Re: Chassidic Classic with Giora Feidman

[Wilfried GUILLET <wilguillet...>]

By the way, does anybody know if Giora Feidman plays on a C clarinet (like
most Klezmers used to do) or B flat?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ari Davidow" <ari (at) ivritype(dot)com>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 3:15 PM
Subject: RE: Chassidic Classic with Giora Feidman


> 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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