[Dixielandjazz] Micky Katz and beyond!

[David Richoux]

Following up on this diversion - a snip from http://music.ucsd.edu/ 
~dborgo/research/cbpk.htm !


> In the last few decades, scholars from within several disciplines  
> have become increasingly dissatisfied with the extant discourses on  
> race, genetics, nationality, and even culture.  Many are now  
> investigating ethnicity as a flexible marker of social solidarity  
> and in-group belonging.  In a 1994 article titled “Race, Ethnicity,  
> Expressive Authenticity: Can White People Sing the Blues?” Joel  
> Rudinow argues that:
>> Unlike race... which is supposed to be innate and in nature,  
>> ethnicity requires no genetic or biological foundation. Ethnicity  
>> is a matter of acknowledged common culture, based on shared items  
>> of cultural significance such as experience, language, religion,  
>> history, habitat, and the like. Ethnicity is essentially a  
>> socially conferred status -- a matter of communal acceptance,  
>> recognition, and respect.3
>             Robert Walser writes that “music, because of its  
> relative immateriality and discursive autonomy, may be particularly  
> well-suited to participate in the fluid relationships of discourses  
> and history that we associate with postmodernism."12  When  
> discussing the polka mass, he finds that “it not only draws on the  
> strength of specific ethnic identities but also reaches across them  
> to make common cause in the face of shared threats."13
>             Are there enough similarities in the African and Jewish  
> experience in America to allow a black jazz musician some access to  
> expressive authenticity in klezmer music?  While I could posit  
> similarities based on a history of ethnic persecution (slavery and  
> the Holocaust) and racist treatment (segregation and anti- 
> Semitism), this would be subscribing to the “myth of ethnic memory”  
> described by Rudinow.  As he points out, baby-boomer Jewish  
> Americans have no more claim to an inviolable understanding of the  
> Holocaust experience, than middle class, urban blacks have of the  
> southern, rural origins of the blues.14  These observations aside,  
> It must be admitted that American society, on the whole, is often  
> slow to reflect changing attitudes towards ethnic diversity, and  
> many remnants of these historical sentiments still exist today.

So, where do we take this on the OKOM field?

Dave Richoux


On Mar 24, 2007, at 6:32 PM, David Richoux wrote:

> That was the Mickey Katz who was Joel Grey's father and Jennifer  
> Grey's (the actress) grandfather. He did a lot of stuff with Spike  
> Jones and a lot of other novelty groups.
>
> There are a lot of his "Katz Pajamas" LPs floating around the used  
> record bins - I have a few of them, and his music was also honored  
> in a modern jazz recording by the reed player Don Byron: Don Byron  
> Plays the Music of Mickey Katz
>
> To send this thread even further  off track -  I saw the New  
> England (Boston) Klezmer Conservatory with Don Byron on clarinet  
> way back in the early 1980s - it was not my first exposure to  
> Klezmer Jazz, but it was quite a show!
> I am planning a future Yiddish Jazz program for KFJC - if you all  
> have any ideas or names I should explore (other than the obvious Al  
> Jolson, Benny Goodman and etc...)
>
> how about this screed: http://music.ucsd.edu/~dborgo/research/ 
> cbpk.htm !
>
> Dave Richoux
>
> On Mar 24, 2007, at 3:44 PM, Craig I. Johnson wrote:
>
>> Stan,
>> That sure takes me back. That was Mickey Katz
>> who also  recorded with a group called "The Kosher Jammers"?
>> I sure wish I had my old 78s of "Tico Tico" (Tickle Tickle)
>> and "Chloe"  ("Cloyeh"). - in yiddish.
>> Do I have it right?
>> Craig Johnson
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dixielandjazz mailing list
>> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz