Frank London Interview
from Sound & Spirit program "Altered States"
Sound & Spirit host, Ellen Kushner: Klezmer music comes from the same world as the Hasidic movement: the world of Eastern European Jews. New York Klezmer musician Frank London has been digging into the music and the spirit of the Hasidim.
Frank London: They had these melodies and these songs... These are called "nigunim". And these melodies would be chanted over and over again. And often it would start like this: You sit down on Shabbos, on Friday night, and you drink... And we have to understand that use of drugs use of chemicals is an essential part of most trance/ecstatic experiences. It separates us from our normal consciousness and breaks down barriers. And so you would sit down on Shabbos; you would drink; the Rabbi would start singing a song...(sings, while thumping the table) "Ai-yi-yi, Ai-yi-yi..." And then the other Hasidim, the other Jews, start singing along and banging on the table (thump, thump) and then that leads to them dancing in a circle which is called a rikid or a rikidal, and it's the repetition that leads to the ecstatic state; It's the drug, in this case alcohol, which starts to liberate the spirit. It's the intention that you should elevate your spirit; and all these things combined becomes actually a ritual every week.
S&S: Frank, you are a member of the klezmer group The Klezmatics, and klezmer music is not the same as the Hasidic religious singing of the nigunim. Is there a connection?
FL: Klezmer is generally the instrumental music. Its most well- known function is at weddings. The nigunim is generally sung. It's often not a professional thing; It's people sitting around together and doing it...at Shabbos table, or dinner table, or at the end of a study session. They do overlap...
S&S: (interrupting) OK... But essentially what I think I'm understanding is that the nigunim exist to get you to a devotional trance state with all the attendant ritual; whereas klezmer music is more secular...
FL: No. In Judaism... the sense of what is secular and what is sacred is very different than it is in the Christian world... The purpose of Judiasm is to take every action that we do and make it sacred. This is for me perhaps the core of Judaism. We act certain ways in order to make sacred everyday action. There's a thing called a "mitzvah" - a mitzvah is thought of as a good deed. But it's a much higher thing it is actually a two-way exchange of light and energy between humans and the deity which is the universe. So it is a connection to the Eternal. And right away you notice now we're going from something very simple, to something mystical. At a wedding, the mitzvah of a wedding is to make the bride and groom freilach, "happy", to make the occasion freilach. This is not just a practical thing of playing the dance, it's also a mystical, spiritual thing: By making the bride and groom freilach, happy at the wedding, we are acheiving a real connection with the deity. And we have made a secular event a sacred event. [music starts softly] The dancers are going through, again, all the rituals that it takes to acheive these levels of trance and ecstasy. They've been drinking, they're running around furiously, even more intensely than say at Shabbos where you're singing nigunim and maybe dancing more decorously. You could be dancing in a frenzied pace for hours at a wedding.
[Joyous klezmer music]
S&S: Frank, you've also done a lot of exploring outside of the Jewish tradition. You play, uh, what you might call Jewish "ecstatic" music, [FL: Right...]but you've also explored other cultures...
FL: I've also played at other kinds of things, yes...
S&S: Which did you start exploring first?
FL: Actually, all the non-Jewish traditions came first...
S&S: I thought so...
FL: Yes...
S&S: Tell me about that...
FL: But it didn't follow the normal, expected path where a Jew goes seeking meaning outside of his or her tradition and gets to Eastern Buddhism and everything and then finds the true meaning in Judaism. Rather, the music was often my guide. And in a very crass secular way, the gigs I got hired for were my guide, so I first got hired for Latin groups, then I got hired for Haitian bands...and...
S&S: Really... As a horn player?
FL: Yeah...As a horn player, sure... More in the commercial bands; It always starts this way. A Salsa band, a Compas band, and later a Klezmer band. And it happened in within a, about, two or three year period.
S&S: How did you go from dance bands to some of the ritual.
FL: As a horn player, you're needed in all of these different environments and it's an instant invitation into the community because you are serving a function.
S&S: And musicians are sort of privileged characters who can walk between cultures I think.
FL: Yeah... Wha...what we don't get in monetary reward, we make up for in much deeper levels of reward like this cross culture experience. I was rehearsing with a Salsa band, and it turned out that the lead singer was also a Santeria priest, and the events we would play with this one band would be kind of private events... First we'd be playing some dance sets...some salsa, some merengue, some coimbia, and all of a sudden the drummers would go off into the different ritual beats, and then all of a sudden we're in a different place with the chanting, because in the Afro-Cuban, Afro-Haitian traditions there's a possession ritual. And that is a very different description of the trance state than the Jewish model where you are singing yourself or dancing into an inner sense of ecstasy. The analogy is that you are the horse and the god "mounts" you; and the music has facilitated them getting to this space...the music, the dance, the rhythm, the repetitive nature. And I also believe, and many of the people that I've studied with and read, say that we are taught the ritual. Ahhh... This is the first good answer that I've had for you, Ellen... [S&S: laughs] Where you are, is often where you have been taught you are going to get.
S&S: Yeah
FL: You got that?
S&S: I do...
FL: If you are taught a model that you're going to dance and a god is going to come down and here's the five different gods that could come down and mount you...And if you have this one you are going to walk with a limp; and if you have this one you are going to be able to chew on glass... Perhaps it is because one has been taught to act that way. So when we go to a Grateful Dead concert or sing nigunim with the rabbi, often we have seen people doing it in our community. And we know to expect that. When we think of Jews at a wedding, and in your mind you see them running in a circle, so then if you have never been to a Jewish wedding and you go to one you'll probably say, "Oh I join in the circle and run around..."
S&S: Hmmm
FL: Already you have the model. Now the possibility exists that for you...to come totally as a naive blank-slate and you just hear some music and you start clapping your hands along and you're dancing and all of a sudden you get to another place. However, it is much more efficacious if you have been prepared; if someone has said, "Listen, Ellen, you know, we're going to go to this concert, we'll have a couple of drinks, we'll smoke a joint first, we're going to get into the rhythm... And then you know, we'll get up and sing along for a while...and dance, and you'll really get to another place. Right away now, you've been initiated in a sense...you've been trained, you've been told to expect an experience, and you can go along with it.
S&S: Don't you think that there's also a human desire to get to that place?
FL: Absolutely!! This is why every organized group, on some level organized religion, has these rituals, whether they are a Mormon choir doing a group singing... That, too, can elevate the spirit...Singing Christmas carols if done with this intention can bring people to another state.
[Music]
S&S: Frank London plays trumpet, cornet, alto horn and keyboards with the New York-based klezmer group, The Klezmatics.
This interview was part of the Sound & Spirit program "Altered States".For more of Ellen's conversations check Interviews in the section Above and Beyond.
HOME | About the Series | Programs | Stations and Times
Feedback | Above and Beyond | Sound & Spirit Albums | Listen Online
Sound & Spirit | WGBH Boston | Public Radio International