The Klezkamp Mitzvah, Sing OUT! Magazine, Winter 2007, Vol. 50 Issue 4

"Reviving and Reconnecting with a Vanishing Culture"  by Mark Rubin

Learning about culture and traditions can be a tricky business in the best of circumstances. If you were interested in, say for the sake of example, traditional Irish fiddling, you could theoretically pack up, grab a flight to Ireland and head off to County Cork. There you could to sit in on any one of the innumerable music sessions that can be found at any number of local Pub, soaking in the tunes created entirely within its element. In the course of your time there, you would hear the Gaelic ballads, taste the beer and pie, see the rolling country side and meet the other people there enjoying the good times that the music created with it’s community. If you were lucky, after all the fun you might even get one of the old lads to show you a bowing trick or two. You would come home to New Mexico or Indiana or wherever you come from, probably with a deeper level of understanding of Irish music. It would most likely inform the way you play the Irish tunes and think about Irish culture. 

For the descendants of E. European Ashkenazic Jews eager for the same experience of connection to one’s traditions, there is however no “old country” to visit. If one were to return to our homelands, outside of overgrown cemeteries and a few disused synagogues, you would hardly find any indication that Jews were ever there, much less find anyone sing us a song or fiddle us a tune. To complicate matters, in the post War years American Jews very successfully assimilated into the greater American culture, shedding their language and great many of their customs in the process. If that wasn’t enough, with the creation of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948, the Hebrew language with it’s attendant “Israeli” music and dance all but effectively replaced what American Jews considered “Jewish” cultural identity, though it is a language and vernacular that our Yiddish and Russian speaking grandparents would hardly recognize. It’s within this conundrum that Living Tradition’s annual “KlezKamp” was born. 

For the last week of the year, a sleepy corner of the Catskill Mountains is transformed into a Yiddish speaking “Brigadoon” of sorts. There you’ll find the greatest practitioners of what was at one time considered a “dead” language and all the aspects of the culture that sprang from it. Originally billed at the Yiddish Folk Arts Program, it’s founder’s informal nickname “KlezKamp” has stuck and for 22 years its dedicated staff have done nearly the impossible. It has over last two decades effectively rescued, revived and nourished what is today a full blown International re-appreciation of Yiddish Music, Dance and Culture. 

It’s an unlikely story but the seeds of this Jewish Culture rebirth start in rural Appalachia. KlezKamp founder Henry Sapoznik, known to many in the old-time country revival community as “Hank,“ is noted five-string banjoist having been among the first waves of Yankees who headed to the hills of rural North Carolina in the early seventies, seeking out hill-billy music as played by the genuine articles. As a student of such notables as Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham, Sapoznik had imbibed their playing styles and then in turn helped present them to an eager new audience of Folk music devotees in NYC and other urban areas. As a banjo instructor he attended various music camps that sprouted up in the wake of the Eastern “Folk Scare” and in that experience became aware of the power of the intensive immersion approach to the transmission of culture. 

Henry "Hank" Sapoznik, Founder and Director

Conversely, it was at Tommy Jarrell’s innocent prompting (“Don’t you Jews have music of your own?”) that led Sapoznik to examine his own musical heritage, and in doing so a whole new yet familiar path. The son of a famous cantor and a native Yiddish speaker, he hadn’t properly realized that growing up he was completely surrounded by a vibrant Jewish environment, rich with it’s own Yiddish “Tommy Jarrells” as it were. It eventually led his to form Kapelye, a seminal group at the forefront of the clumsily titled “klezmer” music revival, and to a job in 1982 as sound archivist at YIVO, the Yiddish Cultural foundation and archive first founded in Vilna Lithuania in 1925 and now located in New York City after WW2.

These converging streams came together into a single idea. “The model was the music camps, having taught at Jay Ungar’s Fiddle and Dance Camp at Ashokan and then attending a Balkan music camp at the same location. I asked myself: What are they doing? They were almost entirely peer-driven events populated with instructors who were not from the communities of which they were teaching, in other words outsiders teaching other outsiders. One positive thing about having that kind of teacher is that they can present a culture to students on their own terms, they can keep the experience at an arm’s length in some ways.” Many of these “outsiders” were in fact like Sapoznik, Jews themselves. At a camp dedicated to southern old time banjo and fiddle music it’s an easy bet there would be little interest in Jewish tunes. But strangely at the Balkan week, where many of the instructors were also Jewish and well versed in all the many East European folk musics, the very place where you might think East European Jewish music would be well understood even celebrated, you couldn’t find it at all. 

Ultimately what Sapoznik felt was missing from these music and instrument themed camps was the greater context of the culture that created this “folk” music in the first place. “It seemed a big departure from the way folk traditions are actually passed on. As much as I liked working with my peers” said Sapoznik “I wanted younger players to have the same experience I had: learning directly from senior musicians so they would get an accurate take on what this music was all about.” Additionally, at these camps there seemed to be little recognition that music, ultimately, is only one small facet of the many sided diamond of a complete culture. What Sapoznik realized early on was that to better transmit the essences of Yiddish dance and music, one so endangered in fact, you must also immerse its participants in all the many arts associated with Yiddish life; the visual arts, theatre, poetry, food, customs and literature. 

