Re: Joy of Klez--unsolicited praise

[Allen Davis <adavis...>]

We've been doing instrumental ensembles at our shul (the Jewish Community 
of Amherst -- JCA) for seven years. All of these bands have been 
multi-level: professional-calibre players playing alongside amateurs and 
children, often children whose parents played in the band. We began with a 
string kapelye, and relied at first on the first "Klezmerantics" collection 
(Seymour Milstein). That worked very well for string players at most levels 
-- when a viola couldn't handle the viola part, for example, I wrote out 
the bass bass part for them in their clef , etc. It was great fun, and the 
community loved it (we played at our Jewish Music Festivals, holiday 
parties (Purim and Chanukah), and even took it on the road to nursing homes 
and other venues), but it was limited to sting players of course, and had a 
kind of mechanical feeling, at least the way we did it at that time. There 
was little opportunity for players to learn the roles within a klezmer 
ensemble in order to learn to create their own parts -- it was enough to 
start and stop together, and generate some excitement through dynamics and 
tempi. We began to move toward something more interesting when we turned to 
the Yale Klezmer Band collection, and did the arrangements as string 
arrangements.  Because these arrangements were written for traditional 
klezmer voices, we were able to talk a bit about the roles people were 
playing within the band -- we had cellos do the trombone/rhythm part, etc.

Starting last year, we expanded the nature of the band -- thanks to the 
Yale collection and the wonderful Maxwell Street "Joy...". Although the 
arrangements accommodated most players, I still had to write out parts for 
some of the younger players, and create Eb parts for the alto (not every 
arrangement had an alto part), and write out the Eb rhythm part for a Bb 
clarinet player who was just getting back to playing after 40 years, things 
like that. We have quite a "Klez Kamp" array of instruments -- tuba, 
baritone horn, cellos, violins, mandolin, accordion, flute, bass, trumpets, 
and of course guitars, with recorders and other keyboards on the way this 
spring. We're badly in need of percussion players, but I've been recruiting.

I'm always on the lookout for new parts -- I just got the newer 
Klezmerantics collections (Wedding, Freylekhs, Pesach, Waltzes). These will 
have leads, harmony lines, bass line and guitar chords, and will be a place 
to start maybe, but we're now creating our own arrangements, of standards, 
Beregovski tunes, Yiddish songs, chassidic melodies, and stressing the need 
for players to learn the modes and the roles of their instruments. We have 
a long way to go -- I will be doing more arrangements this spring, but I 
hope for some of the "veterans" these arrangements will be used as guides 
to what they could be playing. We're fortunate to have in the group Saul 
Gladstone, who has been playing the music for 70 years -- it's about so 
much more than the notes of course, and Saul is a great teacher to all of 
us of how to approach and inflect the music, what the proper ornamentation 
should be, how to play a triplet that isn't a triplet and isn't an eighth 
and two sixteenths, etc.

The Klezmer Plus Folio (Pete Sokoloff) was also very helpful, both for 
actual parts to a few tunes, and for guidance on how to create parts (in 
addition to Pete's guides to klezmer arranging for band and for piano). But 
it's true that there is a great need for band arrangements, and a puzzle to 
me why there aren't more given the obvious interest in the music by people 
at all musical levels and all ages and the possibilities for community 
music making in shuls and schools of all sorts. A "Book Two" from Maxwell 
Street would be a blessing, and there are many other bands that could do 
the same. I hope the sales of "Joy of Klez" are strong enough to convince 
Tara/Velvel to publish more and more collections!

Allen


At 11:07 PM 1/6/03 -0500, you wrote:
>I'll agree with that!  I also organize an ad hoc klezmer band at our
>shul, Temple Aliyah in Needham, MA.  Joy of Klez has been among the
>easiest sources to work with.  Several of our players are amateur
>orchestra musicians and really need the charts.  Being just an amateur
>bass guitarist myself (and a rocker at that) I'm glad I don't have to
>write arrangements for everything.
>
>I'd also like to plug the Klezmer Band Folio from he Yale Klezmer band.
>Also helpful, though not quite as easy a format to work with as the
>Maxwell St. book.
>
>On Mon, 2003-01-06 at 09:12, dchevan wrote:
> > I've been meaning to share this with the list.  For the past five
> > years I've been giving a Family Concert at my synagogue, Mishkan
> > Israel in Hamden, CT.  Unlike my other performances this rarely
> > involives more than one or two other professional musicians.  The
> > group consists pretty much of amateur musicians--computer programmers,
> > dentists, etc. who come together for three or four rehearsals and then
> > we give the concert.  While we always have a good time it is
> > challenging to obtain the  quality performance I seek.  So I am happy
> > to report the wonderful results that I obtained using the Maxwell St.
> > Band's Joy of Klez book.  It is really a terrific introduction to
> > Klezmer for musicians who are not familiar with the idiom.  The charts
> > are not overly challenging for these part-time musicians and I was
> > surprised how quickly everyone was able to feel the music.  It was so
> > much easier to get my trombonist and clarinetist to get the right
> > sound and figures than ever before.  I highly recommend this set of
> > charts to anyone--especially the type of ensemble I worked with.
> >
> > My only complaint is that there are only ten charts in the collection.
> > I hope there will be a volume two as I will probably be giving these
> > concerts for years to come!!
> >
> > David
>--
>Dick Schoeller
>mailto:schoeller (at) attbi(dot)com
>http://schoeller.ne.client2.attbi.com/
>781.449.5476
>
>"Er ist ein Narr, der meint, es sei nicht schad, das Kind
>auszuschütten mit dem Bad"         - Thomas Murner 1512
>
>

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