RE: klez go classical

[Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl...>]

Cleaning up my box
In the past few months, I read this not on a regular basis and just found 
that I had written this note, but never got to send it off.  It's still 
late, but I will post it anyway.


>the 'change and development' in music which i've said is necessary can
>happen in any context.... *but* when it mainly happens in concert halls it 
>seems to me far more likely to lose its connections to other parts of the
>culture it's rooted in than when the experimentation is happening in a
>variety of venues (among which the concert hall should of course be 
present,
>but not dominant).

I think we have the confused the chicken and egg here.   I think that the 
concert hall has become a dominant place for certain kinds of klezmer 
music, especially the fusion kind, because their musicians _are_ 
disconnected with the other parts of the culture.  Those musicians who have 
an intimate connections to many aspects of the culture don't depend on the 
music to connect to Judaism and that is why the music is a more organic, 
living organism for them and their lives.  We should also note that they 
make much better klezmer music that way.

Henry Sapoznik wrote:

>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.
>IMnotsoHO...

Very well said and right on target.   "Promiscuous fusionizers" - I really 
like that phrase very much.   They are the ones filling up most of the 
concert halls, because where else can such artifice go today?   I can say 
that very little of it is really creative and I have been to the last 
Ashkenaz Festival where some of the best of that was presented.   (There 
was one moment [in the concert of all new compositions] where the noisy 
jazz in the all new compositions program was so annoying that I truly felt 
like throwing a Molotov Cocktail just to stop that pure noise.  I soon 
found out that many others were equally annoyed.)  There are reasons why 
opera companies know that they can present the same operas year after year, 
and theaters succeed in showing revivals and mothers keep on baking the 
same meatloaf for generations or people continue listening to the same 
classical musical repertory.   When people have refined a grammatical form 
to become a classics in that genre, they respect and cherich it.


Reyzl



----------
From:  ganzl azoi freyl [SMTP:d6l (at) hotmail(dot)com]
Sent:  Wednesday, October 13, 1999 12:27 PM
To:  World music from a Jewish slant
Subject:  re: klez go classical

i'm flattered to be described as "difficult to keep on a leash" <smile>
and 'course i don't mind being shredded and reassembled, but i would prefer 
my tangents and asides be less central to your response, josh...

my basic point (as distinctly opposed to your 'socratic summary') has 
always
been about *emphasis*, not exclusion (the first time "banning" anything 
came
up in this thread was when you put it in my mouth--please take it right 
back
out, 'kay?).  i'm in no way opposed to sitting in a concert hall listening
to klezmer (or tuvan 'throat singing' or stravinski for that matter).  what 
i see as potentially dangerous is the concert hall becoming the *only* or
*primary* site for klezmer music.
      the 'change and development' in music which i've said is necessary 
can
happen in any context.... *but* when it mainly happens in concert halls it
seems to me far more likely to lose its connections to other parts of the
culture it's rooted in than when the experimentation is happening in a
variety of venues (among which the concert hall should of course be 
present,
but not dominant).

incidentally, you imply that there's a contradiction between dancing to and 
listening to music.  if anything, i'd want to argue that the opposite is
true-- you just *can't* dance without paying serious attention to the
musicians; it's easy to sit and drift...  it's also worth mentioning that
venues with space to dance tend also to accomodate those who just want to
sit, while concert halls tend to frown upon dancing (with some
exceptions--the 'in the fiddler's house' tour being the first to occur to
me).

finally, it seems more than a bit disingenuous to describe "listening" in
the concert-hall sense as part of the traditional wedding context of
klezmer.  then again, it seems thoroughly unnecessary to appeal to that
context to establish something as worthwhile for klezmer in 1999 (yes, i do 
think that concert-hall type listening is worthwhile)
   --unless, that is, you want to insist that all klezmer contexts should
include dancing, wine, and a rabbi (which is probably closer to my position 
<wink>)--

that's it for me....
ideologically yours,
zayt gezunt,

daniel

p.s. "hidden agenda"?  what's *hidden*?

p.p.s.
for reference, snipped for concision--
josh wrote:

>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

>In spite of actually sympathizing with some of your sentiments, Dan,
>it's hard to resist uncovering a hidden agenda in your ideology. Josh

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