Klarinet Archive - Posting 000527.txt from 1995/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: KLEZMER
Date: Fri, 19 May 1995 06:41:10 -0400

David Gilman describes an incident that occurred in The Clarinet having
to do with an author's slighting of Feidman. Forgive me David, it has
been a long time since I read that article, but the fuss was not about
Feidman's playing. It had to do with a letter that he wrote in response
to the original article and the author's reaction to the letter. That
caused the fuss.

In effect, the article was careful and scholarly and spoke of the early
forms of Klezmer playing and what it was all about. I thought it was
an excellent article, but that is only an opinion.

Feidman wrote a letter to the editor that was, also in my opinion, a lot
of ca-ca. He made statements such as "Klezmer is a concept!" And he
wandered around dropping little bits of nonsense like that.

The author of the article then responded in the next issue and said that
Feidman was full of baloney. I happened to agree with the author. There
was nothing said about Feidman's playing, just his arguments about what
Klezmer was and, in my opinion, they bordered on the absurd.

It was the author's dump on Feidman's rediculous description of what
Klezmer was that caused the brouhaha, not any remark about Feidman's
playing.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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