[Dixielandjazz] We solved the problem! Music?

[Elazar Brandt]

Shalom Jazz Fans,

Yes, people on this side of the globe definitely march to the beat of a
different drummer. There are more kinds of drums here (Israel and the middle
east) than I've ever seen in my life. I was at a wedding in Egypt where the band
had 6 drummers and a trumpet. That was the whole band! One of the drummers had a
western style set. When they have more than one melody instrument, they all play
the melody -- and I use the term advisedly. No chords, no harmony. The beats are
asymmetrical. The music is more whiny and just plain noisy than any western
music I've heard.

But people here take it seriously, and yes, they'll dance to it until the camels
come home. There are MTV style shows with music videos, lavish costumes and
productions, the works.

Occasionally I get a gig where some visionary Israeli person hires a jazz band
for a party or festival celebration, but some of the people live in such a small
world that they probably think we are the ones making noise and they wonder
where is the music. A time or two, people have even put on a tape or CD of their
music while we were playing! Then they started dancing and singing. They
probably thought that was somehow adding to our performance.

Now I'm a guy who enjoys mixing cultural metaphors, especially with music. We
play klezmer -- which is usually played with accordion, clarinet and violin --
with our traditional OKOM line-up of banjo, horns and tuba. It works. But I
challenge anyone here to try to make sense of the middle eastern musical
tradition and play along with it, unless you've studied it in depth. A guy
selling keyboards in a flea market once challenged me. He said he could play
phrases from an Arabic popular song, and I would not be able to duplicate them.
He was right.

Then there are the guys who take the "hum a few bars" approach, and want us to
play their favorites for them. "You can do it!" they'll say. "It goes
nya-eee-ah-ee-ah-ah-ah-ah-ee-ah-ah-oo-ah..." Of course, I had a similar
experience at an Orthodox Jewish wedding once, when the Rabbis, perfectly
serious, kept asking us to play their songs. "It goes oy-didee-boy-didee-boy..."
We didn't succeed at that either.

Our motto: "When in doubt, play 'Bill Bailey'."

Elazar
Doctor Jazz Band
Tekiya Trumpet Ensemble
Jerusalem, Israel
<www.israel.net/ministry-of-jazz>
Tel: +972-2-679-2537



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Romans [mailto:cellblk7 at comcast.net]
> Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 9:25 PM
> To: tcashwigg at aol.com; dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] We solved the problem! Music?
>
>
> Hey...don't leave Lodi out when it comes to Middle-Eastern "music"...we have
> about 2500 Pakies living in Lodi, and when you walk by their stores down on
> Sacramento street, it makes you feel like dancing...away as quickly as you
> can!