Re: Meaning of "Klezmer"

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

Dear Matt,

actually, I should apologize- you wrote nothing wrong at all and judging
by the liner notes of Budowitz, not much will tell you that something
*new* is going on. It's very difficult keeping an ensemble like Budowitz
together- flying in musicians, putting them up, rehearsal time
(practically non-existent ) not to mention costs of instrument making,
upkeep, etc, etc. and not lastly, paying the musicians(!).The only way I
saw to fund the ensemble was to try to get it into the classical scene,
which sometimes has succeeded but never enough to keep the work above
water. I saw us as being able to play festivals, concert halls, clubs,
anything....naturally I saw the Cd text in a multifaceted way- on the
one hand- to present historical information in an unexpected format -
the interview (because we play a lot in Germany, where the cliches of
Judaism have run rampant, I desperately wnated to lay to rest some of
the more absurd images), but also to have the text serve as promotion,
which it was very successful at, as many journalists have quoted it,
making themselves look informed while having a ready-to-print interview
at hand (try it some time- it works) But in doing this, I couldn't
discuss the more subtle aspects of our work- what it really means to
work with extrapolations (i.e. concerning the role of the bass in the
ensemble, the seldom heard secunda violin, taxims, harmonization,
dissonance, etc) which bring us to a time PRECEDING the recording era. I
thought that our arrangements DIDN'T sound exactly like the style of the
78's precisely because we were trying to get an earlier sound which had
no physical examples to go on. If you say it sounds older and does not
sound like a replica, I would be happy (I frankly am bored by that CD).
The fact is, none of us knows what the older sound (pre-recording era)
really sounded like. That leaves us in an ambiguously daring, yet at the
same time safe position- a dichotomy which I actually love to wallow in:

Its daring because you have have to make decisions which may be
completely off the mark. It's safe because noone will ever be able to
prove it. Our new CD takes even further advantage of this position with
some new improvisational types that haven't been explored yet. Sure the
work has required an enormous amount of research. But in the end you
simply can't know whether the results have a historical precedent or
not. In terms of result, this position is the same existentially as
creating something from nothing, and this aspect of the work is
completely glossed over by people who criticize it with a simple *Oh
that's traditional and old. We've been there already.* Fact is, noone
has, so what's the difference in real terms when you label music *New*
which uses a traceable amalgam of styles, and one which is *Old* which
extrapolates an untraceable one. The role of creativity is the same.
It's only the starting point that's different. That means, in creative
terms, historical time is an illusion. That may sound like blathering,
but its a very basic standpoint, and you can't enter the realm of the
material world with your music and not be confronted with that. Every
time someone says, *Your music is old*. Well damn, and all this time I
thought it was new! Sorry if I flew off the handle in the last posts.
Didn't mean no harm. Just needed to get it off my chest, you know. Josh 

Matt Jaffey wrote:
> 
> My apologies to Joshua Horowitz for incorrectly pidgeon-holing your efforts
> as being "preservationist" or anything like what the Early Music scene has
> attempted to do. I admit that your statement "If (a modern audience) hears
> an old instrument playing an old style in a new way, all it hears is the old
> playing the old" pretty much characterizes my situation when it comes to
> what I have heard of Budowitz. I actually listened to Budowitz's "Mother
> Tongue" album a lot before I started listening to reissues of old 78's, so
> unfortunately, in my own "historical" development, I heard Budowitz as the
> "old" style and everything else as newer - my mistake. By the way, I don't
> recall any indication in the liner notes to the "Mother Tongue" album that
> you were attempting to play an old style in a new way, so perhaps I was
> misled there as well.
> 
> Could you possibly provide some general information as to what directions
> you see yourself as having taken that are neither "the old playing the old"
> nor directions that others actually took in the time/space continuum that we
> seem to think that we share?
> 
> Matt
> 

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+