His original concept was to have a program of Yiddish cultural events that was the pay-off if you will to be attached to the end of Columbia University’s Six-Week intensive Yiddish Language program. Literally a summer camp, it was envisioned as a week-long event where the contextual framework for the speaking of Yiddish could live in a perfectly natural way. A way that was pretty much in a state overall decline, along with those who spoke it natively. “Our hope was to create this whole cultural environment, a place where the abstract of learning the language could be put into actual practice. The music was the hook, but the bridge was to the language,” said Sapoznik. 

Adrienne Cooper (z"l)

By 1984, YIVO’s then assistant director, and noted Yiddish singer, Adrienne Cooper enthusiastically supported the idea, and Sapoznik started to look for instructors. The first slate of staff included the well-known singer-author Ruth Rubin, Romanian violinist Leon Schwartz, singer-folklorist Bronya Sakina, clarinetist Max Epstein as well as the younger revivalist musicians Michael Alpert, Hankus Netsky and Lauren Brody. A one time secular Yiddish summer camp turned New Age retreat was secured and a date set for August, but ultimately fell through when the camp asked for more money at the last minute. 

Hoping not to loose the momentum, Sapoznik and new KlezKamp coordinator Becky Miller hurriedly retooled for a winter event of the same year, now scheduled for Christmas week in fact. The choice of Christmas week was a novel one, as most Jews were off doing nothing for the Holiday anyway and the resort was wide open for the week. “No other time of the year alienates or marginalizes Jews more” wryly noted Sapoznik. After a long search they located the Paramount Hotel, a faded rose of a Kosher resort in Parksville NY run by an affable man who’s last name “Gasthalter” is actually Yiddish for “Hotel keeper.” The Paramount was an unlikely assemblage of mix-and-match buildings all connected by a labyrinth maze of hallways with low ceilings. Having seen better days, a booking at the slowest week of the year was much appreciated. With its kosher kitchen, mezzuzot on every doorway, an amazing grand ballroom and a Yiddish-speaking Puerto Rican staff, the rural Paramount became the perfect setting for a cultural revival. 

The first year saw 90 registrants and a staff of 30 and the second year nearly 150. The demographic of the attendees at first closely mirrored that of the younger staff, mostly musicians, but that was to change. As the word spread of a Yiddish outpost poking its head up in the old Catskills, more and more older folks started showing up. These were sixty to eighty year olds, people who had grown up in a Yiddish culture and were now able to celebrate its re-appreciation. As few of these kampers were musicians, the curricula were expanded to include more folklore, historical context and the like. Their mere presence added considerably to the available pool of Yiddish experience and more than one young person, instructors included, were put to rights by someone who actually lived in a Yiddish context. 

In 1987 Lorin Sklamberg, singer with the Klezmatics and long time Gay rights activist, was brought on to replace the departing Miller as KlezKamp coordinator. This may have led to another notable, if unanticipated, addition to the demographic of attendees with the presence of openly Homosexual Jews. Long left out of Jewish cultural life in most other venues simply because of their sexual preference, and marginalized in leftist circles when Anti-Zionism often masks Anti-Semitism, Gay and Lesbian Jews found a friendly and open environment focused on Yiddish culture, essentially free of any of the traditional prejudices associated with it. 

As was actually discussed at a KlezKamp lecture one year, the term “klezmer” as it turns out is actually a clumsy one, and not a all accurate. As it turns out, even though it’s Hebrew roots are in the words “Kley” and “Zemir,” meaning literally “vessel of song,” in it’s actual Yiddish context the term would more accurately describe a very poor musician. “Really a bum, you know the kind of guy who can scratch out a tune or two on a fiddle but can’t really play. No real musician would allow himself to be called that,” advised legendary clarinetist Dave Tarras. “I’d pop you one on the nose,” added veteran clarinetist Joe Borrock. The term had been used to describe the re-introduction of a mix of Yiddish music, folk song and theatre music sometime in the 70’s. By then however, the name had been applied to the more appropriately described Yiddish-American music for too long to reel back from the public consciousness. Just one of the many things you pick up from the lectures presented. 

Sidney Beckerman and student, 1996

While the music staff has always been high visibility, it was the contextual staff - folklorists, language instructors and folk artists – which gave the program its solid superstructure, The prime directive that teachers of Yiddish should be native speakers themselves has meant that their lucky students have learned the language not from someone who simply studied it in college, but by someone from that world whose regional dialect is still intact adding immeasurably to the student’s learning experience. In the early 90’s these folklorists developed a "Junior Folklorist" program wherein children in the KlezKids program were sent out to interview and document the senior members of the KlezKamp community. Traditional handcrafts (paper cutting, calligraphy, textiles, ect,) and even culinary skills are passed on by senior members of the community or through KlezKamp Staff apprenticeships were with those great Masters.

