap of Europe and the New World repertoire is to
simply sit down with the following books and tapes:

Kostakowsky International Hebrew Wedding Music 1916
Beregovski's Instrumental Music
The Kammen folios
The Belf recordings
The early European violin recordings
The Ukrainian SSR Orchestra led by Rabinovitsch

Indeed, when you compare these sources with the NY 78 repertoire there
is a percievable overlap of repertoire. What IS missing however, is the
rich heritage of listening and improvisational genres of the old world -
the greatest loss in my opinion, and also I think a key to understanding
what Mr. Hescheles means when he says that the American klezmer was
nothing like what it was in Europe. I take him at his word here, and
have asked him repeatedly what he means when he says that. 

Regarding the Bulgar, don't forget that many Bulgareasca melodies were
simply Romanian Sirbas, which were indeed popular, even in southern
Poland. This should shed some light on the Bulgar problem, because, if
we over-stereotype the Bulgar as an American form, we exclude its entire
sphere, which should include the Sirba. In short, if you call a Bulgar a
sirba, the whole game changes. Much like the sher dance, which can use
freylakhs melodies, the Sirba can be used for the Bulgareasca dance, in
which case it can be called a Bulgar (also Bulgarish). True, Sirba's
also make up a fraction of the manuscript titles available, but that's
partly because Jews loved to call Sirbas *Freylakhs* when playing them
for Freylakh dances. Many of the freygish strains you hear in dance
tunes are still played today as Vallachian sirbas. 

> I'm aware the Euro tsimbl/violin/flute sensibility didn't go over big in the 
> US, particularly in the recording studios.  

In fact, these instruments had already begun their decline in Europe
before  1928. The *klezmer* flute probably had its heyday in Europe
pretty much in the 1830's. Whether there was a fashion that swept
throught the klezmer scene at that time which imitated cane flutes is
uncertain, but its possible. They disappeared along with the tsimbl
pretty much.  

The tsimbl, as has been discussed (but not thoroughly enough for me) was
pretty much dead in Klez music by about1915, also in Europe. I agree
with Zev's summary for the most part about this, but want to make a few
comments:

We had been talking about 2 organological categories without
specifically naming them. They were: 

1) The basic structure of the instrument (its form)
2) The tuning systems used for them (chromatic or Modal or Diatonic)

Zev is convinced that Ashkenazic klezmorim introduced the cimbal to
Moldavia and is Wallachian, conclusions which are based, I assume, on
the sparse comments of Romanian *musicologists.*
If I understand Zev correctly, his entire summary is based upon the
Jewish (i.e. chromatic) TUNING, and not the form as such.
I am skeptical about making broad conclusions however. Musicology of the
19th century was by no means what it has become. Conclusions were often
made on hearsay, archival resources were scarce and chaotic, and
scientific method in ethnomusicology was unheard of (neither the term
nor the discipline even existed then) Filimon's earliest source of the
Jewish tsimbl is from 1744, yet we hear from the Belgian musicologist
Fétis in 1869 that *the tympanon (tsimbl,) ....is... an instrument with
metallic strings, beaten with light sticks and which is in usage among
the Jews of POLAND AND RUSSIA* If we based the arrival of the tsimbl in
Moldavia on the quantity of iconography showing Jews playing the
instrument, we would be forced to say that it came from the north and
travelled south, because the bulk of our available resources come from
what is now east Europe (Czech Republic, Poland, northwest Ukraine,
Belorussia. 

ACCULTURATIVE PROPERTIES (another long Tome, folks - if you try to have
fun with the digression, I'll try to bring it back full circle):

Acculturation is basically the mechanics of mutual change which takes
place when 2 or more cultures meet. How long does it take for
acculturation to take place? I would say that it's instantaneous. To
illustrate just how how instantaneous I want to tell you about a really
instructive experience I had: 
Budowitz was invited to partake in the Rudolstadt festival several years
ago. It takes place in former east Germany and is I think the 2nd
largest folk festival in Europe with 70,000 people (next to the
Edinburgh festival), kinda like the Woodstock of Europe. At the end of
the festival there was a huge party for the musicians, and I was
undulging in mild substance abuse with some friends when there in the
middle of the floor a Sardinanian man began to spontaneously sing some
of those incredible chronical songs with 3 other men (their translator
was a young woman, and I got the impression later talking to her that
traveling was new to them). 

