Ornament and Crime, Part 1
Mixed Messages
If you asked the old-timers for advice on playing klezmer, they often said one and only one thing,"Play the [bleeping] melody."
What does this mean exactly? What els
e would I play? They meant "Don't ornament too much!" and this one essential bit of advice was heard consistently from Dave Tarras, Max Epstein, Ray Musiker, Danny Rubinstein and Pete Sokolow.
I was an eager young klezmer student and proudly played Max a klezmer tune that I had just learned. Surprisingly, he asked me what I was doing. I sheepishly said, ‘I am playing…klezmer music?’ He countered with an inquiry as to why I was using so many ornaments. - Steven Greenman
“The melody is the main thing and the dreidlach, ornaments enhance. Not the other way around.” Pete Sokolow, quoting Epsteins I think
“Statman also cites Dave Tarras on the evils of overornamentation, which damages the "spirituality of the melodies.” (Joel Rubin, quoting Statman quoting Tarras)
Mixed Messages
For students learning klezmer, this is an odd bit of advice. They are often told that the melodies, though interesting, are not the essence of the music. Often, they are even lifted from neighboring cultures. What makes the tune Jewish, it is often taught, is not the melody, but the ornament. Statman himself says this beautifully “Ornaments are a way of bringing out the heart that's inside the melody." And so it becomes a matter of appropriate use of ornaments.
But if ornaments were so important, why did klezmer musicians not develop any serious terminology or lexicon for them, outside of a few terms, and why did they not appear to teach them in any "technical sense"? The absence of a klezmer specialized musical terminology is, as Alfred Landau says, "striking." (via Rubin, NY p 198.)
All of this raises the question, why mention this advice unless it was a problem? Was someone ornamenting too much? Who?
The first answer might be: students. Since this advice came from teachers, this is undoubtedly right. But if we look at the history via written and recorded sources, we have plenty of evidence of old time players who were also ornamenting "too much."
The famous Belf's Romanian Orchestra is perhaps the best example. On first listening, this orchestra might sound more "primitive" than the more refined American klezmer orchestras (remember Belf recorded much earlier that these orchestras, but even still…). But, if you analyze the playing, you'll find in some ways it is more complex. The Belf players are ornamenting practically "every note" (Josh Horowitz). It's an orgy of ornament. Recent recordings unearthed by Joel Rubin and others have supported the idea that this style wasn't confined solely to Belf.
But there are many other examples, consider this anecdote from Vitebsk:
Spread before him were sheets of music but he only took the [basic] melody from them, building upon it roulades of a kind I had never heard, not even in dreams. By the way, such performers are valued quite highly in Jewish orchestras.
Anyone familiar with klezmer will recognize this sentiment to be so common as to be a cliche of the genre. Later on, we’ll hear Sokolow say that the over-ornamented style was romanticism- “[their] idea of how they played [in Europe].” Maybe so, but then a lot of first-hand anecdotes would have to be fabrications.
To my ears, the insistence against over-ornamenting is a "thou doeth protest too much" moment. Whether or not its good or appropriate advice, the admonition is itself evidence that there were folks out there ornamenting too much. The old-timers giving out this advice were doing so to distinguish what they did from these lowly others did.
This advice points to two different aesthetics, and these aesthetics had profound and important differences in meaning.
Ornament in Context
Debates over ornamention are something that has existed in Western Civilization since the very beginnings of history (we’ll investigate this in the next post). However, in this particular case, there are a few important specific associations that stick out.
Professionalism: The Epsteins, in a fascinating conversation about the term "klezmer," first state that klezmer just means musician. Fair enough. But then they immediately go on to declare that the term is, in fact, quite derogative, and that, if you were to call them one, you “might get a punch in the nose!" So the term, after all, does mean something besides just “musician”! Specifically, it meant, at that time, a nonprofessional musician, a low-class musician, a bad musician.