There is no greater example of the greater mission of KlezKamp than in it’s “KlezKids” program. Originally set up for the children of adult participants, it celebrated the milestone last year with as large an enrollment as did the whole event in it’s first year. Sapoznik explains, “We took the outmoded, socialist ‘kindershule’ model which celebrated Yiddish culture but which took no note of traditional folk literacy and reintroduced the old time music, song and other elements of the historic culture and created age appropriate kid programming. This not only served the short term function of allowing their parents to take advantage of the full KK programs, but also positioned Yiddish culture to be cool and hip to these kids and, miracle of miracles, set up out own “farm” system from where these kids grew up to be teachers and musicians themselves, not only at KlezKamp but in their home communities.” 

"Ooomchiks," future proud Yidn

It’s been an outstanding success on many levels. “We replaced the eye-rolling ennui of most kids to the culture and values of their parents and hot housed a generation of eager, motivated and culturally equipped young people for whom Yiddish culture is not seen as a burden but a valued birthright,” notes Sapoznik. 

Over the years the musical staff of Klezkamp has acted in a double capacity in first providing a lecture demonstration setting for older master musicians to teach and be appreciated but also to create a workshop environment for younger generation players to foster their creativity. Nearly all the of ‘leading lights’ of modern “klezmer” music got their start there, and almost all began simply as students. Sucessful bands have formed, performing careers started and lifelong musical relationships have cemented in the hallways and classrooms of the Paramount. However true to it’s founding principals the KlezKamp world, like on the bandstand at a dance, is musical mertiocracy first and foremost where there is often little distinction between the teacher and the student. Much like that session in County Cork, the music is for once now created within its natural habitat. It provides a depth of experience and understanding that cannot be replaced in a classroom setting. Thus many gifted young musicians find themselves carted up on the bandstand for the evening dances, playing right along side the greats. And there have been many greats. Clarinetists Max Epstein, Sid Beckerman, Ray Musiker and German Goldenshteyn. Sax giants Howie Lees and Paul Pincus. Drummer Elaine Hoffman and.Pianist/arranger/raconteur Pete Socolow. Many of whom had until they came onto staff, thought their usefulness over and their contributions largely ignored. 

A unique hurdle for the KlezKamp staff to contend with is the “500 pound Gorilla” of Yiddish Cultural context; it’s unavoidable attachment to the Jewish religion. Observant or not, Yiddish culture has always been intertwined with Jewish religious custom and practice. “You can’t have a Jewish event that some Jews can’t go to.” Says Sapoznik. Thus for instance, the meals served are Kosher and there’s no work (or playing of instruments) on the Sabbath in large public spaces. To the non-Jew, and many assimilated Jews as it turns out, it comes as quite a shock when depending on the calendar, the whole event comes to a complete halt to from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday night. But because it is replaced with equally compelling, and culturally compelling programming, even the most music-centric camper has plenty learning available to soak up. 

Tanzmeister Steven Weintraub

You certainly don’t have to be Jewish to attend, but as the old joke goes, it certainly helps. Music and dance fans of all back rounds have made the trek to the Catskills and come away just as affected. “The people who have the biggest paradigm shift are non Jews who are experiencing Jewish culture in possibly a new way. They actually appreciate the fact that it’s Kosher, not “Kosher-style,” its actually as close as they will get,” notes Sapoznik. European klezmer enthusiasts have probably made the most impact by means of diversity over the years. With not just a little bit of irony, a great many of the Europeans who regularly attend KlezKamp are from places where the original culture in fact never existed or, like Germany, where this very culture was all but destroyed. At this year’sKamp you will find classes taught a very fine Jewish clarinetist, well versed in Yiddish performance styles, who just happens be from Germany who just happens to be named “Christian.” Irony hides around every corner. 

This pressure cooker environment, coupled with the claustrophobic confines of the resort setting, has led many participants to what some call a “Klez Kamp Moment.” That moment when all the wheels of the Kamp activities events have been spinning for a few days, and all the dots have been connected, to where the depth of the culture that is being presented finally sinks in. It can create a deeply personal and moving experience for some. An experience made even more bittersweet when you realize how much of that life as disappeared through attrition, anilhilation and assimilation. Much like a “Yiddish Marine Corps,” a successful kamper comes stripped away of his preconceived notions and then is thoughtfully rebuilt ground up seeing themselves as a member of a greater, living world of Yiddish expression. 

Sherry Mayrent, Founding Director of the Mayrent Institute

The “mother ship” of KlezKamp was lost in 1999 when the Paramount Hotel burnt to the ground in an electrical fire. When the owners announced they were not rebuilding, the staff was left with a dilemma. Thanks to the intercession of a veteran KlezKamper, in a bold move the entire event was relocated to Cherry Hill NJ, a traditionally Jewish suburb of Philadelphia. This period also marked the world premiere of Sapoznik’s “Yiddish Radio Project” which went on to air nationwide on NPR, representing the widest audience to ever experience Yiddish language and culture in the United States. A well-received stage version, featuring a stage band made up of both master musicians and their students, toured nationally afterwards. 2001 saw the arrival of Sherry Mayrent as the new Executive Director, as Lorin Sklamberg stepped down to tour his increasingly popular Klezmatics. But like the loss of the "Old World" in favor of the new, many verteran Klezkampers bemoaned the decamping from the Catskills in favor of an industrial strength hotel in a Pennsylvania strip mall. In 2003, the event returned to their ancestral homeland of the old Yiddish Resorts and now resides at the old "Granite" Resort, now known as the Hudson Valley Resort Center in Kerhonsken NY.

