Krakow: Jews, Food, Absinthe, More Food, Madness

Notes from the Festival of Jewish Culture in Krakow Poland.

OK,

Hard to get it all written down, what with jet lag and constant work and such.

Good news starts before the trip however. After making some discreet inquiries and quite a bit of convincing (black belt buttering up in fact) the fine folks at Jupiter Band Instruments allowed me to take one of their brand new, professional Sousaphones on my travels this summer. I am beyond words in gratitude, as my beloved 1890's Cerveny BBb Helicon has finally been repaired for the last time. One more clumsily baggage handler and she'll never toot nor blat again, and I just couldn't live with that prospect. In her place I have an amazing Jupiter Deluxe model 590S, silver plated, 4 valve sousaphone with hard case. Couldn't be a better start for a tour.

So I leave the Austin Airport at 11am on a Tuesday and I arrive in John Paul II Airport Krakow at 1pm the following Wednesday. This is what happens when you live in Texas where there are no direct flights to just about anywhere. I'm somewhat used to it by now, but a whole day in a plane or waiting to board one can grind one down. I took a guitar with me to kill the layover time and it was worth the extra baggage.

When I do land, I'm greeted by a very friendly driver who assures me that I am to be taken to my favorite hotel on the whole Earth (Hotel Eden, central Kazimerz) and that I should just take it easy and rest. Well, I "rested" plenty in a cramped airplane seat and seeing as I came all the way, I suggested that they take me straight to Jill Gellerman's Hassidic Dance Class. They have been languishing without a bassist for several days and playing for Jill's class was the highlight of my Klez Kamp experience last year. The band is an ad hoc assemblage of musicians pulled from the many ensembles performing at the festival that week. I am greeted by old pals Frank London, Sanne Molricke, Christian Dawid, Dan Blacksburg and by a few new friends Martin Van Deven (Beyond the Pale) and Dan Kahn. Rather than make the already strapped and harried festival staff locate me a bass to play, I have brought along a borrowed Ashbory bass. It looks and plays like a toy, but by golly, through an amp it makes a damn fine bass sound. As the airlines continue their part on the War on Art, we bassists will have to become more comfortable with alternatives like this in the future.

But I digress, onto the food.

So later, I find Cookie Segelstein and PJ Horowitz out the the street foraging for dinner, we snag Frank as well who suggests a place not far where they dress up the waitresses in ridiculous costumes and pump Chopin into the dinning room at full volume. Down the block and up a piece on Ulica Midowa we find Polokowski's. It's as big as a postage stamp and packed to the gills, but everything looks good and smells even better. In deference to my buds back in Texas Polonia, I go for the Cabbage Rolls and Garlic soup. Not as good as the kind I get at Brian Marshall's place in Tomball TX, but damn fine all the same. We will return here again and again.

Of special note was a Pirogi shack 2 blocks the opposite direction which offered many variations of the classic Polish staple, called I think "Pirogi." I laughed when drummer Scott Kettner ordered the "Mexican" pirogi, but stopped chuckling when he offered me one and found it to be wonderful. I stuck to the traditional meat, cheese and fruit varieties. Once again, this restaurant was tiny, smaller than the smallest taco counter back home, but packed to capacity and damn cheap.

As this is a Jewish Cultural event, we make a point of finding as much trafe as possible. Here's what's left of my very first Pork Shank, split between Frank and myself:


It was amazing.

So most of my time was spent rehearsing for the grand finale concert, a concept Frank outlined with his last CD Carnival Conspiracy. On the record Frank collaborated with Scott's Maracatu drum ensemble, but the budget for this trip only allowed for Scott. To make up the rest Frank located a Brazillian Samba School from Warsaw called "monkey rythmn" in Polish. Now understand, Samba and Maracatu are both from Brazil, but they are as different if you will as Ashkenazic is from Sephardic. All Jews maybe, but not the same. To our great fortune, we find the Polish drummers have done their home work and learned the rhythms of Frank's CD. Every day, we go down to the banks of the river and played through the material, creating arrangements on the fly. When I'm not there, I'm either playing for the Hassidic Dance class or the big dance party on Thursday night. Otherwise, it's seeing the other concerts or jamming until 6am every night at the Alchemia Club.

Then there was the Absiynt House.Actually, the less said about this, the better. We were in a foreign country and all. Let's just say I spent a lot of time here.

Needless to say after a few days of the above, it all kind of runs together. So here's some random scenes:

Folks in Krakow seem to like to dude up their wheels. Dig this on the hood of a FIAT. I was entranced actually.

