Re: romancing the shtetl, another long reply

[Seth Austen <seth...>]

on 1/1/01 9:43 PM, Ari Davidow at ari (at) ivritype(dot)com wrote:

> So, every year I mean to write some sort of "state of klezmer," or at least,
> "state of the edges of Jewish culture as expressed by music, as perceived by
> me." I also want to give credit to those artists whose music made this year
> especially good. This year, unlike most years, I've written both. You can read
> about the new Romance of the "Shtetl." (I'm mostly ag'in' it) and "the best
> recordings of 2000" all on the same page.
> 
> http://www.klezmershack.com/articles/davidow/2000_1230_yearsbest.html


Ari,

Thanks for writing a very thought provoking piece, and to George, Peter,
David and a number of other folks, whose responses were equally provoking.

First, on the subject of the years' best, I have just about all those CDs
you mentioned, and one or two that I don't have yet are already on my must
have list. I think that the wonderful thing these days is the proliferation
of excellent quality klezmer music in diverse interpretations. Hat's off and
hearty a danks to all the musicians making our lives richer by recording
their interpretations of klezmer and Jewish music.

I enjoy listening to both the musicians who are recreating a 19th century
east European sound alongside people who are taking the music into new
directions with influences ranging from jazz and classical to bluegrass and
avant garde. My enjoyment of these interpretations of klezmer music is not
limited by style, it is instead informed by the musicians' expertise and
soul in performing the music. As Professor Peter Schikele says on his show,
if it sounds good, it is good. I've been listening to klezmer since I bought
Andy Statman/Zev Feldmans' Klezmer Music in the late 70s, and I remember the
hunger for finding more of this music that sometimes led to finding other
artists' releases and concerts, and ultimately to my learning to play this
music. And that hunger does not end. No matter how many wonderful recordings
I buy, and no matter how many new tunes I learn, my appetite for more
continues. And likely will.

On the subject of the romance of the shtetl, I'd like to add a few things
from my family history that deeply inform my understanding and thoughts
regarding this issue. I've been talking with my mother recently about our
family background. It's quite interesting that until a couple of years ago,
she'd never mentioned to me that her grandfather on her fathers' side was,
in fact, a cantor. She has recently spoken of the reasons behind her choice
in changing our last name to something more assimilated (Austen, was
Aisenberg on my fathers' side and Grafman on my mothers'). And she has also
spoken of her regrets in not giving her children a Jewish surname and more
of an immersion in our heritage.

When I was growing up, I was led to believe that the name change had to do
with anti-Semitism, but the more we talked it was evident that her desire to
distance herself from this old world culture that she was brought up in was
very strong. She has spoken quite openly of her difficulties growing up as
an intellectual and feminist woman in that culture. She has profound
memories of going to her grandfathers' orthodox shul, and being segregrated
upstairs with the women. After all these years, and her successes in life as
an educator and professional woman, I can hear that she is still clearly
angry about the treatment she received in this old world culture that
worshipped the male student and didn't neccesarily support the desire of a
female to learn and study. No romance of the shtetl here.

And this is not to say that this distancing started with my mother. She
tells me her parents also chose to distance themselves from this way of
life. And yet, although I was not brought up in a religious household, I was
distinctly aware of myself and my family as Jewish. I was taught that our
heritage was one of great thinkers, intellectuals and philosophers (even
musicians). I read books, tons of them. When I became interested in
attending Hebrew school, they found one and drove me back and forth. When I
decided to quit, and become an atheist at age 12, it was also my choice. For
that matter, when I showed interest in music, they drove me back and forth
from classical piano lessons. And when I decided to quit, and take up the
guitar at age 12, it was also my choice (that one didn't go over as easily).
I grew up as part of a Jewish culture, however assimilated the environment
in the town of Long Island that I grew up in, and to this day, consider
myself to be profoundly Jewish in both identity and spirituality. And this
brings me to the question of the modern romance with the shtetl.

I agree that there is not only a tendency among modern day Jews to romance
the old world shtetl, I'd like to add that I think there is a huge tendency
to romance the new world shtetl culture of New York City as well. Bagels and
lox, Woody Allen, the lower east side, etc. These, and many more things,
carry with them baggage of cultural stereotypes as well. And there is just
as much danger of us romanticizing all of these New York Jew stereotypes
along with the old world shtetl romantizations, both as part of our
performance shtick of klezmer musicians and as people in the larger world of
non-Jews. For what it's worth, I am originally from New York myself,
although I have lived most of my adult life in rural small towns (American
shtetls) of Virginia, West VA and New Hampshire.

I don't believe that the tendency to idealize the shtetl is only a problem
among Jews. I've been playing Appalachian, Celtic and delta blues music
professionally for over 25 years, and continually see the tendency towards
romanticization of the lives of the old masters of this music. Lots of
people buy into an image of these musicians that is very stereotypical. But
these people lived very hard lives. There is nothing romantic about being a
poor southern farmer. But the romantic image is perpetuated by the people
selling the product. Think about it, the hard livin-drunk-gamblin'-sold
their soul to the devil and died a terrible violent death at a young age
artists sell much better than the image of a blues musician being clean
living, religious family man or woman.

Based on these thoughts regarding the romanticization of the shtetl, I
believe our struggle is, as modern klezmer and/or Jewish musicians, to
attempt to present our music devoid of stereotype and romanticization to our
audiences. The question is, in our present day market driven culture where
image is everything, can we make a committment to do this, and still get
gigs and sell CDs? Maz'l tov to any of us who try! Because market share
shows that audiences DO buy the shtick, they want the romantic image, not
the real thing. Not that any of this will keep me from trying, of course.

Seth

------
Seth Austen
http://www.sethausten.com
email; seth (at) sethausten(dot)com

-- 
"To be nobody-but-myself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which
any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
                                                -- e.e. cummings



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