Re: promiscuous fusionizers

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

> don't call it klezmer music.  Keep yourself to places like The Knitting
> Factory and to that kind of specialized audiences.

Even when you don't call it  =klezmer=, and especially stress that some
particular music  is definitely, decidedly and adamantly not =klezmer=,
newspaper editors and arts programmers -- who one would expect to know better
-- will.  ????

The word  =klezmer= is now about as meaningful as "hootnanny" once was.
In other words (except for the audience participation) one could expect to
hear almost anything  if one went to a contemporary =klezmer= show, without
first having heard the music being presented.

The word =klezmer= does have a mysterious power, though.
It can pull money out of pockets and purses...

And now I see a call for segregation that leaves me just a little stunned.
I foresee a future of "Mods and Rockers" (Klezmers and Fusioneers)
with identifiable clothing styles and specialized clubs catering to each
faction.  Perhaps it will lead to pitched battles in the streets like the ones
that occurred in England in the 'Sixties. Maybe there is something to be
learned from this history.


Wolf



>
>
> Reyzl
>
> ----------
> From:  TROMBAEDU (at) aol(dot)com [SMTP:TROMBAEDU (at) aol(dot)com]
> Sent:  Wednesday, December 08, 1999 4:28 PM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant
> Subject:  Re: promiscuous fusionizers
>
> In a message dated 12/8/99 3:58:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> media (at) kamea(dot)com
> writes:
>
> << For Jewish and Yiddish musical culture to matter and flourish, the
> traditional
>  must be balanced out by the contemporary.  The musical creations of people
>  living today --whose art is an expression of their actual life, not some
> Ben
>  Shahn <shtetl- cum -Lower East -Side> fantasy world of benign, wise
>  rabbis
> and
>  kindly, old <bubbes> -- should be given more opportunity to be heard. >>
>
> This is also true, but my point didn't need to even extend this far to a
> conceptual framework such as Wolf is expressing. It's very simple-Musicians
> create what they know-sometimes starting from a preexisting tradition or
> material, sometimes only vaguely connected to music that's gone before. Our
> job is not to condemn it just because it doesn't match our preconceived
> notions. Musicologists are free to argue over genre cross pollination, but
> that has nothing to do with the living music involved.
>
> Jordan
>



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