Re: klezmers and fusioneers

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>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.

Well, once again this week I find myself largely in agreement with you,
Wolf, especially about the diversity of meanings now attributed to the word
"klezmer." I had some very nice, long talks with Michael Alpert at KlezKanada 
about his awareness of how the term came to be used to refer to Jewish simkha 
music. I'm also doing a paper for school in which I parallel the term as 
pejorative one hundred years ago, and perhaps reinforced in this country by the 
desire to become "American" with all due speed, on to the revival of the 
traditional dance music we now refer to, as did Beregovski, Jewish Klezmer 
Music, on to the use of the term as a stand in for anything vaguely Jewish. In 
the paper I am theorizing that for some people use of the term is ignorance, 
and for others it provides a way to imply "Jewish" without saying "Jewish." In 
neither case have I encountered musicians who have used the term to any great 
ignorance--the people who play the music, even when they don't know it deeply, 
or play it poorly or shallowly, mostly seem to know what they are trying to 
play. It is the people around them who seem to have more problems with
 the term.

As a stand-in for the word "Jewish" I have theorized that it descends from the 
pleasure many of us took in klezmer music, not only for itself, but because it 
provided a bridge to Jewish culture that avoided Zionism and religion. Today, I 
am unsure whether the term is misused (when misused) in ignorance, or as an 
expression of ambivalence (to choose a polite term) with one's Jewish identity. 
We may yet find ourselves talking about various forms of Jewish music, 
including "simkha" music or somesuch, and abandoning the term, as Wolf 
suggests, to mean everything, or nothing in particular as it is so often used 
today.

But having said all of that, while the =term= klezmer may be hip, I don't know 
that any klezmer musicians are notably well-off. And Simon tells me that Ladino 
music is outselling klezmer significantly in his store.

Maybe the unifying, Mod/Rocker fusion would be for Wolf to put out an album of 
Sephardic rock.

ari


Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/

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