Re: Old/New World klezmer

[Dawid & Moericke <khupe...>]

> My
> gut tells me that with Alicia Svigals' "Fidln'" album and Khevrisa and
> Budowitz we began to see a new trend in the New Klez world

I'm not sure that this really makes for a trend, though there are
undoubtedly more groups around which go for the 'Old/European' thing. On the
other hand, there are more groups around anyway!
A need to de-shmalts or de-show klezmer music has always been around
(speaking of the 'revival'), manifesting itself in different approaches and
results. Think about Statman/Feldman, Bern/Rubin, Brave Old World, just to
name a few... all artists who successful tried to gain a deeper
understanding of the music, by studying the sources.

I never 'went back' consciously, but it happened anyway. I was not primarily
interested in historical details, but certainly in an in-depth understanding
of klezmer music. Zooming in. If you have a closer look at musical elements,
and get more detailed every time, you may end up with a simple phrase played
as subtle and fragile as we hear it in... the earliest recordings.
All serious klezmorim I know have, at some point, gone back as far as
possible, not to go back historically, as a self-purpose, but to get as
refined and subtle and telling as possible. To learn the whole story from
its documented beginning.
Where we go from there, or if we stay, that's a different story...

Luckily, klezmerland still grows, and the picture gets more and more
differentiated. Undoubtedly, there are much more students at today's camps,
who are seriously interested in 'old' style/sound/phrasing. At KlezKanada,
Stu Brotman and I were running an ensemble solely dedicated to Belf's
Romanian Orchestra's style and repertoire. Steve Greenman writes original
pieces using the 'old' vocabulary, we have tsimbls and fleyt kapelyes and
fidl kapelyes, all exploring old-but-still-so-true textures and sounds...
Interestingly enough, at the same time artists like Jason Rosenblatt's
Shtreiml or Josh Dolgin celebrate a very successful and enjoyable 'revival'
of the americanization of klezmer music...
And we have more and more musicians who do it all, at the same time...

Christian Dawid

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