RE: Chassidic Classic with Giora Feidman

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

At 07:12 AM 12/1/2003, you wrote:
>Hi - Giora recently played at the Union Chapel in London (organised by JMI -
>Jewish Music Institute), having not played here for over 20 years.  It was
>an amazing performance - the thing is he really knows how to entertain.  I
>had also heard him on CD prior to seeing him live, and wasnt that
>impressed - but live he is incredible.  He comes from the traditional
>Klezmer background, but he has moved on, retaining enough of his klezmer
>roots, making it his own.  Traditional Klezmer is great, but it would get
>boring if everyone only played it traditionally all the time.  But Giora
>brings a dynamic personality and great stage presence to the fore - for him
>it is not just about Klezmer but to entertain, educate and communicate.  So,
>before you pass judgement based on his recordings, I suggest you try to see
>him live.


I don't believe that Giora comes from a klezmer tradition. The story as I 
have heard it is that he was in the Israeli Philharmonic. When his eyesight 
began to go in the late Sixties or early Seventies (we had what I then 
believed were his two first recordings in Jerusalem, prior to the '73 War) 
he began performing klezmer as a way to make a living. I believe that 
Moussa Berlin was one of his primary teachers, in fact. But I don't know 
how much he knew before.

He does give a dynamic show (or did, when I saw him in the mid-'70s, and 
clearly now, as well).

What has interested me for years is that, despite the availability of his 
recordings in the US, I have never encountered a musician (other than Yale 
Strom) who participated in the American klezmer renaissance who cites 
Feidman's recordings or performances, as an influence. He was incredibly 
influential in Germany, however, and I regularly get emails from German 
klezmer fans asking why I don't have reviews of his albums on the 
KlezmerShack. People who write about Feidman's workshops in Germany, 
however, tend to say that he wasn't teaching traditional klezmer. In his 
essential article about klezmer music in Germany 
(http://www.sukke.de/lecture.html), Heiko Lehmann, of Sukke, writes: "Giora 
Feidman took klezmer as a philosophical conception, saying that everybody 
and every music is klezmer; klezmer is a matter of intention--which he 
called "inner voice" or "energy"--while playing."

I, too, have never been a big fan of his music, although I'd be happy to 
publish a listener guide or some such on the KlezmerShack by someone who 
is, and who knows his music and recordings, so that his music is represented.

ari


Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/

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