Living Traditions, the parent organization of KlezKamp has recently started a record label dedicated to preserving some of the musical moments that have occurred at Kamp over the years. The most recent release may be it’s most important one yet, a collection of the repertoire of Moldavian clarinetist German Goldensteyn. German’s playing brings to a new generation of students the sounds and songs of the Moldavian-Russian Jewish experience. Orphaned by the Nazi’s, and a veteran Red Army Bandsman, German’s music notebooks contained literally hundreds of Jewish tunes heretofore unknown to American audiences. Long time kamper-turned-instructor Alex Kontorovich, a Jewish Russian émigré and clarinetist himself, served as German’s translator and “second” for several years on staff, carefully studying his style and techniques. With Kontorovich as producer and converting an unused bedroom into a makeshift studio, German and members of the KlezKamp staff recorded a scant 20 tunes from his repertoire during lunch and dinner breaks. German Goldenshteyn’s debut recording “A Living Tradition” was released commercially only a few months later. Tragically German died of a heart attack while on a fishing trip only a few days before a European concert tour. He was only 71. Kontorovich is currently overseeing the publishing of a collection German’s music books to insure his rich legacy will be disemminated. His is but one example of just how ephemeral culture can be. Without the living breathing tradition bearers in our midst and available for comment and context, the work of KlezKamp becomes all the more essential. 

The first Klezkamp release

In recent years the growing acknowledgement of interest in things “klezmer,” a situation KlezKamp can rightly be credited with, it has spurred quite a few imitators. If as the poet says, imitation is an expression of flattery, KlezKamp is a very flattered event indeed. Today you will find similarly fashioned events all over the US and the globe from, Canada to England and even points east. (In one notorious example, KlezKamp sing along songbooks were handed out at a copy-cat “Kamp” with only the Living Traditions letterhead clumsily whited out.) With its 22nd anniversary this December, KlezKamp now has come to a place of some sardonic irony. It has actually become so successful, so transparent in its stated goals of reviving and nurturing a living breathing Yiddish culture, than in fact it is now pretty much taken for granted. Taken for granted in many cases even those whose professional musical careers were born and informed there. By remaining true to it’s stated mission: fostering a holistic “ground up” approach to cultural presentation and preservation, and then purposely eschewing a “star personality” policy in their staff hiring, KlezKamp has in some ways made itself passé within it’s own community. 

The “Village,” or “shetl” more properly, that KlezKamp has created continues every year to feed and support what has now become an international re-appreciation of the totality of Yiddish Cultural Arts. After so many years of so successfully creating culturally literate “graduates,” a typical participant is more often not surrounded in class by people who will one day in fact have learned the lessons taught there, expand upon them and then return to give back to a new generation of campers. With the precious few living masters of Yiddish life leaving us every day, German Goldenshteyn our most recent example, the depth of experience that KlezKamp offers becomes all the more poignant and important. “We can only hope that through this process, we have enabled selfless translators of the continuity. If we done our job well then we’ll have that continuance for future generations,” says Sapoznik. 

The final Catskills KlezKamp will be at the Hudson Valley Resort, Kerhonkson NY, December 23-29, 2014 

Visit http://www.klezkamp.org for details.

Klez Kamp turns 25 this week.

Living Traditions, the parent organization of the annual "Klez Kamp" Yiddish Cultural retreat, is celebrating it's quarter century mark with this weeks' events in the Catskill Mountains. I myself first made the pilgrimidge to what I joking refer to as the Yiddish Brigadoon in 1996 and have been on staff for 13 susequent years (including the ill-fated Klez Kamp West in Petaluma CA.) My participation with this bunch of folks, both staff and students, has gone a long way to shape my opinions and attitudes about music and and culture, the very sorts of conversations I addressed in my recent interviews with the Steam Powered Preservation Society, parts one and two, for instance. In 2007 I wrote an article, "The KlezKamp Mitzvah: reviving reconnecting with a vanishing culture," on the event and it's influence for Sing OUT! Magazine, which is archived here.


I was asked to write a small rememberence to be included in the Klez Kamp "Zhurnal," the information booklet handed out to the participants. As per usual, I delivered my piece a few days too late to be included in the printing, so I share it with you here now:

Man, it was cold, colder than I could ever remember with snow everywhere. Sure it got cold on the Oklahoma plains where I was born and raised, but I had been living in Texas for a long while now and tonight I stood shivering in my cowboy boots there in the foyer of the Paramount. Just as unfamiliar to my experience was the great bus-load of little old folks and precocious little kids streaming into the old resort, all a ruckus with big hugs and joyful reunions, chattering away in this strange Germanic tongue. Up to that point, the only Yiddish I had heard was my Godfather Morris Katz calling his milk cows into the barn for the night back in Stillwater. Frankly, I had never around this many Jews before, not even at High Holy Days. My head was swimming.

