Efrén del Valle <efrendv@yahoo.es> wrote: responding to Arthur Gadney's:

...

As far as I remember, Anthony Coleman mentions in the "Sabbath In Paradise" documentary, that part of Jewish character is "asking questions without expecting answers". Perhaps the whole RJC has to be seen in that light.

Could be, but I really think that when you're promoting a movement that carries the word "Radical" you should be really clear about what that exactly means, specially considering how easy it seems to cross the line between coherence and dumb fundamentalism.

Moreover, perhaps painting, cinema, music and any other art forms do not really need explanations and should be perceived in a more physical way as opposed to more cerebral conceptions. But when referring to a movement that's supposed to be representing a whole generation or an ethnic group like in this case, using that sounds to me more as an excuse.

If you start something like the RJC you should be ready to give clear explanations if it really has some solid foundations. What includes you in that group? Which are the features that bring all those people and their artistic expression together besides the fact of being born as Jews?

Efrén, What have you seen that makes you think that RJC is "supposed to be representing a whole generation or an ethnic group"? When I see someone writing about "radical black poetry" or "radical gay theater" I know by the very use of the modifier "radical" that the person using the phrase recognizes that there is indeed other black poetry or gay theater that is not radical. I assume the same about the phrase "Radical Jewish Culture". To posit something called "Radical Jewish Culture" by definition means the coiner of the phrase realizes there is some Jewish culture which is NOT radical, otherwise the first word of the term would be redundant. & to respond to your later post on this thread, in English "radical" does NOT necessarily bring with it a sense of "purity" with or without ethnic/racial overtones. For that matter, what have you seen from Zorn himself, rather than from someone else interpreting or criticizing the series of CDs, that the sense of the term is even mainly political, rather than primarily a marketing strategy, distinguishing a particular series of CDs from those that are part of the Composer Series, of film music, of "New Japan" etc? Looking at the overall releases put out by Tzadik as a whole, it's very clear that Zorn does NOT think the rubric "Radical Jewish Culture" applies to the output of the entire ethnic group (or even of some specific subset of that group). Zorn has released many discs by Jewish composers and performers, which are NOT included in the RJC series, but instead has released under the composer series, the film music series, etc. (He's also made similar distinctions for discs by Japanese composer/performers, not all of which have been released as part of the New Japan series.) Based on the fact that he's making some kind of distinction between recordings by Jewish composers & performers that he has included in RJC & those which he has included in some other series that Tzadik has released, it seems obvious that he has something more specific in mind when he uses the term than simply "music by Jewish musicians." The CDs that Zorn HAS released as RJC, seem to fall into a three categories: the largest category (I think) is the various groups who do non-traditional forms of klezmer; there are discs in which the composer/performers are using some kind of non-klezmer, often non-musical, & sometimes autobiographical, thematic material with roots in Jewish culture as the basis of their work (like the Richard Teitelbaum Golem disc, Shelley Hirsch's O Little Town of East New York; Zeena Parkins Maul-Mouth-Betrayer, etc); and the 3-4 discs of "Great Jewish Music" - "radical" re-interpretations of music by pop musicians of Jewish descent. To my ears, the first two of these categories are all some kind of re-examination of Jewish culture through the means of new music. Exactly how radical any of those transformations may be is a matter of taste and prior knowledge of the cultural tradition in question, but from a musical standpoint many of the approaches taken are in line with music which in other contexts has been called "radical." By the early part of the 21st century, all of these approaches may not be musically radical, but again that's a matter of taste as much as anything else. In other words, I'm not sure that the term "radical" in this context necessarily has the political overtones that seem to concern folks in the frequent discussions of RJC. The third category of discs have been somewhat more problematic. People will get a wild hair up their butt because Serge Gainsbourg didn't think of himself as Jewish or whatever, but I think this misses the point in several ways, the most important being that the liner note discussions of Bachrach, Bolan, Gainsbourg, etc. (have there been any others yet?) are funny. Very funny. So much so that the "Great Jewish Music" series has to be seen as at least partly tongue in cheek. And, getting back to the description of the other two types of RJC discs, at least some of the re-workings of the songs by these composers could rightfully be categorized as musically radical. A couple of years ago, I wrote to this list that some sense of what Zorn means by RJC could possibly be determined from the quotes from Gershon Scholem that he's used on some of the Masada discs, combined with the writing quoted in the packaging of Coleman's RJC discs, particularly from the Selfhaters discs. Thinking about it again, I'd add the liner notes to the Great Jewish Music series and add Lenny Bruce's schtick about dividing everything in the world as being either Jewish or Goyish. Using this last as a yardstick, needing to identify a specific political platform for a series of CDs that is both musically and politically all over the map, MAY be very, very Goyish. Bests, Herb -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb@eskimo.com