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Klezmer....

dreskieboogiedreskieboogie 951 Posts
edited November 2006 in Strut Central
Last weekend I found a Klezmer record by Giora Feidman and it has a song called "shlomo" (solomon) which has a quite funky intro so my question is if theres any really funky Klezmer songs?Apparently this genre is called "niggun" which means a Jewish soultune....Dress

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  • TheBeatGoesTheBeatGoes 711 Posts
    Apparently this genre is called "niggun" which means a Jewish soultune....

  • dreskieboogiedreskieboogie 951 Posts
    Yeah, but thats what its called according to an insert that came along with aforementioned lp...

    Dress
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Dave Taras is kicking it.
  • PATXPATX 2,820 Posts
    Almost funky: http://waxidermy.com/2006/04/23/messengers-live-in-concert/
  • Danno3000Danno3000 2,850 Posts
    I've had this discussion a number of times, and the general consensus seems to be that klezmer stopped being anything but revivalism far too early for any klezmer fusions of the sort we'd find interesting. There's certainly some fascinating contemporary Klezmer experiments, including really excellent work by David Bookbinder with Hilario Duran and Steve Bernstein, but I understand that klezmer wasn't particular vibrant or vital in the 60s and 70s.

    I would love to be proven wrong. I dream of deep kelzmer jazz. Where's the Lloyd Miller of klezmer?
  • Danno3000Danno3000 2,850 Posts


    is there really a jewish word for "soul tune"??

    First, an important clarification: "Jewish" is not a language. Yiddish is sometimes incorrectly called "Jewish" and this is often a source of confusion.

    "Niggun" is a Hebrew word that translates, more or less, as a "melody without words". It's pronounced "nigoon". A niggun is a soul tune in the sense that it's believed to lift the soul to greater spirituality.

    rootlesscosmo probably knows more about this than I do, but I'm sure you can learn all you want with a simple google search.
  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Like you said the Klezmer revival started about '80 and was very traditional oriented at first. So no funk fusion.

    There are a few 50s - 60s jazz lps of Jewish melodies.

    I finally found the Terry Gibbs record a year or so ago. Very disappointing, they play a very stiff version of something like Havanagila through once, then play some light jazz that does not acknowledge the song, then return to the melody.

    I once had a Bagles and Cha Cha record that was better.

    I did have a Dave Taras record on Colonial that was killer. Not fusion though.
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