Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2003-01-12 21:52
Katrina,
Hope this will all fit.
KlezKamp 2002 was December 22-27, 2002 at the Hilton in Cherry Hill, NJ, across the river from Philly. This was their 18th year.
Sunday 12/22 was arrival day, the events were Monday-Thursday, with breakfast and departure on Friday. Monday-Thursday were organized into 4 sessions each day, 1-1/2 hour each, two in the morning, two in the afternoon, with short breaks. The fee structure for most attendees included meals, which were glat Kosher.
The classes I took were:
=>AM1 Modal Modulations (Josh Horowitz)
This was an extensive exploration of Freygish (a.k.a. hejazz) mode used in many klezmer tunes. Starting by comparing it to Jewish Cantorial modes, and extending into how to get in and out of freygish by tonal shift, mode shift, and traditional chord changes. Stu Brotman and several other people sat in, making the presentation that much richer. The handout contained numerous examples throughout, which the participants were able to play, and ask questions about. The handouts were almost publication ready, and an excellent ongoing source guide.
=>AM2 Yiddish for Musicians (Michael Wex)
Michael Wex is an authority on Yiddish, Jewish culture and history, and religious law. The class was actually an extended lecture on the religious, historical, political, and cultural phenomena that caused the Yiddish language to develop as it did. We did not learn a lot of Yiddish. The several non-Jews in the class at times had trouble following. We all nonetheless enjoyed this class and learned a lot from it. At the end of the class I felt like I had just listened to the first 20% of a really good book on tape, only to find that the rest was checked out.
=>PM1 Masters (Ken Maltz and Paul Pincus)
This was a real joy. The level of players was varied, from advanced to what I might call intermediate. I can’t remember all the peoples’ names: Dr. Rebecca Rischin (Ohio University), her student Angela Opell, Gary Gould (a pro from LA), and several others. The course blurb said to bring a piece to work on, but we pretty much each worked on new pieces every day, whatever we wanted to. I worked on a Dave Tarras doina, a Tarras sher, a chusidl medley the Klezmer Fusion Band put together, and the last day invited comments on ornamentation in another sher medley. Dr. Rischin was most comfortable playing from music, the rest of us played to a large extent from memory. Gary Gould let me play his Buffet, serial number in the 43,000’s, with a wonderful, big, easy and open sound – what a treat! Ken and Paul are very positive and warm guys, with an enormous amount of playing experience.
Paul told a story of a wedding he played early in his career. The other wind player didn’t show, so he played the whole event on clarinet. After he had been playing quite a while, he noted that one of the guests, sitting in a corner and listening to him intently, was Simeon Bellison, who beckoned for him to come over during a break. Now Mr. Bellison was Leon Russianoff’s teacher, and Mr. Russianoff was Paul Pincus’ teacher. Mr. Bellison wanted to know how he played the way he did, and Paul couldn’t really explain it beyond “I don’t know, I just play it.”
=>PM2 Advanced Yiddish Dance Band (Pete Sokolow)
Pete Sokolow and Ken Maltz were in Kapelye on the soundtrack of “The Chosen”. This generated several stories during this and PM1. Pete started as a sax/clarinet player, but taught himself to play stride piano and has for the last couple of decades been mainly a pianist. He has a decidedly “society” sound that he plays in, which puts an entirely new sensibility onto the repertoire at hand. He makes no apologies for this – it has been how he has earned his living for many years (he is in his early 60’s) so his approach needs no apologies. He gave us each a fake book, and worked the classes like gigs. We read the books and he called out lead changes (“violins”, “accordion”, “D7 into the next tune”, etc.) Then, we played 45 minute sets at two of the nightly dances. The books were not extensive, but well organized so that he could play for dancing without getting boring or running out of materials. Sections were labelled Freilachs/Bulgars, Chusidls/Shers, Terkish/Zhok, Waltzes, and Theater/Fox-Trots/Rumba/Tango. The idea was that if people kept dancing, you could keep playing from tunes the waltz section until you were ready to stop. Then you can pick up with the next tune if people want a waltz later. Each section had about 10 tunes and he was selling the books, so I bought 2 (one in B flat, on in C). Gary Gould sat in on tenor during the dances – he and Pete really pushed me to sell some of my clarinets to get a tenor – not a bad idea.
During the evenings, there were a variety of events, such as the dances mentioned above. One night, Merlin Shepherd and a staff band played a continuous medley of freylachs for an hour straight. Merlin plays klezmer exclusively on a 1920’s Albert system C. Another night there was a silent move with Pete Sokolow accompanying.
Margot Leverett and a mandolin player were playing pieces from their forthcoming Klezmer Mountain Boys crossover CD.
Mitch Mernick, KC2EFR (a radio ham) of the Steve Jacobson Memorial Amateur Radio Club, had a low-power FM stereo transmitter in the lobby, and was playing CD’s and doing interviews between 8AM and midnight. Unfortunately I couldn’t pick this up from my room the far end 9th floor.
There were jams going on in the lobby at all hours of the day and night.
And on and on. I didn't leave the hotel until Thursday night, and then only to ship a box of books home.
Check out their website (www.livingtraditions.org).
Regards,
Ralph
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The Ethnic Clarinet
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