So I go and buy myself some klezmer music. No particular group in mind so pick a few cds pretty much at random. This isn’t my zayde’s klezmer! When did klezmer become such a bastion of weird avant garde jazz fusion? Don’t get me wrong, I really liked it … New Klezmer Trio, Pschedelicatessin … but it caught me off. Modern Christian music is full of soft rock and the orthodoxim are into this out there stuff. Only traditional stuff I could find was one cd by the Maxwell Street Klezmer band and one by the Klezmatics.
So what gives? Has this been going on unknown to me all this time (me, last thinking of modern Jewish music as some Debbie Freidman songs sung at religious retreats) and why the difference in direction between the religious groups?
Maybe this should be in a different forum, but, hey, it could get debatish (funny, you don’t look debatish) and I know that a few of our hamish orthodoxim hang here. Mod, feel free to move if you are so moved.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do note that you appear to under the impression that klezmer music has something to do with Orthodox Jewry. Having been born and bred and all that, I can tell you that I’ve never even heard of Klezmer music other than through non-Jewish sources, let alone the bands you mention. As far as I know, klezmer is neither made by nor marketed to an Orthodox audience.
Of course, it is always possible that klezmer music is made by/for some other segment of Orthodox Judaism - I would be your local Ultra-orthodox representative. Maybe someone else will chime in.
Hey, you ever heard of Morechai-ben-David? Avrohom Fried? Ya’acov Shwecki? Now you’re talking…
Well, klezmer is Eastern European, but not particularly religious, in origin. It comes from medeval Eastern European wandering Jewish musicians, and, while it sometimes incorporated religious themes, it didn’t usually.
If you’re looking for Jewish music in other genres, I think the Beastie Boys just put out a new CD. (What? They’re Jewish!)
I guess that that answers it. I’m wrong in assocating with the orthodox or as particularly religious. And whereas Christian music may often be designed to spread the word, and those for wider popularity, this music is just music that happens to be culturally jewish.
Well, personally I’m a big fan of the new stuff…did you see the Cracow Klezmer Band when they were here for the World Music Festival?
My big complaint about bands like Maxwell Street is that what they do is incredibly stagnant. I’ve seen them at a number of live performances over the past 10 years, and they always do the same exact set! Even if you’re going to stick to the standards, there are certainly more than half a dozen of them.
To me, most music, especially folk/traditional forms, is like a shark: if it isn’t moving forward, it dies. Cracow Klezmer Band had tears of joy streaming down my face, along with awakening a rather latent desire to check out 1/4 of my ancestral roots.
Are you looking for Jewish musicians or Jewish (style) music? I find most music catagories too rigid. What does Klezmer sound like or could be compared to?
I’m holding out for Jewish Rap. ( No flames, please. It’s a joke.)
Flames? My brother-in-law actually recorded a Jewish rap tape; “Black Hattitude”. Sold pretty well, actually (available in finer stores everywhere!). But he did it under a pseudonym.
This is really about music, not a debate. So into Cafe Society it goes. (Not quite sure how it managed to last as long as it did – must have slipped by us at first.)
There’s always The Kabalahs, a sort-of Klezmer meets “They Might Be Giants”. Sadly, very few of my Jewish friends have ever heard of them.
Most of them prefer Israeli music, because it’s slightly less “ethnic”, one said. Wednesday night I attended a concert by David Broza, one of Israel’s best known songwriters. Truly, a gifted performer there.
( No flames, please. It’s a joke.)