Re: new jewish music

[Leopold N Friedman <apikoyros...>]

Yakov, 
Thanks, I was thinking of the David Byrne article when I wrote
"what has come to be known today as 'world music.'" 

I was listening to Tuvan "throat" singers last night collaborating
with Vartinna and Bulgarian Women's choirs and others.  I don't
know how much cultural particularity was involved in the contributions
of any of the folk music performers (as opposed to abstract
"cosmopolitan"
improvisation) but the music could possibly be categorized under any or
all 
of the traditions of the performers with different degrees of accuracy.
I'd put the CDs in the world music "bin" for convenience only.
But, still, none of them were  "generic world folk music." 

Maybe you hit on a good definition for "generic music": shopping mall 
background music. To add the world and folk components, the marketing
would have to be geared to yuppies of a certain age, I suppose.

Lee

On Sat, 23 Jun 2001 22:52:29 -0400 Yakov <kchodosh (at) 
suffolk(dot)lib(dot)ny(dot)us>
writes:
> On Sat, 23 Jun 2001 00:38:37 -0400,    Lee wrote:
> 
> >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."  :-)
> 
> Well, "world music" is essentially folk music from someplace besides 
> "here". That's the standard definition, I believe. David Byrne wrote 
> a pretty uninteresting essay called "I Hate World Music" that said 
> he couldn't stand that lumping together of non-American cultures. I 
> find the term to be pretty useful, as long as everyone knows its 
> limitations.
> 
> Another proposed definition: "Generic world music" is basically 
> something with a foreign-sounding beat, heard by an uninformed 
> listener.
> 
> It's kind of like "generic jazz" piped over Muzak systems. Recently, 
> I've heard a lot of great playing on shopping mall background music. 
> Most people would call it generic, but I (with an ear for jazz) 
> would call it anything but. (Especially when they play "Pick Up the 
> Pieces"!) I believe it's a similar situation with world music 
> (especially of the afro-cuban variety).
> 
> -yakov.
> 
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