klezmer the Israeli way

[r l reid <ro...>]

I'm back in New York after a very wet first trip to Jerusalem.
Anyone familiar with Akiva ben Horin?

But first of all, ignore your friends and family, now is a great time
to go, but bring a raincoat.  Airfare and hotels are dirt cheap and
there are no crowds and everything is discounted (except at the
thieves just by the Jaffa Gate - repeat after me "Lo, Toda! Lo! Toda!"
and keep walking).

I wasn't expecting much musically, and for the most part didn't find much.
Also wasn't my priority.                       

But a few highlights....

Sunday night, getting ready for bed, suddenly I hear the kol of maybe a hundred
isha.  I walk down and see that there is wonderful dancing and singing going
on in the restaurant that is closed lately, having the wrong gender 
configuration I pass on by and ask my host what's up - someone just got engaged,
mazel tov.  One of two times I was sorry I had not brought my stealth recorder.
I lay in bed listening to the party down below - glorious!

I checked the record and book stores in Mea Shrim and the old city and for
the most part found exactly the same stuff I can get in Boro Park.  But
in the book store nearest teh Kotel, I did get a little lucky when I 
found a dusty corner where the cut out, 10 NIS, please take them off our hands
cassettes were.  A splendid old Visnitz tape - not a drum machine anywhere -
a fine old Skulen tape, and an OK (but already getting modern a bissel)
Satmar tape; pluse 3 Ben Zion Shenker (not attributed to Modzitz) tapes.

But here's the other thing - the idea of Israeli "klezmer" I've been suspicious
of, not that I know a thing about it.  I stopped by the cassette shed in
Mea Shirim and (along with a lot of stuff I can but don't buy in BP) say
"old time tunes and Klezmer melodies presented by the flutist Akiva Ben
Horin nbd the Klezmeraya Ensemble for Jewish Music".  Inside are some
beautiful, sensitive arangemetns of tunes I do and don't know.  I am struck
by the lack of conspicuous virtousity (which is not to say they don't have
chops, they do), the lack of "edge", the lack of parady, the lack of
cynicism....

It hit me subjectively as "real klezmer", but a very different esthetic
than American klezmer with its cynical distrust of being unhip.

This was so unhip and so nice to listen to.

So now I'm listening around.  Of course I've been listening to list member
Moussa Berlin already, he's known worldwide, unlike Ben Horin and his group.
Also now I am listening to Yehoshua Rochman - who you can at least get in the
US - wow, he blows me away.

So maybe there is something going on there is Israel after all - I can't find
any mention of Akiva ben Horin outside Israel - which is very different yet
well worth seeking out and listening to.  

Anyone else familiar with  Akiva ben Horin?

Roger Reid

-- 
r l reid        ro (at) rreid(dot)net


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