More Nign of Reb Mendel

I continue to listen to this cd.   My first reaction to the music was that the chassidic singer Eli Silberstein reminded me of my grandfather Emanuel (Manny) singing in my home.   He lived with my family till he died when I was about 15.   He was a gentle soul and free spirit.   He loved to tell stories and he loved to sing.   I have a tape of him singing, and sadly, on tape he refused to sing in "jewish." but only sang American songs.   But in person he often sang in yiddish.

My next experience of this CD is the doubling of voice and clarinet.   That's not common in current klezmer, but Rubin says it was not uncommon in an earlier period.   My experience here,  is that there is a l joining of the word and wordless.....ways to spirit.   That joining is powerfully compounding.

I have generally experienced this CD as joyful, but tonight it evokes sadness.   It's taken me a while to track that....and in fact I started this blog entry to help find the sad roots.   Well the music is taking me back to the places in Europe where jews lived, came from, and no longer are present.   But I am not one to romanticize shtetl living.   People were poor, oppressed, and in many ways narrowed.  Romanticization aside, I believe I'm experiencing the contrast with American culture, the restlessness, the drive to almost always be someone else, be somewhere else, do something else.   Lately I've been finding my own ability to just sit still and absorb the present to be heightened.

But back to the music.   The string that is touching me is the lack of this restlessness, this seeking to be other, and a settledness into the music as set in place, in religion, in daily life.       And my sadness: the difficulty in modern life to find that same sense of settlement....  the word authenticity comes to mind, but does not really do justice.....

And so in some way my image of Manny Miller speaks here.   My father regarded him as "simple."   meaning in his terms not an intellectual.   But Manny (in my memory) was settled.   He loved music, he loved his grandkids, he loved to eat, he loved to tell stories, he loved to sing.   I think when he was younger he also loved women and he loved to dance.   At an unsettled time in my life, I am wishing myself back onto his knee as he sang Oy Avram.   Thank you Joel and Rabbi Silberstein.   And granddaddy, thank you for this gift......which took me 50 years to notice.