“Oh good, you made it!” said the guy who invited me as he bounded towards me in the lobby. I had never met Henry Sapoznik in person but we had corresponded for years and for just as long he had been cajoling me to come up to “Kamp.” Though technically a stranger (heck I didn’t know a soul there really,) he hugged me like an old friend. “You’re just in time! The dancing is starting. We need a bassist.” He led me down into the Tanzhall and bade me onstage. I took of my coat, inquired about a key from the amiable clarinetist, and proceeded to clam my way through a thrilling set of dance tunes with Merlin Shepherd and Loren Brody.

Back home in Texas I play for dancing quite a bit, it’s one of the reasons I live there in fact. But here for the first time in my life I was actually playing Yiddish music, MY people’s music, for room full of Jewish dancers dancing Yiddish dances. Not a concert, with lifeless music set in amber, distant and removed. Tonight, here at this place music had sprouted legs, was drinking a bit too much and was tearing up the dancefloor. I don’t know if I can properly express how huge a thing that is, how music literally comes alive when it’s simply just a part of a greater function, in a living context. 13 trips back to the Catskills over Xmas week later, I am still in awe of that first of what was to be many, many “Klez Kamp Moments.” If only for this one gift, dayenu.

Truth is I’ve got quite a lot of stories I could tell you; of the musical relationships that formed here, of the people I now call my family, how these experiences have in many ways made me who and what I am not only as a musician, but as a person and as a Jew. Of the deeply moving naches of watching the same little pischers who were running around wild when I first came here mature in the adults that we now look to continue our work. I could tell you about the time I was down with no one to turn to and how this community, the Yiddish Culture family that Klez Kamp gave birth to 25 years ago and nurtures to this day, lifted me up with love and support.

I don’t know if I can properly express how huge a thing that is. - Mark Rubin, Austin TX, 2009

(You can read many more dispatches from the front of Yiddish Culture at the Klez Kamp Blog as well.)

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and see you kids in '10.

Cookie and Josh

Klez Kamp Staffers Cookie Segestien and Joshua Horowitz relax and play a tune between classes:

Andy Statman, Arkansas Traveller, excerpt

From the 2007 Klez Kamp staff concert, Andy Statman and myself work out a little bit on the old Arkansas Traveler.

Week One with the Youngers of Zion

AKA "Tis Sweet to work with Friends, ” July 26 through August 1st, 2007.

I caught the Block and Hexter shuttle bus out in front of the 92nd Street Y, which I guess is some kind of Jewish Community Center which puzzles me, as “YMCA” back home stands for Young Men’s Christian Association. New York really is Jew-ville after all, so Y means whatever they like up there. I waltz past the metal detectors (what the Fxxx??) and seek out a place to stach my gear. In no time flat, a stern matron kicked me out of the "community room," which had killer fast Wi-Fi and free bad coffee, so I relocated my bass, tuba and packpack to the the front steps of the place. In a town famed for its slice, I find a Israeli run kosher pizza joint and had possibly the worst slice of pizza I’ve ever had in my whole life. This will be an omen of things to come as it turns out.

Dance teacher-martini maker extraordinaire Steven Weintraub has wrangled a gig for the new “Klez Kamp Roadshow” concept at the Block and Hexter Center. They pulled it off a version of this gig last year without me, but this they budgeted enough to make it worth my while to head up there and I look forward to any opportunity to hang out with my Youngers of Zion band mates, no matter what the circumstances. After this week in the Pocono’s we’ll head up to East Hampton NY to glom onto a speaking gig that Henry booked and then subsequently got them to book the whole KK Roadshow experience for a weekend. That’s two whole weeks and I’m not sure my buds can take so much me in such a high dosage.

The week of instruction at Block and Hexter was a new skill set for me. We were essentially to be the live music for Steve’s dance classes and then provide entertainment at night, as well as give the odd lecture on differing topics associated with Jewish and Yiddish Culture. Kind of like a cruise ship gig when I think about it. Only this cruise liner has a median age of 80, keeps glatt kosher kitchen and runs on a fuel procured from incessant complaining. Don’t get me wrong, I dig old people. Just not in these sorts of high concentrations and especially not cranky old Yankees, frumme Jews to top it off. The complaints began even before the bus got to the campsite when the AC unit went kaput some 100 miles away from NYC. Gevault, indeed.

Ok, I’m not going to harp on any of the typical things that you can say about a summer camp arrangement. Anyone who has ever done time at a kosher Jewish Summer camp knows the drill. The food was exactly what one would expect to serve an elderly Jewish couple. That is to say cooked within an inch of its life and utterly devoid of any discernible flavor. But to speak to the positives, I had a clean room with an AC unit, Wi-Fi on demand, a lovely pool and an even lovelier pond which was well stocked with canoes and other water craft all of which I availed myself to. It was generally pleasant and run by decent, mostly happy people. In other words, it wasn’t anything like Circle Lodge.

