I have not heard Akiva Horin or Yehoshua Rochman, but I agree with your appraisal and description of an Israeli klezmer style and esthetic. In fact, I came to a very similar conclusion about 13 years ago upon hearing the recording "Tzlilim MiTzefat" by Bernie Marinbach, a musician with whom I used to share NY bandstands 3 decades ago before he made Aliyah. I understood the difference in the Israeli approach to klezmer (which you describe very well below) to result from the fact that it grew out of a continuous tradition of playing Jewish instrumental music, and was not discovered de novo, even though particular tunes might be recently learned. The Israeli style is informed by years of playing a =very melodic= Chassidic repertoire, so that many of the "klezmer" tunes don't lose their melodic foundation even when enveloped in a virtuosic instrumental shell.
(In a sense, the fussy preciousness of Giora Feidman's style takes this "Chassidic" melodicism to "mystical" extremes.) Thankfully, there are many non-Israeli klezmer musicians who are also in touch with the more melodic elements of klezmer tunes who allow these to shine through the virtuosic baggage of the early American "authentic" Klezmer style.
At 08:03 PM 3/1/03, r l reid wrote:
But here's the other thing - the idea of Israeli "klezmer" I've been suspicious of, not that I know a thing about it... I stopped by the cassette shed in
Mea Shirim and (along with a lot of stuff I can but don't buy in BP) say
"old time tunes and Klezmer melodies presented by the flutist Akiva Ben
Horin nbd the Klezmeraya Ensemble for Jewish Music". Inside are some
beautiful, sensitive arangemetns of tunes I do and don't know. I am struck
by the lack of conspicuous virtousity (which is not to say they don't have
chops, they do), the lack of "edge", the lack of parady, the lack of
cynicism....
It hit me subjectively as "real klezmer", but a very different esthetic than American klezmer with its cynical distrust of being unhip.
This was so unhip and so nice to listen to.
So now I'm listening around. Of course I've been listening to list member Moussa Berlin already, he's known worldwide, unlike Ben Horin and his group. Also now I am listening to Yehoshua Rochman - who you can at least get in the US - wow, he blows me away.
So maybe there is something going on there is Israel after all - I can't find any mention of Akiva ben Horin outside Israel - which is very different yet well worth seeking out and listening to.
Anyone else familiar with Akiva ben Horin?
Roger Reid
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