musical cognates

[Jack Falk \(E-mail\) <jackfalk...>]

Our recent discussion of Nokh a Bisl got me thinking again
about one of my secret pleasures:  "musical cognates" from
different cultures.

In addition to the Jewish recordings that seem to consume 
half of my family's annual income, I've tended to pick up 
a lot of arcane stuff from other cultures.  Now and again
I'm startled at the similarity between two (or more) tunes
that must surely have arisen independent of one another.

For example, I produced a soundscape several years ago 
for a gallery installation here in Portland ("The Dybbuk
Project").  The artist's directive was to have the visitor
wander through artifacts that evoked prewar Jewish Eastern
Europe, and in so doing become "possessed" by the implied
memories.  At one point in the soundscape, I mixed Coltrane's
"Alabama" together with Moyshe Oysher's "Shma Koleynu."
If you have two CD players, try this.  You'll be amazed at
how the emotional textures of these performances resonate
against each other.

Another example:  for a radio show a while back, I put 
Hasidic New Wave's "V'samachta" (from "Jews and the Abstract
Truth) on CD player #1.  On player #2, I queued up "Shi Chome"
by Cicala Mvta, from "Rough Guide to the Music of Japan". 
The first tune, a hasidic rikud;  the second, an example of 
clarinet-centric Japanese street music.  Both tunes use a 
simple melody that repeats several times, each time at a more
feverish tempo.  If you mix back and forth between the two 
(as I did), it can be difficult for a listener to distinguish
between the chaos of a hasidic celebration and that of a 
Japanese street party.  At some point, the slivovits and sake
flow together.  Although the melodies are different enough, 
the spiraling energy of the two tunes is strikingly similar. 
   
You probably don't want me to DJ your kid's bar/bat mitzvah....

Yankl Falk
Portland, Oregon

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