There was a genuine wild card present however in the person of the camps staff entertainment director, a burly Israeli dame named Esther. Teaching folk dance and programming the evenings shows were her purview all summer and one got the feeling right quick that we were in her house and only just barely tolerated at that. She was all right and everything, but she was a force there when we got there and she’s still there now that we’re gone. Watching her lead dancing was truly a sight to behold, a mixture of enthusiastic prodding and borderline physical abuse. We reckoned she had become entirely immune to the cries of complaint from her elderly charges and had learned to simply manhandle them into submission and quiet, fearful subservience. (When one old lady came to her to tell her AC wasn’t working, Esther’s response was a loud “Are you threatening me!?”) Steve however has experienced working with her many times over the years and has developed his own system of coping mechanisms, which served him well all week.

The only controversy that occurred during our time there was on our very first evenings entertainment. We scheduled a staff concert of sorts where each of the guest lecturer-musicians performed a little something to give the attendees a taste of what to expect from our programming. Susan Leviton, our Yiddish vocalist and visual artist, was well received with her wonderful, unaffected singing. (She’s a real gem actually and was glad to have a whole week to hang out with her and her hubby Jerry.) Youngers played a tune or two and then Michael Wex got up and told a story from one of his books. It was damn funny too, something about having his first nocturnal emission make a stain in the shape of the Israeli flag, or something along those lines. Typically hilarious Wex material.

Funny to me maybe, but incredibly insulting to not but a few of the old frumme couples (not folks who had signed up for the Road Show I am quick to point out, but liggers left over from the week before) who stormed out in a public huff. Most of these people all turned up the next day at his lecture, hectoring him mercilessly with silly questions, and asking loudly I’m not making this up, ‘Why do you hate the Jewish People?” and “How did they let an Anti-Semite like you here?” It got even worse after his lecture when these nut jobs button holed him, screaming at him in English and then talking to one another in front of him in Yiddish AS IF HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE SAYING. When he responded to them in his native tongue they quickly switched to Hebrew, to which he again retorted to in kind. Ironical, as they say in my native Oklahoma. With this sort of crowd, Wex kept a low profile for the rest of the week and had lots of great material for his next article in the Jewish Week.

As the food there at the job site was a no go, we made several trips out into the countryside to find good burgers and booze. We were told of a particular joint called the Beacon Bar & Grill and after our first experience there, we came back again and again. Actually, I ate too much. No really, way too much. This whole being away from home and my regular surroundings and Mexican food and stuff, it was all catching up with me in this TV-less, shomer-shabbat rustic retreat. When I wasn’t working, I was writing this damn blog or eating and that was about it. The Beacon provided comfort food in every respect. We ended up there 3 nights in a row and with my taking pictures of everything ordered, I do believe the staff thought I was a food critic or something. It was midway into the signature Beacon burger, a massive meat fest made to resemble the Beacon's logo of a lighthouse, that I realized that I have as very deeply twisted relationship with food and it’s gonna screw me up if I don’t get a handle on it eventually. That said, here's what we ate:

The Beacon Burger, the house's signature dish, served with a side of chili cheese fries. "Angina on a platter." Seriously, I had a hard time downing this mammoth tower of meat.

Cookie contemplates the desert plate.

Hank goes for the Peanut Butter Pie, naturally...

Before...

and after....

Henry and Wex discuss the joys apple sauce and rare steak.

It wasn't on the menu, but I was craving a Patty Melt, which the chef made for me special. Again with the chili cheese fries....

Really, the Beacon was just that, a Lighthouse of well prepared meals in a vast sea of institutional kitchens. I'd drive 100 miles out of my way to eat there again.

We play every day for Steve’s dance class, we host lecture-talks on various subjects, including a lively talk about playing Jewish music in Eastern Europe and looking out to see mostly Holocaust survivors in the audience, and basically keep to ourselves. Cookie and I, Midwesterners by birth, avail ourselves of the private ponds many watercraft, including a hilarious attempt at a paddle boat. I redeemed myself later by taking a canoe out solo for a good long trip. The cool of the dark waters of the pond where a welcome respite to the heat of the mosquito-laden airs around the camp.

One evening after our labors, Steve shows up with a DVD collection of a 1950's era cartoon that I had never heard before. We loaded up on snack foods and liquor, moved a TV set into a unused conference room and the proceeded to watch episode after episode of Colonel Bleep. Evidently it was the very first color cartoon for TV, which is mighty odd when you consider less than 10% of the viewing public had a color TV to watch it on. Hank remembers seeing it as a young child, but in black and white. The episodes are in a word, pretty damn weird, with a mix of outrageous scripts interspersed with pointless "educational" content ("Today we go to the Belgian Congo....") Crude, bizarre and amazingly compelling. Especially if you are really, really high. Look it up on You Tube or some such and check it out for yourself, as could go on for hours about it.

Here's some stills that I took in a much addled state:





By the end of the week, we had won the campers over completely, even amongst the frum who gave us static at the beginning.The final concert went great, and even Wex's bit got laughs. Afterwards we experience the "let me tell you a story" session so prevalent at these sort of gigs.

