Re: contemporary liturgical folk music

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I have no more or less insight than Ari with respect to what Jews will be 
singing 100 years from now--I don't have the slightest idea.  And such 
predictions--or, as it were, counter-predictions--are usually, I'd venture, 
foolish.

What we _can_ do is observe what Jews are singing, and davening to, in our 
(various) lifetime(s) and wonder, thoughtfully and open-mindedly, if we can 
project forward.

The melodies of Shlomo Carlebach, z"l, were--and in some circles and by some 
champions of high-art liturgical music, still are--dismissed as so much 
"(summer) camp music":  gornisht ditties, nothing more.  Astonishingly, Macy 
Nulman's otherwise fine ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JEWISH MUSIC, published in the 
mid-70s, doesn't even have an *entry* for Shlomo, whose melodies even then 
were being sung by Jews all over the world.  But it did have many entries 
for numerous composers of cantorial or "art" music settings whose music is 
virtually *never* sung, or recognized, by Jews *anywhere* in the world.  But 
Cantor Nulman, along with many of his colleagues, deemed this music worthy 
and Shlomo's unworthy.

Now, well over 40 years since Shlomo started "composing" melodies, and, 
sadly, 5/6 years after his death, his melodies are sung ever more widely, 
from one of the Jewish world to the other.  And many melodies in the "neo-" 
Hassidic style Shlomo inspired--by such composers as Shmuel Brazil, Abie 
Rotenberg, and Baruch Chait--have also become classics of Jewish liturgical 
and para-liturgical music.  So have several of the Hassidic melodies of Ben 
Zion Shenker of Moditz.

Will Debbie Friedman's melodies, and others in that more lyrically American 
style, enjoy the same shelf life?  Who knows (as Shlomo was wont to say)?  
But they're certainly being sung far more widely today than when _she_ 
started composing, a quarter-century or so ago.  And, via both the medium of 
recordings and such conclaves as CAJE conventions, Jewish retreats of 
various sorts, Hillel conventions, and even Federation annual meetings, 
they're spreading _beyond_ her own origins in the Reform movement and that 
movements' NFTY, etc., summer camps.

These are just some musings without a bottom line; somewhat more developed 
reflections on the same phenomenon will be available in the compilation CD 
I'm producing with David Shneyer--halevi it should be out this (secular) 
year!!

And my thanks, too, to Ari for his provocative thoughts and subsequent 
re-considerations and further musings.

--Robert Cohen
>From: Ari Davidow <ari (at) ivritype(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: Debbie Friedman and shtetl redux
>Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 20:33:55 -0500
>
>Again, I apologize for responding to a nit and begging time to think more 
>about the general issues you raise.
>
> >But but but, I finally come around to saying: Baruch Hashem for people
> >like Debbie Friedman.  I may not care for her take on it, but clearly
> >it is a voice that speaks to many Jews and speaks to both their heart
> >and their heads.  I don't know who her audience is, but obviously
> >she's got one.
>
>Let me be clear that while I am not a major fan of Debbie Friedman, I =do= 
>concur with you: baruch hashem that she has written prayers that speak to 
>so many people. The point I was trying to make, and perhaps I'll be able to 
>make it better here, is that folkie religious music =does= represent a 
>break with the melodies and nusakh of the past. That doesn't make it bad, 
>but I'm not convinced that makes it music that will speak to Jews 100 years 
>from now the way that I would expect more traditional melodies to be 
>around.
>
>The hard part, at least for me, is the transformation of Jewish practice, 
>given that, with all the respect that I am indicating for those wonderful 
>traditional prayers, as written, I won't say some of them, and others I 
>have grown used to editing in my head as I daven. So, if I had descendents, 
>and they were following Nusakh Ari, how likely is it that =they= would be 
>davenning Nusakh Ari or its descendetn 100 years from now--the time span I 
>used to dismiss Debbie Friedman.
>
>I don't have an answer yet. I may never have one. But, rightly or wrongly, 
>I am convinced that some paths are =not= the answer. Whether the one I have 
>chosen truly has a heart, and whether that heart can be passed on, I dunno.

>ari
>
>
>Ari Davidow
>ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
>list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/

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