Re: What Is Jewish Music? (revisited!)

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I certainly agree w/ Gideon that questioning "the Jewishness of the 
exercise" is not especially productive--nor very predictive of what 
amcha/the culture will eventually embrace as Jewish music, 
analytical/academic considerations notwithstanding.  I would only slightly 
modify Gideon's formulation, so far as the downtown/fusion/"Radical" Jewish 
music scene is concerned:  In some or many of these cases, I think the 
musicians involved are "incorporating elements of Jewish music into their 
own ["local"] sound," rather than the reverse.  Sort of (very loosely) in 
the way that, say, Gershwin did, but in a more affirmatively Jewish way.  
Whereas much of the music that I more characteristically lecture and, 
sometimes, write about (and live with, frankly, though I enjoy some of the 
downtown scene's music and am increasingly ... taking it in)--say, the 
Fabrangen Fiddlers (as David Shneyer is on this list), Safam, and many 
others--are "incorporating elements of the [contemporary/"local"] sound into 
their Jewish music."  For that matter, so was Shlomo and other niggun 
composers in his style:  They incorporated an American folk/guitar style and 
made it part of their--and, thankfully, our--Jewish music. -- Robert Cohen


>From: GAronoff (at) aol(dot)com
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: What Is Jewish Music? (revisited!)
>Date: Sat, 25 Dec 1999 11:19:33 EST


>As for Jewish music generally, these musicians are doing something that 
>seems
>traditionally Jewish to me.  Incorporating elements of the local sound into
>their own Jewish music.  This incorporation has happened in the past to 
>such
>a degree that we now view many of these incorporations as the purest of
>Jewish expression.  The most musically sophisticated on this list can
>certainly tell what is traditional and what is the incorporated musical
>element, but for (I would bet) many on this list and certainly many in the
>audience, a doina is Jewish, period.  So why shouldn't an artist like Rick
>Recht incorporate a John Cougar Mellancamp type heartland rock sound into 
>his
>Jewish album "Tov."  Rick has a career as a rock performer totally separate
>from his Jewish material.  But he has made an album - that I don't believe
>could possibly be viewed as anything other than Jewish music - that makes
>heartland rock sound Jewish.
>
>In the end we will appreciate or not appreciate any individual act of 
>fusion,
>personal expression, or whatever.  But we gain little criticizing the
>Jewishness of the exercise.
>
>Gideon
>
>
>

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