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RE: What Is Jewish Music?
- From: music <music...>
- Subject: RE: What Is Jewish Music?
- Date: Fri 12 Sep 2003 05.32 (GMT)
> ... So if Sammy Davis, Jr. said he was Jewish, he was Jewish.
> Whether you agree with that or not, you should probably agree that it
> simplifies answering the question. But, then, when applied to music:
> what is Jewish music? As the neo-klezmer movement pushes Jewish music
> further into world music - as it pushes world music into Jewish music - and as
> pop and (non-Jewish) "folk" music push themselves into Jewish prayer, a
> definition becomes more difficult. I anticipate someone saying "I know
> Jewish music when I hear it."
Something like that ... though not exactly that. And at the very least, "that"
with considerable modification. (As it happens, I've actually sometimes alluded
to that faux-Supreme-Court reference in classes--but as much to elicit how
*not*
to define Jewish music as to assist in defining it.)
These are only sketchy, 1:00 in the morning thoughts, but:
The Jewish music of a given community and/or generation could perhaps be
defined as the music that that community, in that generation, accepts as
Jewish.
Or, more elegantly put (and removed somewhat from a single-generation focus):
"The touchstone for deciding whether a work is 'Jewish' is not the composer's
own intent, but the spontaneous reaction of his [contemporaries] and the
general judgment of posterity." (Alfred Sendrey)
This--or my version, anyway (which I may owe to Velvel Pasternak; I'm not
sure)--
may seem tautological; but if so, if so (he says, tautologically). There's a
parallel
to one definition offered of "folk music" (an equally knotty conundrum) as the
music
that folk music audiences (e.g., at coffeehouses and festivals) accept as folk
music.
I think there's more sense to that definition than there may at first appear to
be--and
likewise in the case of Jewish music.
But I have an inch-thick file of "What Is Jewish Music" definitions and
reflections--and
probably an equal-sized one in re folk music--so I will offer these sketchy
thoughts for
now and leave it (for now, anyway) at that. Much more, obviously, could be
said.
--Robert Cohen
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- Re: What is Jewish Music?, (continued)