Re: Old World vs. New World klez

[Matt Jaffey <mjaffey2...>]

I have a bunch of questions for Joshua here.

Bert Stratton wrote:
>> 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.

Last summer at KlezKanada, Zev gave a similar lecture. What he said in that
lecture agreed substantially with what Joshua said in his response to this.
Ari took notes that he has posted on his website:

http://klezmershack.com/articles/klezkanada99/17.feldman.html

Ari's notes are not nearly as thorough as the lecture was, nor as Joshua's
answer was. Joshua, you must have a lot of free time on your hands to be so
generous in your replies!

In that lecture, Zev indicated, as Joshua did, that the main difference in
REPERTOIRE was the non-survival of the introspective virtuosic forms in
America. He never mentioned that there might be a discontinuity in the dance
repertoire. I also can't imagine that he hasn't thought to do the same kind
of objective comparison that Joshua proposed, which apparently shows a large
overlap.

Joshua - what record do we have of what the introspective virtuosic forms
(what you called the listening and improvisational genres) consisted? Would
you include doinas, taxim, tish nign, drobiden? What else? How much of that
repertoire has survived in some form or other (78's, transcriptions by
Beregovski etc.)

What is your understanding of the *context* in which the listening and
improvisational genres were played? At weddings? Which aspects of the
wedding were most suitable for these? Does this relate to the practice of
going from table to table at a wedding, playing for the guests? How refined
or extended a practice could that really have been if this was the way
musicians got paid and they had to move from table to table quickly in order
to make money (I got this idea from an interview with German Goldenshtyn:
http://klezmershack.com/articles/klezkanada99/19.alpert.html, and it goes
counter to your idea that the music got short to fit onto 3 minute sides of
78's).

Were there other contexts for listening music outside of weddings? It seems
that Zev is trying to make a case that the very best klezmorim played highly
refined "concerts" for the wealthy (jewish and non-jewish); that this music
was rarely heard - it was somehow "elite" and "esoteric" (his words); and
that this is the kind of music he is trying to reconstruct in his group
Khevrisa (which is supposed to have an album out with Smithsonian Folkways
this year).

I understand that the one recorded piece that Zev played for Mr. Hescheles
that he was most taken by for authenticity, both as an item of repertoire
and in the quality of performance was H. Steiner's Haneros Halelu. He
criticized most of the other early european violin recordings, saying, for
instance, that Abe Schwartz was a "barber" i.e. not good enough to make a
steady living as a klezmer, or that Jacob Gegna was too polished - more of a
conservatory trained musician than a klezmer (in fact, Gegna later joined
the L.A. Philharmonic). If we take Mr. Hescheles at his word, that leaves
precious little to go on to know what the highest quality klezmer music of
that time actually sounded like.

What gets me, is, what musical genre is Haneros Halelu? It doesn't sound
much like anything else that I've learned to call klezmer music. And under
what context would a piece like that be played?

Getting back to Old vs New World, Zev also put a lot of attention on
differences in STYLE and INSTRUMENTATION. His points were very similar to
these from Joshua:

>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.

But the words "micro-level" really don't convey what Zev conveyed by playing
recorded examples from both worlds - the overall feeling is quite different.
They are different aesthetically, and I think would attract a different
audience if both were freely available to the same population.

Another point that Zev made was about the attitudes of the musicians
themselves, and I wonder if there is any good evidence for this: Ari's
paraphrase of Zev: "...the professional musicians in Poland and elsewhere
defined themselves through virtuouso renditions of artistic music. In
America, the klezmorim defined themselves through the virtuosity of their
dance (music)."

Here's another comment by Zev made at a workshop in KlezKanada led by Kurt
Bjorling. Something like: "There is a strong possibility that a large part
of the european klezmer repertoire was composed by two virtuoso musicians -
the violinist Peducer and the tsimblist Giusikow". That sounds pretty
controversial. Does it make any sense?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<<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...>>

You described a very interesting experience. But, I have the impression that
east european jews lived in a very insular culture, so the question is, how
often did individual contacts with the surrounding cultures occur? Who had
those contacts? was it the musicians or the dancers? And once a new melody
or dance was introduced, how long did it take to propagate within jewish
culture?

I took the virus analogy with a grain of salt as you suggested. But I wonder
why you bothered to take it so far. Here's an important difference: the
virus does something more like a hostile takeover. The host cell doesn't
rejoice at the release - it dies. Presumably no one is forcing others to
accept their music or dance - it is done voluntarily because the new stuff
has perceived value.

Matt


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