Re: new jewish music

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

>I think of New Jewish Music (a term that was perhaps coined by Alan Bern?) as 
>music that uses a "Jewish" cultural or musical base as a point of departure.  
>This sort of thing has really been going on for a long time - the American 
>incarnation goes at least as far back as the 1920s with "Lena From 
>Palesteena" as far as I'm concerned.  As a teacher of Multicultural Music and 
>Contemporary Improvisation since 1978, it was always the mainstay of my 
>ensembles and classes at New England Conservatory, where a fair number of the 
>current movers and shakers got their start (but was never the purpose of the 
>KCB, which has always been a klezmer and Yiddish repertory ensemble).  Frank 
>London writes eloquently on this point in Judaism185/vol 47/#1).  The pretext 
>for everything in our "Third Stream" (now "Contemporary Improvisation") 
>classes and ensembles was that music was music and any culture can be a point 
>of departure, whatever your level of immersion in it.
>Approval or rejection is, as always, at the discretion of the audience.   

And, arguably, klezmer music, itself, it very much an ongoing amalgation of 
"new" Jewish music. 

For better or worse, I was hoping to bring discussion around to music that is 
new and Jewish at this time, and used two extraordinary recent releases, as 
well as music on the Tzadik label, as examples. Perhaps someone better at 
expressing this can carry on!

ari

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