promiscuity and the single klezmer (was promiscuous fusionizers)

[ketzenem meykhl <d6l...>]

just a few musings.

from reyzl's original post:
>I think that the concert hall has become a dominant place for certain kinds 
>of klezmer music, especially the fusion kind

i tend to disagree.  the concert-hall blockbusters are the "fiddler's house" 
tour (which i enjoyed in both editions that i saw), which saw even the 
klezmatics in a quite 'inside' bag and brave old world sticking to the very 
trad side of their repetoire, and the set of big-name bands who operate in a 
very traditional american klezmer style (e.g. klezmer concervatory band).
     in different areas there are less traditional local heros with a 
fairsized following, but on a national level, there aren't that many 
exceptions: the klezmatics, b.o.w. and masada being i guess the biggest (if 
i'm excessively NYC-centered, please forgive and correct me).
     i do agree that the concert-hall approach can indicate a lack of 
connection to other parts of the culture --  but not in the way i think you 
mean, reyzl.  as matt jaffey points out, even in concert-hall 'listening 
music' the very idea of a 'classical repertoire', let alone the one we 
_have_ now, is a very recent invention.  seems to me that the 
concert-hall-izing of klezmer has the potential to [mark that phrase, josh 
-- it isn't "will" or "does"] separate off a so-called pure-er or more 
'genuine' klezmer from the other forms of yiddish/yiddish-derived music 
being made under the klezmer rubric and leave this 'true' version the 
isolated and artificially-respirated shell that european 'classical' music 
so often is.
      concert-hall klezmer can be a symptom not of _musicians'_ so much as 
_audiences'_ and promoters' disconnection from the *living*, *evolving* 
parts of yiddish (especially secular yiddish) culture..... parts whose 
potential and vivaciousness is shown by both the musical promiscuity of 
contemporary klezmer and the quality of so many of its results.
and i say this as an avowed and proud rootless cosmopolitan <grin>.

zayt gezunt, gut yontef...

daniel

p.s. who put ben shahn in the shtetl-olatry camp?  huh?!?!?  bite your 
tongue. the man was a promiscuous fusionizer if ever i saw one.... not to 
mention rootless and cosmopolitan....    d6l

p.p.s. this is a footnote because it's not part of the promiscuity argument, 
not because it's so brief...

again, with reyzl:
>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.

okay, just to open another can of worms while i'm at it.
i think your identification of "the culture" and "Judaism" is verrry 
problematic on a couple of levels.  by me, there are two very different 
things on the table depending on whether we're talking about "the culture" 
-- the ashkenazi/yiddish culture that existed roughly from the pale of 
settlement to alsace-lorraine, and in places populated by jews from that 
region (from the u.s. to chile to australia to shanghai) -- or "judaism" -- 
the religion practiced, historically, in an ashkenazi form among others, by 
jews.
     a too-easy equation of yiddish culture and ashkenazi judaism (i.e. 
religion) erases the cultural history in which klezmer (among other things) 
flowered -- the strongly **secular**, deeply jewish, yiddish culture of 
eastern europe and america.
     while of course it's impossible to separate judaism from yiddish 
culture, in even its most anti-religious forms, you certainly don't need a 
"connection to Judaism" to have intimate links to many aspects of the 
culture, going far beyond the musical.  f'rinstance, the ultra-assimilated 
flocks that filled the shul at the one rosh hashanah service i've even been 
to certainly didn't demonstrate any "intimate connection" to any aspect of 
the culture that i could see then or subsequently... while (i flatter myself 
that) i -- part of the third american generation of a very secular family 
(all three generations strongly jewish-identified, though of varying degrees 
of assimilation) -- am connected on a number of levels to yiddish culture 
past and present.
     one of the things i like about the klezmer/new jewish music upsurge, in 
all its promiscuity, is the hope it brings for a reinvigoration of the 
culture the music came from originally: jewish, anti-assimilationist, 
secular, and cosmpolitan (plus radical, if i get to choose).
     much of this postscript has been influenced by the articles in that 
special klezmer issue of _Judaism_ (i think it was) that's been mentioned on 
the list before...         d6l

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