Soon it was off to Henry's cabin in upstate NY to chill out and eat cooked meat for a few days and then we all regroup in East Hampton to do it all over again.

But for now, presented for your edification, Block and Hexter Camper Talent Night featuring Leon on the Accordion.

The Amazing Yiddish World of Michael Wex

Here's Mr. Wex in performance at the KlezKamp Roadshow at Block & Hexter Center on July 31st. He's reciting an excerpt from his soon to be released book "Just Say Nu." I think he's speaking on the Yiddish phrase "hoch a chanuk:"






I really was trying to get a good picture of him, but you just can't hit a moving target. Like the old sorry joke: How do you get a Jew to shut up? Make him sit on his hands......

Wex is piss-your-pants-funny every time I hear him. He writes a monthly newsletter which you should go ahead and sign up for. And buy the damn book when it comes out. And you should really find his first book "Schlepping the Exile" which I still like most of all.

The "K" word.

That is the word "klezmer." And why it hocks my chanuck .

So my local JCAA has this annual event called the Tapestry of Jewish Learning centered around Jewish practice and culture which I was honored enough to come and speak at in it's innaugral year. Truthfully, the only thing I am remotely qualified to speak about, other than the best BBQ joints within a 120 mile range of Austin and the finer points of explaining why the Jews killed Jesus to your gym coach, is possibly Jewish-American party music. At least as far as the J is concerned anyway. My synagogue, or better put the synagogue that puts up with me showing up to daven without paying membership, has a similar little baby version of this concept called the Thinking Adult Persons seminars (get it, "Tap"...cool huh?) and this year I was asked to speak there as well.

I did my shtik to an enthusiastic crowd and as I was leaving to catch the bus I spied a catalog for this years Tapestry. The event actually didn't occur as it was iced out, but out of professional curiosity I took a peek anyway. I saw this interesting subject, presented by some one I had never heard of: "Klezmer: What makes it Jewish?"

Boy howdy, do I wish I could have made that one. (Refer to On "klezmer" music.) Again out of curiosity, I inquired who this gal was that was giving the talk. Best I can tell she was at one time the second chair of a civic orchestra in Reno Nevada, but none of my pals in Jew-Music-World had encountered her. But I guess the title kind of says it all. In the world of Martial Arts there is a term for dubious "masters" who open karate dojos. It's called "bullshido" and there are websites that actively "out" these ersatz cultural interperters. As I've come to find in my career, any two-bit bar mitzvah band with a Kammen song folio playing Israeli circle dances is concidered "klezmer" these days, which is just fine in some respects. Helps us quickly identify those who's hearts are in it and those who are simply looking to turn a coin for the unsuspecting hooples. This here could be the worse I've encountered however, a black-face minstral show version of Jewish culture ground out for a ready audience of like minded Yankee transplants and assorted self loathers. But I digress...

After my inquiriy I was asked innocently enough by J's cultural director why those of us who have dedicated some part of our musical life to exploring Yiddish musical traditions are not comfortable the term "klezmer." I reckon now is as good a time that I should go public with my response and my thinking on the subject. Thus:

"That's a deep question actually which speaks to my personal motivations for working in Jewish music rather than make a living wage playing something people actually pay for. You might look for the latest issue (Volume 50#4 – Winter `07) of Sing Out! magazine where I have a major article on Klez Kamp and the thorny path of cultural connectedness.

The fact is the textbook versus the vernactular definitions of the term "klezmer" couldn't be further apart, and no one who has even a glancing knowledge of our musical traditions would describe it with such a vulgar term. And I do mean vulgar, as unpleasant in it's use as the "N" word to black folks. If you're not hip to something so basic, then what else don't you know, dig? (I see no lectures scheduled on kosher recipes for pork for instance to use a possibly poor analogy)

Duke Ellington addressed a similar situation back in the 1920's when the term "jazz" was applied to his art. What most folks today don't know is that "Jazz" in the language of the day meant quite literally the smell associated of the after effect of sexual congress. A street walkers jargon. As vulgar and low a description as you could imagine, created by white people to describe black culture. Ellington was stumping for the more correct tern "Afro-American Classical Music," but by the 30's it was too late and the true meaning of the term was lost. He still knew though.

Same goes for us, but sadly we have only ourselves to blame. The "revivalist" bands of the early 70's started mixing instrumental music, folks songs and theater songs into a clumsy patchwork quilt of music and called it "klezmer" simply beacause, as they have since told me, they were too scared to call it "Jewish." A "klezmer" is a, and I'm quoting from Dave Tarras here, "a no talent bum who could scrape out a note or two on a fiddle and fool the unsophisticated clients that he was an actual musician." It's also recognized in Yiddish musician and gangster jargon as someone who underbids on jobs as well. If someone self identifies themselves as a "klezmer," then you can pretty well assume they they are either willfully unaware of the basics of the culture that creates our music. Or simply put, the depth of their experience is only as deep as the groove of the record they learned from. Post modernists and other post-hippie era musicians grew up essentially removed from the Yiddish speaking world, so they have no handle for the context of the word, much less the environment that spawned the music which ultimately is only one tiny facet of the diamond of Yiddish culture.

