Re: Klezmer article in this week's Forward

[Jordan Hirsch <trombaedu...>]

Ok.
I see where you are going with this and I agree with a great deal of it.
But let's go back to the original question, which, since I was standing
next to you in that bar and flirting... um, talking with the young lady
in question, and the question was asked of me, I would say that my
answer was specific to my instrument.
Valved brasses are only around since the 1820's, and probably did not
make it into klezmer until the 1840's at the earliest. My guess is that
they were not common until the 1880's. Traditional for trumpet and
cornet would mean, the Klezmer music played as indiginous music
fulfilling the function in its organic place in the community required
as played at that time by brass players. That would be in a more
military style. As cornet or trumpet was used more as a lead instrument,
there may be more freedom of expression. That is also traditional, as
the music was still fulfilling it's typical function within the
community from which it was born. So Art Shryer or even Ziggy Elman
where traditional in that sense, even though they did not play an that
military style. I would call them a later tradition.
How does that fit?

JH

Mattflight (at) aol(dot)com wrote:

>      But Jordan, we only know the roles of instruments because of
> either recordings, or peoples writings on the music. And if we are
> saying we a limiting ourselves to the late 1800's we also bring in
> laws about which instruments the Jews were allowed to use? So if your
> saying the most traditional style would be bands like Belf's
> Orchestra, but even they didn't always use traditional instruments.
> You not going to shlep a piano around from gig to gig, yet they use it
> on recordings.
>      What your saying is that traditional is about the functional that
> each instrument plays. So I could have a traditional band of electric
> guitar, sitar, and melodica if each player is recreating a functional
> role. So I don't think we can just look at roles of instruments, we
> also need to look at the timbre of the instruments. So would one put a
> loud instrument in a band of all soft instruments, or does one need
> other loud instruments?
>      So of the four albums in Seth's article I am familiar with three
> of them. (I haven't heard Paul Brody's album.) Which of them is the
> most traditional? This is an easy question, it is Frank London's
> Brotherhood of Brass. But where does a brass band fit in the continuum
> of Eastern European Jewish Music? Brass band are loud, and wouldn't
> fit in with laws and regulations restricting Jews to soft instruments.
> David Krakauer and The Klezmatics both bring in more modern
> influences, but can both player in an older style if asked to.
>      And Roger brings this up when peoples opinions on other people
> and bands. When we think of bands and people we think of a specific
> sound. Even if that musician has multiple sounds and styles that they
> are able to play, one of them is the one that the public knows. This
> is an issue that affects all of the arts, not just music, and not just
> Jewish music.
>      I think what I am trying to say is that we need to add to the
> ways that we describe Klezmer music. Maybe like Gamelon music we need
> to add a caveat as to if it is in the loud style, or the soft style.
> If an audience has no idea what it is going to get when it comes to a
> concert billing itself as klezmer, how can we build audiences? How am
> I (as someone born after the Klezmer Revival began) going to be able
> to get my peer group to embrace the music the same way that older
> generations do?
>
> Matt Temkin