Sokolow, at the end of his exhortation against over-ornamenting, mentions professionalism as a mark of authenticity, (which is true enough, but for many Americans raised on ideas about folk music, its a funny little twist):
The musicians I played with were working musicians in the Catskills, in Brooklyn, in the Bronx. This was the way we did it this way. I am the last generation of working musicians who played this music for a living. These others are just guys who discovered it. Very few of them are really authentic in style.
Literacy
Another way of saying "Play the melody" is to say, as Max Epstein did, "Play it the way it's written, note for note." Again, compare this quote with the musician from Vitebsk. This association with literacy is a constant refrain in the battle for status amongst musicians all over the world. Unfortunately, as with professionalism, this literalism is at odds with the authenticity that most people today are seeking in the music. To be fair, this association with literacy is just that, an association, and very rarely do any of these musicians say that the music should be presented without any ornament or more importantly, any phrasing or tone color/timbre.
Literacy combined with professionalism unveils another odd dimension to this: the “crude klezmers,” like Brandwein, noted to either only play Jewish music or to have small repertoires. This had two implications: (1) It placed extra focus on the non-melodic aspects of the music, such as ornament, phrasing, timbre, etc
[Brandwein] was really into that roughness. He often played very fast with all kinds of trills, glissando and jumps…[his] timbre immediately twisted in your ear, it was an important part of his style. (Strom, Tarras, page 20).
and also (2) it meant this oral-based musicians might have had a more conservative approach- meaning not that they were uptight, but that they retained aspects of the pre-literate culture and were less likely to introduce modern elements. Consider:
Brandwein’s repertoire was closer to what the klezmorim actually played in Eastern Europe. He certainly played a few American bulgars, but most of his repetoire already existed in Galicia, according to Hescheles. (Strom, Dave Tarras, p. 20)
Feminine
"It would appear, then, that virtually all of the terms associated with emotional aspects of the music and, in particular, with emotional aspects of the music and, in particular with ornamentation are expressions of a sad or lamenting quality." (Joel Rubin)
Is it too far to say that the connection with lamenting, a musical form that was solely the province of women and rang alarms amongst the dominant class for its emotionality, is related here? Perhaps, but ornamentation and women are an ever-present association in many other cultures and times as well. When I hear Tarras mention that too much ornamentation can damage the "spirituality of the melodies," I hear echoes over the battle about what is appropriate spirituality, a topic that, to me, is controlled by men and which has had a long history of excluding female forms of spirituality. Unfair perhaps. This will be tackled in the thread on Lamenting, Women and Catharsis that is coming soon.
Naftule
These kids are enamored of Naftule. The klezmer style they play is very folky. Listen to these violinists kvitching away. Nobody played like that, not in this country. They played like that back in Europe, or that's their idea of how they played. The problem is they don't learn how to play a song. This music should be interpreted as singing. - Sokolow
This quote is fascinating in its oppositions and contradictions. First, we see the dismissal of the fake "folky" as opposed to the authentic professional (see quote above). Sokolow says, "nobody played like that" except, of course, Naftule, “The King of Klezmer” did (sort of like how “Nobody eats there anymore, it's too crowded”) and that “they played like that back there.” Or maybe they didn’t. And of course, Naftule played here, in America. On top of it all, elsewhere in the interview, Sokolow mentions that he, like "these kids," loved Naftule and his playing! Mixed bleeping messages!
So, with Naftule, we find (1) an illiterate musician who (2) ornamented too much and (3) exhibited unprofessional behavior. Here we find the connection of most of the themes that hover around this issue of ornamentation and indeed over the status of "klezmer" in general. The insistence to not over-ornament reveals a rift in the klezmer community between two strains that co-existed in it. The “old-timers” that gave this advice were all part of the more professional strain, one that de-emphasized ornament, starting in the 1940s (I’d argue earlier, but its ok.)
“Tradition” now becomes “traditions.”
If I was a hard-boiled detective, now is when I would drag Mr. Sokolow into the station to get to the bottom of this. What is he hiding? What lies in the “submerged layers” that are “surprisingly deep?” And Who is he covering for?