I guess if you're going to import a mess of Jews into your town for a week, it's only prudent to have a few Cossacks around as well, just to keep everything in balance. You know, just in case. I mean, I'm not overstaying my welcome when presented with a dude like this.

From his instrument and the markings on his kit, I'd reckon he's a Ukrainian and that's a bandura. But I could be mistaken. He had a lovely gruff voice, somewhere around the Howlin' Wolf range, but he seemed beat down and weary of plucking out ballads in the street for the tourists. He got a hand full of Zlotys from me though, hoping he'd pass my hotel room during the next pogrom....

Here's young trombonist Dan Blacksburg contributing both to the local economy and to his own adult onset type 2 Diabetes with some kind of sugar whipped onto a stick. I passed opting to use my caloric intake instead for the many, many Zubrowska's I would be having later.

The next few scenes are from my camera, taken onstage while we playing the a modern arrangement of a hassidic niggun dedicated to Rebbe Nachman, now set to the tune to the infamous "Numa-Numa" song. Which we played to a stunned audience of over 25,000, over and over again, finally marching out into the crowd. Polish TV was there to capture it all, so see if I ain't lying....

To my left, you'll see Beyond the Pale's mandolinist Eric Stein, the Polish Brazilian drummers and Steve Weintraub dancing.

Ahead of me, cantor Ben Zion Miller, a rapper who's name I cannot recall (but he was wonderful, a member of SoCalled's crew,) Micheal Alpert and Jeff Warschauer and a really big crowd...

And then there's me, with my shinny new horn and a TV camera man I nearly killed twice. You can see Rob Schwimmer over my shoulder playing, I shit you not, a theremin. Absolutely essential to the Numa-Numa song.

Here's a great shot of the Klezmer Brass All Stars set from the Festival website:

And then 8 hours later, it was off to the Montreal Jazz Festival.....

Art From the Tip Jar

Well, it doesn't spend like money, but I appreciate just as much. If not more.
Here's some portraits left in the tip jar of a Ridgetop Syncopators gig, Memorial Day at Jo's Coffee on Congress.

Here's Trumpeter-Accordionist Oliver Steck:


Fiddler Sean Orr, in his jaunty beret:


And I reckon this is me, enjoy:

Random Pictures from My Phone

Ok, I'll admit it. I have a camera in my phone and I use it quite frequently. Usually to take pictures of food, but that's another story entirely. As I am clearing out space for more memory, here is a random sampling of things I've seen.

New Years Eve, 2007, Frank London's apartment, Lower East Side, NYC. Frank has created a tradition of emptying all the bottles of fascinating hootch that he picks up on his travels to wild and strange locales. In round one, we drank the last bits of all of this. I was too far gone to take a picture of rounds 2 and 3. (Extra points to those who identify the brands..):



On a walk from the hotel to the grounds of the National Folk Festival, Richmond VA, October 2006:



Veracruz Mexico, in town to play the Veracruz Jazz Festival with the Panorama Jazz Band of New Orleans. Every night in the the central city square (el Zocolo) people would gather in the cool evening breeze to dance to the music a local community brass band. I grew up playing with my dad in a similar community band in my native Stillwater Oklahoma, so I am predisposed to take time out to listen. Our repertoire wasn't as hip as thiers (mostly Danzon and Tango) and thus we never had dancers:


I'm trying to enact a tradition of spending my birthday in New Orleans, in some small part adopting the place as my own and working for it's healthy recovery. Last August found me at the Rock and Bowl, one of the few places still open at the time, which is a lousy place to bowl, but a great place to see Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Cha's:





Here's the winner of last years Charlie Poole Festival and Contest, playing a very rare and wonderful banjo guitar. It was one a a series of instruments made for James Reece Europe's "Clef Club" Orchestras of the early teens and bears that label on the headstock. Imagine if you will 25-30 of these monsters all cranking out at the same time. It has a standard style guitar neck attached to a 17.5" banjo head(!!!) Tried to interact with this fellow, but he was busy affecting some sort of character study of an obstreperous jack ass, which I might add he had down cold. Didn't effect my high regaurd of his rendition of a Charlie Poole song, and thus he properly walked off with the 1st Prize. The Poole festival celebrates it's 12th year this weekend, but sadly I'll be here in Texas missing it:




From Beate Siker's songbook:

She's German by the way. I have been employed to be the Sieker's bassist of late and have enjoyed playing with them thouroughly. Rolf Sieker is as good a bluegrass banjo player as you will likely ever encounter, and I know from banjo.

