Re: Abayudaya

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

At 01:06 AM 4/29/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Responding to the message of <988522276(dot)3aeba7248ed36 (at) 
>mymail(dot)yorku(dot)ca>
>from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
>> 
>> hi, I`ve had that Abayudaya "Shalom everybody everywhere"cd for a few years 
>> now, 
>> ever since it came out, and have often played excerpts for students. It`s 
>> definitely a curiosity but - "too wonderful for words"????
>>
>To each one's own I guess.  Having been steeped in the ideology of musical 
>impressiveness for longer than I care to admit (and I performed my African 
>Shabbat last night with a master drummer from Ghana with whom I've been 
>working 
>for almost twenty years, so I have some exposure to virtuosity from that 
>continent, thank you) and having bought into it for way too long, I think it's 
>simply lovely and imagine, having spent a weekend with a scholar who knows the 
>Abayudaya, that they're lovely, too.  I enjoyed the sentiment behind the 
>lyrics 
>I understood and got a lot of pleasure from their Luganda-inflected Hebrew and 
>their way with familiar texts.

I'm glad that this has sparked some discussion, and that we haven't reached a 
point where only one way of hearing an album is permitted. To hear two 
respected ethnomusicologists explain how they hear the same recording 
differently is a pleasure. The fact that one of you really enjoyed the 
recording, and the other did not, and that both of you were willing to explain 
how your ears heard the recording, helps provide a context for listening that 
the rest of us would not otherwise have had.

Many thanks,
ari


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

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