Re: Klezmer! - Fact or Fiction? & an on-topic Q

[M Rubin <mdrubin...>]

Please, please... I guess it's hopeless to ask, but could we keep the list
to discussing music and not who credited what when.

I mean, It goes without saying that that the old hippies leftover from the
klezmer "revival" have turned into a babbling pack of backstabbing
doofuses, each bent on revising history to fit thier personal adgendas, or
"mantras" if you will, Henry and Josh included. (How Jewish is a mantra
anyway?)  Not everybody gets published outside a chat line though.

Chew on this tidbit: It's as important to the discussion as cups on a
corpse. (I can't listen to Partisans ever again without the image of a sad
old hippie fuming over some book so bad he had to go share it with the
pitifull few subscribers to this here list. Dude, it's sad.)

Let me state for the record: In my young career in folk and vernacular
musical scenes, y'all round here take the cake for this sort of divisive
and bitter spirited discourse. It turns the stomach, really.

Having the unique experience of being both a camper,  performer and a
staffer at a few of these battling Klez events, I can tell you that never
is heard an encouraging word. Sure, there's trash talk backstage at the
Bohemian battle dances in Praha TX, and sideways glances as the bands take
the stage at the Conjunto Fest every year. But nothing like I've seen go
down here, good people. It's like getting into a knife fight over a
quarter, what's the point? Bill Monroe would never be caught in a public
forum slagging anybody, much less folks who really deserved it. He
recognized that there is little gained in dragging anybody down to shine a
little
on them. Like crabs in a bucket, you don't have to put a lid on 'em, they
always pull each other back in.

If this is the klezmer scene, maybe it shouldnt have been revived in the place.

On topic:

Hey, anybody out there know when the tuba first appeared in Jewish music?

I figgered it was concidered a "loud" instrument, therfore forbidden until
the 1800's or so. The instrument really hasn't been standardized until very
recently, so I guess bass horn is a better description. I have a 78 of a
USSR ensemble doing a doina w/ a freilach at the end and to my each I hear
2 tubas in fact, probably BBb, but that's from the 1930's.

The tuba is/was a mighty expensive instrument as well, though I take issue
with Dr.Klez's riff that rotary valve instruments were more expensive then,
my information says the opposite in fact. I've seen a lot of photos of
village bands with trombonik looking horns which I understand are of the
Cimbasso family (valved bass trombones in F and Bb.)

So the querry is, any evidence as to when they showed up as an acceptable
bass instrument among Jewish players?

Thanks!

___________________________________________________________
Mark Rubin

POB 49227, Austin TX 78765
http://www.markrubin.com


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