2004/11/24 Due to ongoing severe health issues and complications, regrettably no updates could be posted for some considerable time now, and it's taken up till now to even get someone to post this note for me. There is a considerable backlog of reviews that are either ready, almost ready, or were still in preparation when I got too ill to continue. These will be posted as soon as I'm well enough to attend to these matters again. Apologies all round.
Could I please ask everybody to hold all email, especially requests for reviews etc., until "normal sevice" is resumed. I'm really in no condition yet to attend to any amount of email, and there is a backlog of some 1,000 messages already. I'll try and deal with these as soon as my condition permits, but please, don't add to this backlog if possible.
"I'll be back" - ASAP.
Rainlore's World of Music aims to feature all the best in music of all types, with a mix of info, news and reviews, with a particular emphasis also on providing exposure for generally less well-known artists, and thus share some of the wonderful music around with a wider audience. Eventually, it is also hoped to provide, in some cases, information, hints, and contacts and links for further info specifically for musicians and composers who might wish to perhaps explore a new medium or a new genre, or even a new and unfamiliar instrument, that might be poorly (or not at all) covered in textbook literature.
The principal focus of Rainlore's World of Music is Jewish music of all varieties, and Steel Pan. However, other kinds of music are also covered, and very often of course there is significant overlap anyway. The most prominent aspect of the site at present are CD reviews as well as reviews of UK live events featuring principally Jewish music, and a slowly growing number of Artists' profiles. The Jewish Music page is the most active of the various music pages, with news and info, and you can also access the reviews and artist's profiles from there. There are also some useful links on the links page.
From time to time access to the site may be somewhat slow. This will be due to the site temporarily being moved onto a slower server by my ISP due to excessive bandwidth use, owing to this site experiencing quite remarkably heavy traffic at times.
The Michael Joseph Guzikow Archives
Alex Jacobowitz's Michael Joseph Guzikow Archives, to give them their full title, are hosted on this site. They are a collection of material concerning the 19th century Jewish musician Michael Joseph Guzikow (various alternate spellings are in use, e.g., Gusikov, Gusikow, and Guzikov, but Guzikow seems the most accurate as it is the Polish spelling), famed in his day for his virtuoso playing of his shtroy fidl, a kind of xylophone that consisted of wooden keys laid out on little bundles of straw. Although small at present, the archives should expand significantly as we go along, and work is in hand.
If you are an artist yourself (of whatever genre - I love all good music, regardless of "genre", geography, ethnicity or politics) and would like to be included in these pages, or have an album out that you would like me to review here, or are based/performing in the UK and would like me to review your event, please feel free to contact me.
You really don't have to be Jewish to enjoy and appreciate Jewish music, any more than you have to be a born and bred Trini (Trinidadian) to enjoy and appreciate Steel Pan or Kaiso (calypso), or Italian to enjoy Vivaldi or Verdi, or whatever!
Jewish music comes in more varieties, flavours and kinds than you could easily shake a stick at and covers many "genres". Jewish music can take the form of Western classical music, Ottoman art music (Turkish classical music of the court, or seraglio, of the Ottoman Emperors), Arabic classical music, Hip Hop, Rap, avantgarde jazz, klezmer (originally instrumental music played for weddings and similar occasions in the Ashkenazic communities), Yiddish folk song, Yiddish theatre/cabaret song, "Ghetto Tango" - the deeply poignant, often heart-rending Yiddish songs created amidst all the horrors of the Jewish Ghettos of the Shoah or Holocaust period -, Cantorial chant and other liturgical music, Ladino cantigas, romances and other songs, Andalusian music, and many, many more forms and categories, and some naturally enough defies "pidgeon holing".
Whatever "genre" it is, classical, traditional, modern, whatever, and whether Sephardic, Mizrakhic, Ashkenazic, Jewish music in all its forms and guises represents an extraordinarily rich culture and tradition, and has been a major and highly enriching influence on many other cultures and traditions for centuries or even millenia, not least European/Western music in general, Western classical music, and Central Asian music.
Above all, Jewish music is soulful and vibrant, exhilerating and poignant, even deeply sad in turn, it is fun and enjoyable, like all good music. So go on, explore what's on offer here...!
(coming RSN)
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