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

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Dear Mark:

Your point would be better made if you refrained
from using feeble characterizations like "old hippie".

As someone who has had his appearance ridiculed
on this List, I don't like it and I strongly protest
the sort of labelling of people that is only meant to
disparage, mock and trivialize them.

What next; comments regarding noses or breast-size?

Wolf

A Proud Old Hippie

M Rubin wrote:

> 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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