To not put too fine a point on it, in my opinion we didn't crawl out of the ovens and DP camps so that one day we could comfortable enough to either forget everything or worse still, to remember it all wrong. Who needs Nazi's when you have assimilation and willful forgetfulness? There is no hechtser for what's Jewish culture, and maybe ultimately that's a good thing. But all my teachers called themselves "muzikant" and they called their music "yiddish." They're all dead now too. That's why I don't like to use the "K" word.

Respectfully, your servant,

Mark"

Klez Kamp 2006 Wrap Up

Well, rather than mirror it all here, just go to the official Klez Kamp Blog of which I was one of many contributors. Stuff happened. Quite a lot actually. Some of which I will relate here (and there) when I get back to Texas.

Tonight however I find myself in Guthrie Oklahoma, home to the Jazz Banjo Hall of Fame and Byron Berline's Double Stop Fiddle shop. Both of which I hope to be visiting after breakfast.

And no, I didn't stop in Stillwater on the way home either...

It's all your fault...

You may be seeing my name as a byline in various publications soon. After the non-linear obituary for my friend Don Walser was published by the Austin Chronicle, a few other publications that I know folks at asked me to write a piece to two for them as well. I have since penned obits for Don in No Depression and Sing OUT! (that's how they like it spelled,) as well as a 4000 word bit on Klez Kamp for SO!. The Chronicle may be running my story about working on the film Infamous soon, and a highly edited version of the same tale will appear in Bass Player next month.

Over the years all four editors of these magazines have asked me to contribute for them. I have written the odd bit here and there, but I laughed off any suggestion about writing seriously for them or anyone for that matter. And I'll share with you the reason why.

1) In our society you either write or are written about. It's not cricket to do both. In fact, I've been told over and over again that if I am to be successful at all I must stop doing all the things I do and focus on one thing, and one thing only. Try as I might and as much as I like what comes with "success" I am completely unable to be or do anything other than what I'm doing. I still firmly believe that I do things that are worth being written about, and if I become a 'writer" I'll get put in that other category.

2) In my many years of putting out music and traveling around, I was subjected regularly to some of the worst writing I have ever seen or read, and it was about me and my efforts, and it was almost always completely wrong.

3) I love to read. I do it all the time. Have all my life. I'm a Jew and they don't call us "people of the book" for nothing. Further I love writers. Some are my friends. I would never want to suck at it. I try to remember what Charles Bukowski liked to say, "I'm not that good a writer, it's just everybody else is just so damn bad."

4) I assume that the thoughts that I have in my head are just as plain and simple as anybody else's. What could I possibly offer the world that hasn't already been explained very well elsewhere by somebody else better than I could have?

Mishegoss I know. All completely internalized craziness actually.

So, let's get it out there right now. If you don't want me out there being a writer, talking my shit in the public forum, you can find me a gig playing music. If I could pay my mortgage the way I did for years, making recordings, travelling around playing music, I would go back to it in a heartbeat. If, like my old pal Kevin Smith, I got a call from say Dwight Yoakum’s people to go out for 9 months out on the road, I would be packed and out the door quicker than you can say "union wages."

But I haven't. In fact, I haven't been employed (seriously) to play bass in nearly 3 calendar years. None of the many musical projects I have running, playing any instrument actually, have yet to make enough income to even report to the IRS. In fact, in one month of published writing I have outpaced my gigging income for the 10 months prior.

I don't mind writing. Not at all. It's just not what I think I was put here to do. Find me a decent paying gig, and I'll never write another word. Promise.

NYC, NYE

Tomorrow morning I catch a flight for NYC, arriving just in time to hop a cab to Park Slope in Brooklyn and play a set with Aaron Alexander's Mix Mosh Midrash at 10pm. Aaron is on my SHORT list of drummers I like to play with and as a member of Frank London's Klezmer Brass All Stars I have built up a great musical rapport with him. I was particularly honored that he asked me to be a member of his group, playing a set his original compositions at this gig and then a week later at Makor for their New Year's Eve show.

To quote a friend of mine, it's taken me a year since his Tzadik Records release to "get" what he's doing. Now that I have, and have taken the time to actually learn his material (I hear musicians outside of Austin actually do that, rather than just show up for the gig and fake it) I would humbly recommend you seek out the CD. It's an unlikely convergence of Mr. Alexander's musical history which included expressive jazz, klezmer and eastern European music and even hardcore thrash. I will be playing the electric bass, which I am not known for and possibly with good reason. (see circa 1983 pic.) Wish me luck.

After that there's rumor of a salsa gig with Frank London and Anthony Coleman, but it could be apochryphal. If you know of anything fun to do in NYC on the 24th please do let me know. The morning of the 25th I head up to Hudson Valley Resort to attend and teach at the annual Jewish Music/Culture retreat called affectionately "Klez Kamp." I will report and fun occurs.

I'm back in Austin in the new year with regular gigs with the Ridgetop Syncopators and Lil' Alice and her Monkey Butlers. Best wishes for a safe new year.

And Merry Christmas.