Speaking of German:

Yuletide at the Walburg Store in Walburg TX. Yes it looks like a beerhall. But I'm here to tell you thanks to it's owner Ronnie, an alpine yodeler of prodigious ability and South German chef extrodinarre, this little joint in no-where central Texas is the finest plate of traditional German food I have yet encountered. And I'm including all my travels across Germany and Austria as well. Ronnie's band plays most weekends and if you're lucky, he'll take off his apron, put on his accordion and yodel a few.


(Looks like he left it on here...)




Say, who's the Yid in the styling lid? That's no Kike, mike. That's my khazan, Neil Blumofe:

(It takes a mighty man to wear a zip up Guyaberra...)



From the re-created Shakey's Pizza Parlour, inside the National Jazz Banjo Museum in downtown Guthrie Oklahoma, I shit you not:

Somebody's idea of funny, seen on the cubicle wall of CBC Radio when I saw interveiwed there during the Calgary Folk Festival:





This requires some set up.
I was in LA for a few dates as a member of Joshua Nelson's amazing Kosher Gospel review, on a synagogue date that also featured Frank London. Inbetween shows, I took the gang out on a tour of the sights of Hollywood. While walking down the street, and being a mostly African American, and predominately overweight I might add, group of people, we were handed tickets to a live taping of a television show featuring plus size women. How could we decline? Frank followed along and hung as long as he could take it, and truthfully we all split into the 3rd hour ourselves. Here's Frank and Josh chatting in the audience. I can't make this stuff up:






The less said about the following images , the better. Suffice it to say it was the wierdest private party I've ever played. I snapped these pics while on my way from the host's patio to the bathroom. Words cannot express how I felt about it:








What I look like after the 6th set of Czech Polkas at last years Wurstfest:



That's all for this go round. I'm off to Kracow, London, Montreal, the Poconos and NYC in the coming months so I'm sure there will be much more to share.

"Klezmer." My pain. My joy.

OK, it's happened again.

Some nice lady asked me a simple little question and without thinking too much or remembering to hit "delete," I send this along. The question referred to the weather or not non-Jews had any business playing "Jewish Klezmer," which I find as ridiculous a notion as can White people play the Blues. (Oh dear, a whole other essay is forming, but I digress..) Nope, I never did hear back from her either.

"Klezmer" is a term only genuinely applied to the recent revival of Yiddish dance music. It's a construct, a re-imagination, made up in some cases whole up cloth from people who have only a tangential relationship to the culture that the music originally sprang from. For instance, no self respecting Yiddish musician would have ever referred to themselves as a "klezmer," which is point of fact a derogatory term for a not very good musician, yet it's the very term than modern players use to describe what they do. (Pretty ironic, huh?) I believe that's called a cultural disconnect. Many of these modern day practitioners have clumsily, and wrong headedly, incorporated smorgasbord-like and wide panoply of Yiddish Folk Song and Yiddish Art Song into their performances as well, further distancing themselves from any actual tradition.

Which brings me to there is no "klezmer" music, there is simply a Yiddish vernacular performance style. Thus, any tune can conceivably be played in a Yiddish style and thus made Yiddish, when filtered through the experience of the Yiddish speaking Jews of Eastern Europe. One of my favorite dance numbers around here started life as a Mariachi march for instance.

Utter BS, and stolen to boot.

The music that we know as Yiddish dance comes from many sources, incorporating the many places Yiddish speaking Jews lived and the sort of cultures Jews came into regular contact with (Oriental Greeks, Ukrainians, Romanians, Turks and various Rroma tribes for instance.) Some come straight from Cantorial and Chassidic traditions, but as we know from recorded evidence that many of these melodies were lifted from someplace else as well. The folk and art song traditions have long complex stories all their own, which intersect and are sometimes influenced by the instrumental tradition but are in fact separate distinct traditions unto themselves.

Further, this is a purely secular musical expression. It's the advent of a Yiddish speaking Jewish population, not a strictly religious expression. Non Jews have been involved in Yiddish music from day one, and many of the best players we have today are in fact not Jewish, nor do they wish to become so. True, there is a spiritual element in any music really, 

We can only imagine what they sounded like

and you cannot divest Yiddish culture from Jewish practice. However, any attempt to cast Yiddish music in that light is purely a post-modern thought. And probably a wholly American phenomenon, much the same way a socio-political concept like Zionism is used wholesale to express religiosity for many fully assimilated Jews .