After awhile they were interrupted by a large Norwegian band which began
playing on the stage with amplification, and before long a whole group
of Norwegian women and men entered the dance floor and began a
collectively known circle dance. While this was happening I noticed that
the Sardinian men and their translator got the urge to dance and
immediately started dancing a Sardinian dance together among themselves
outside of the circle. 

If you watched both the Norwegians and the Sardinians it was quite a
spectacle, because you could see that the music had little influence on
the steps of the Sardinians - their movements did not in any way match
what was happening in the music. I turned to my friend and told him to
watch closely because we were witnessing a rare process of cultural
exchange... 

Indeed after awhile the Sardinians got pulled into the circle or pulled
themselves in, whatever the case may be, but continued to dance their
own steps while in the midst of a completely different dance. They
weren't even aware that the Norwegians had their own steps, because they
were completely immersed in what they were doing themselves. Well lo and
behold, after awhile, both the Norwegians and the Sardinians began to
take notice of each other and what do you think happened? They start to
gradually copy each other, disrupting the dance in the process but
enjoying the resulting chaos, which each group deals with by going back
to their secure steps again before trying the strange footings of the
other. Before I go on I want to take yet another detour to explain my
purpose- try to follow the line of reasoning, please.... 
 
One of the lectures I gave at the University of Vienna was provocatively
titled *Klezmer, a wandering virus*.  I was aware that the connection of
bacteria and viruses to Jews was used by the Nazis, yet in spite of - or
perhaps also because of - this, wanted to use the model of viral
infection to explain how musical and cultural change works. Without
going into great length, let me explain the mechanics before I tie it
up. Not only are viruses a good analogy to explain cultural change, but
may perhaps even operate by means of a simliar structural force which is
actually manifested in both phenomenae:

Viral infection occurs in 5 stages:

1) Adsorption - The virus binds to the host cell

2) Penetration- The virus enters into the host cell

3) Gene Expression and Replication - Translation of the viral capsid
(nucleic acids which enable the virus to travel) into proteins.
Transcription of the nucleic acid and replication of the viral nucleic
acid.

4) Assembly - Viral components are assembled in either the cytoplasm or
nucleus of the cell.

5) Release - The virions escape the host cell to infect other hosts.
 
Virtually the SAME process occurs in musical-cultural change, so lets
make the analogy with the anecdote I told above invloving the Sardinians
and Norwegians:

1) Adsorption: The Sardinian dancers come into contact with the
Norwegian dancers on the outer perimeter of the circle dance without
integrating, dancing their own dance

2) Penetration - They join the Norwegians in the circle but continue to
dance their own dance, only aware of what they are doing and not what is
going on around them.

3) Gene Expression and Replication - Their movements begin to adapt to
the Norwegians in order to maintain coherence and order in the circle
without disrupting it. They begin to become aware of what is happening
around them, copying the Norwegians' movements

4) Assembly - Following the Sardinians' copying some of the Norwegian
steps, the Norwegians also begin to copy the Sardinians 

5) Release - Other people join in the fun, dancing the spontaneously
newly concocted dance.

Now if this *infection* happens long enough, new elements from both
cultures will begin to be integrated into their dances respectively. The
organism (each respective culture on their own ground in the above case)
will experience the same reaction as did the organism which is infected
by a foreign virus: it will refuse the foreign body at first. This role
of refusal will be played by those in the culture who reject the new
ideas. Eventual acceptance will depend upon the majority or power of
those whose job it is to accept the foreign body which in the end will
determine whether the new element is malignant or benign, i.e. whether
it spreads or remains stagnant.  But there is always a process of
equilibrium balancing the forces of acceptance and rejection so both are
necessary in the system. 

This process above happened all within the time frame of about 15
minutes. This is a very basic illustration of the process, but as you
look more closely into the micro-level of say,  musical change (i.e.
changes of modality, cadence types, inflection etc) you will see that
the process actually becomes MORE analogous to the viral process and not
less so. 

In Brandwein's case, and perhaps what Mr. Hescheles still hears, is a
micro-level change in parameters of performance brought about by
acculturative processes, i.e. differences in approach, straightness of
rhythm, lack of ensemble interaction, simplification of arrangments,
etc. all contributing to the statement that the old and new world are
very different. 

Take the pseudo intellectual above digression with a grain of sodium
chloride....Josh Horowitz

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