Re: klezmer experience

[Shirona <shirona...>]

I wish more of us could look at this topic from a higher, more "enlightened" 
perspective... especially being musicians.  

Music has such an innate power to UNITE  people - to feel close and loving 
towards each other... and feel spiritual feelings towards the Creator in the 
purest form.  It's only when we start claiming and judging and competing and 
getting self righteous that the trouble begins - and as far as I can tell - 
we're no better than the "goyyim" in the way we go about it.  Who has any 
"claim" on cultural treasures?  Isn't the whole idea of music and art and 
literature (etc) to enlighten ALL humans on this war-torn planet?  

As musicians I believe we have a unique opportunity to rise above all political 
and religious "agendas".  Leave those agendas to small minded people who can 
only relate to life through rigid dogma - and never see an inch beyond what 
their small, limited minds can conceive.  Music is pure, non verbal and 
"objective" - in the same way that math and science are "objective".  All other 
concerns are mare "attachments" that the above small minded people attach to it 
- none on us have to buy into it. No one will ever "win" anything with that 
attitude - we can only "win" if we rise above it.

Shirona
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 
Singer, Songwriter and Teacher of Jewish Music
 Visit my website at    www.shirona.com
Listen to my music at www.mp3.com/shirona
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: david lowther 
  To: World music from a Jewish slant 
  Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 7:03 PM
  Subject: klezmer experience


  This is David, Mary's long suffering and actually jewish (on my mother's 
side) husband.

  I don't know if I react to klezmer the way I do because I am a jew, or 
because the spirit of the music itself moves me.  I certainly feel that every 
time I perform I am lighting a candle for those who were taken, against the 
dark that took them.  That being said, I feel it is equally possible for any 
human being to relate to suffering and oppression, and to empathize with our 
history enough to understand what klezmer is about.

  To believe otherwise is to say that Stevie Ray Vaughan couldn't play blues 
because he was white.  Them would be fighting words.  

  If klezmer existed in isolation, and only for religious purposes, an argument 
could be made that playing it for gentiles was blasphemous.  Fortunately, 
klezmer is for any occasion, and is only one of the many children of asiatic 
and european music, with siblings throughout the Balkans, Asia Minor and 
Iberia.  I submit, therefore, that klezmer in at least partially secular, and 
that any jew may play it at any time they deem appropriate.

  It is not proselytizing, it is an affirmation that we are still alive, that 
our culture was not murdered.  Frankly, I would not only play it for messianic 
jews, but (and this is not intended to equate the two) even in front of 
antisemites.  I would dearly love to spend the afterlife forcing Der Heyser 
Bulgar and Der Triska Reb's Nign down dead nazi ear canals.  Bad klezmer, with 
a banjo maybe.

  And if that makes me a nasty, mean, spiteful old jew with no yiddischkeit, 
tough tsimmies.

  The above should not indicate that I personally would take a gig playing to 
messianic jews.  Probably, I would, and give them Fanny Crosby lyrics in a 
minor key.  The poor deluded schmucks may think they are not jews any more, but 
the proof that they are is that they still think of klezmer as their music.  
Hitler considered Mendelsson a jew despite all of the poor boy's protestations, 
and ordered the gentiles not to listen to it!

  Which brings me back to my original point:  we do not alone define ourselves; 
we are defined by others as well.  Many of the millions who were lost did not 
consider themselves to be jews, but that did not make them any less jewish.  
If, indeed, the blood of the jew calls to klezmer, then how can klezmorim not 
respond?

  But I agree with the original complaint, that we should not allow ourselves 
to be used against our wishes, and play for propaganda.  Like I said, Fanny 
Crosby wrote lots of neat stuff the christians can use.  Isn't it enough that 
they steal our deity, they have to have our music, too?

  Does this mean we can't listen to Mozart's Requiem?