To me personally I find it kind of sad that such a rich cultural tradition being misused in this way. Better Jews keep the sabbath than try and make dance music substitute for religious practice. That's my 2 cents anyway. I doubt if I'm in the majority opinion here.

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It's Official...I'm OBSESSED

It started small enough, searching for the roots of the Jewish music that I get hired to teach people how to play. For the last decade, I've combed through stacks of Ukranian fiddlers, Hutsul cimbolm bands and Serbian Brass orchestras. It all changed for me last year however. That's when I came across Prof. Garfias' website with rare recordings of cintec de pahar singers from Romania. Rather than bore you with that annoying ethnomusicology horsecrap you can find online. I'll just let Rominca and Gabi state thier case, all in B&W Romanian State TV glory:

Fist off, I could kiss the cat who published this stuff (and more) on YouTube.

I am one dissapointment away from expatriating and devoting the rest of my life to this stuff.

No foolin'.

OH SHIT!!!!!

I JUST stumbled on THIS!!!!!!

Old-Time Music: Better Than It Sounds

Well, once again my writing makes the cover of the Austin Chronicle. That's 2 for 2 thus far, not to gloat. This time I try and explain the phenomena of Old Time music here in Austin across the generations.

The tag line is not my conceit however, but that's what happens in the editing process. I wrote 5000 words for this piece, but there was only room for 2350, which really helps me understand better how this whole writing gig works. You have to tell you story clearly and concisely, 2 things those of you who have suffered my drunken story telling can certainly attest.

(Next article, if they let me, should be on the explosion of hip Cajun culture in South Louisiana.)

March Against the Iraq War, 2007

Well, by golly, we lead the parade again for this years "Million Musician March" from the Texas State Capitol to Austin City Hall. The Jericho Brass Band, for which I am only the nominal leader-organizer, ably lead by trumper Oliver Steck sounded wonderful and numbered maybe 50 pieces this time out.



I even convinced a few out of towners who were in Austin to perform for SXSW to attend, like my Klezmer Brass All Stars pal trombonist Curtis Hasslebring. (He played a great set with his band Golem that night. But got a fine sunburn on the march.)

More pictures of the event can be found posted here.

Let's pray that there will be no need to march next year as well.

Last Minute SXSW Showcases + Peace March

To qoute the Godfather, "but they just keep pulling me back in..."

The Ridgetop Syncopators will be holding down a 7-9pm slot at Threadgills Original Old No.1 on N. Lamar (walking distance from my house as it happens) which we hope to make a regular occurance. No wristband, no badges. Come hungry as I think Chicken Fried Steak is the special for the night.

Then as a last minute fill in for a band that couldn't clear Homeland Security for SXSW, I'll be playing bass with Kamran Hooshman's 1001 Nights Orchestra on a World Music showcase Friday evening at the Copa nightclub (2nd & Congress.) We'll be doing a lively mix of Arabic, Armenian and Persian musics.




Saturday at noon however I recommend you join me and the Jericho Brass Band as we lead the parade against the US War in Iraq.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Panorama Brass Band rolling Mardi Gras '07

Folks,

Since you most likely missed it, here's the Panorama Brass Band parading with the St. Anthony Ramblers in the French Quarter. We're just leaving the church on Jackson Square and headed down Charters. The tune is a Sher, can't recall the title, but from the Yiddish repertoire. I'm the 2nd tenor torn player. Yes, in this band, I'm happy to the tenor horn man.

Look about 2 minutes in where I run into another Krewes musicians, who quite cooincidentally turns out under his mask is a fellow Austinite and band mate of mine in the Monkey Butlers Oliver Steck. You see where I hand him a flask of 20 year old home brewed Slivovitz provided to me by a dear friend from Serbia, and saved for toasting this very occasion.

I hope all of you can come celebrate the rebuliding of New Orleans, both phsyically and spiritually in years to come.

Mardi Gras Schedule, 2007

I can hardly contain myself. A few short days, a trip to the rental car joint, and then it's I-10 West to New Orleans to roll with the Panorama Brass Band.

Here's where you'll find me:

Parading with Panorama Brass Band

February 15, Knights of Babylon, Uptown, rolls at 5:45pm
February 16, Krewe of Morpheus, rolls at 7:45pm
Cafe Brazil, post parade shindig
February 17, post-Edmyion party, Rusty Nail, Lee Circle, 9pm
February 18, Box of Wine, Garden District, rolls at 4:30pm
February 19, busking in Jackson Square, 11am-2pm
Mimi's (Franklin & Royal,) 9am-12am
February 20, MARDI GRAS, all over the French Quarter

Let's hope we see you out!

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"