Re: klezmers and fusioneers

[Velaires <Velaires...>]

I agree with your concern over the notion that seemingly anything that is 
presented with a wiff of Eastern European Jewishness can be presented as 
"klezmer".  However, categories are broad, vague, general things almost as a 
rule.

Besides, as a rule, styles with a normal stylistic evolution usually exist in 
a state of perpetual fusion.  You'll notice jazz no longer means 
(exclusively) what we hear on a Louis Armstrong record.  Things were brought 
in from "non-jazz' sources.  And you'll notice, jazz -- not Kenny G, but 
collective improvising ensemble music that swings in one way or another -- 
continues to be jazz.

As for the amount of money somebody can make by presenting himself as 
klezmer, nobody will ever get all that rich playing bulgars and doinas.  It's 
not even worth considering.  Klezmer music is the single stupidist idea you 
can have for reaching a mass audience.  Whether or not it seems so, "klezmer" 
means and equals "Jewish" to people who wouldn't know the Barry Sisters from 
the Paris Sisters.  And, until anti-semitism and negative Jewish stereotypes 
are gone and dead, anything that implies "Jews" is somehow tainted.  We're 
all Jackie Mason to the WASP mainstream.

As for the varying degrees of klezmer-ness one hears in the various musical 
projects of people who combine this specific music with other musics, I can 
only say that klezmer purity is meaningless unto itself.  What matters is 
whether the resulting music is any good or not as music that communicates 
itself.  Masada is obviously built on Jewish motives, but it's not exactly a 
klezmer band.  Zorn's msuic for that group feels Jewish to me.  And I'm 
right.  Just as if it doesn't feel Jewish to you, you're right.  And you can 
cast your vote by buying or not buying records or concert tickets.  I know 
John Zorn is aware of his own Jewishness and how he wishes to communicate it, 
and I think it is a perfectly authentic Jewish expression and a completely 
authentic John Zorn expression? But where do I file 
it in my record collection? Under "Z" for Zorn, just as I file Dave Tarras 
under "T".
  
The new Radical Jewish movement has produced as much crap as any other 
intentional movement.   So did the klezmer revival.  So, for that matter, has 
the new swing revival.  But the final determination will be made by who is 
still around in a few years after the tempest has left the teacup, and how 
they will have helped Jewish expression to evolve. 

Best--
skip heller 


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