Re: new jewish music

[Leopold N Friedman <apikoyros...>]

Ari,
the argument can be made that, without a Yiddish cultural community
as it was at least fifty years ago,  any contemporary creator of Yiddish 
culture  is a cultural "outsider" necessarily different from those who 
composed within that culture when it was intact. Sensibilities learned 
on "the outside" have always had some effect on Jewish culture but they
are the norms today rather than intrusions.  Yiddish cultural and musical
expression varies today in its degree of authenticity (however defined)
and
linguistic/cultural proficiency (even for those born into it) as well as
in its 
artistic intent and technical proficiency. Some of the same can be said
about
any folk-based culture or music, especially when the cultures are
connected
to declining population bases.  

Nevertheless, the assessment of Yiddish music (or of any folk/art music),

if it's going to be done seriously, should not be left primarily to the
judgment
of those who don't speak the language, figuratively and literally. 
Certainly, 
they'll buy the CDs (or not) and rely on the translated liner notes, the
way I do
with music in languages I don't know very well, for example.
Determinations 
of intent as to nostalgia or homage or subversion can easily get lost
outside 
the language.

Chava Albertstein's Yiddish music sounds like it was sung in Yiddish to
me,
with a great deal of actual authenticity as well as concern for it. I
admit that
that music can sound (in terms of music and language) "like" German or
French
or Portuguese or Russian music at times, as well. I've listened to a lot
of folk 
music and to what has come to be known today as "world music" but I have 
never heard  "generic world folk music."  Maybe that's folk music for the
likes
of those who were called "cosmopolitans."  :-)

Lee Friedman
lnf11 (at) columbia(dot)edu

On Fri, 22 Jun 2001 16:29:35 -0400 Ari Davidow <ari (at) ivritype(dot)com> 
writes:
> The appearance of these albums is, I think, a new phenomenon. There 
> were precursors--most notably the Yiddish poets whose songs were 
> newly set to music by Chava Alberstein and performed by her with the 
> Klezmatics ("the Well"), but that album, as wonderful as it is, 
> still sounds to non-Yiddish speakers more like generic world folk 
> music than like Yiddish.
> 
> By way of contrast, think of recent Yiddish albums which are more by 
> way of nostalgia, or by making the old present for 
> reconsideration--not necessarily reinterpretation, nor necessarily 
> memorable repertoire, rather homage to songs familiar once before. 
> ari
> 
> ---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org 
> ---------------------+
>