Klarinet Archive - Posting 000117.txt from 2004/09

From: "Ken Wolman" <kwolman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Klezmer info
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 10:17:04 -0400

Kenneth Wolman wrote:

> From: Jeremy A Schiffer <schiffer@-----.edu>

>>> There are alot of folx who play the tunes but have no concept of
>>> the style or are not interested in the style but want to create their
>>> own sound/style. These folx are NOT klezmer musicians any more than
>>> Placido Domingo is a broadway singer in his recording of West Side
>>> Story.

Domingo probably recorded Bernstein songs, but it took Jose Carreras to
trash the entire thing under Leonard Bernstein's personal direction. It
was an unidiomatic catastrophe, as was Kiri Te Kanawa's pretty and
vacuous singing as Maria. The only one who sounded authentic was the
late Tatyano Troyanos as Anita...in fact she was better than any of the
Broadway or film versions. Anyway.

> This juxtaposition was just too beautiful to pass up. I enjoy at times
> listening to Mr. Feidman's playing, but traditional klezmer music is not
> what he does, and one should never try to emulate his playing if they
> desire to play klezmer (as Mr. Jacobowitz described it).

Easiest to say is that I love Feidman not for what other people think
he's doing or even for what he SAYS he is doing but for what he plays.
I gather that earlier in his career he tried to turn himself into a
klezmer emissary, or something like it. I don't know how close he came.
By now--as in the concert in New York at which I saw him last
November--he was doing a kind of fusion: klezmeristic tango music with a
Uruguayan bandoneon player and guitar player from some Hispanic culture.
It was absolutely gorgeous, the best-combed mongrel on the street. It
was not klezmer. I didn't care. I still don't.

A purist might. A bi gezint.

I have recordings of some of the old guys like Brandwein and Tarras and
they're astounding--Margot Leverett, if they let anyone hear her "kol
isha,", does a fantastic memorial reconstruction of the old guys; and I
have no doubt (though I cannot prove it) that she brings some of her own
stylistically unique self to the music.

The best klezmer I've heard (so far) belongs to a group called Khevrisa:
a hammered dulcimer and fiddle. Zev Feldman plays the dulcimer--he did
this years ago for Andy Statman back around 1980. On Khevrisa, there's
not a woodwind in earshot. Someone here recommended it last year.

Ken

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