Knitting On The Roof

a review by Stephen Fruitman of
release format Knitting On The Roof by Various Artists (CD Album)

text

The phenomenally successful 1960s Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof has been much execreted by intellectuals for pasteurizing, banalizing and commercializing the vanished Jewish culture of Eastern Europe. However, with the advent of a "radical Jewish culture" among the downtown NYC avantgarde and its unabashed fondness for pop culture, a rehabilitation of the show has been in evidence. Some artists have already featured covers of various tunes on their albums, while others have recycled the so-called ersatz "Jewish" or klezmer sounds featured in the original, thereby acknowledging Fiddler as a seminal influence - a gesture defying the tastemakers' compartmentalizing culture into either high- or low-brow.

Knitting on the Roof is a rousing, humourous, affectionate look at the world of Tevye the Milkman, his wife Golda, his five daughters and his little town of Anatevka. On the whole, the only disappointment here is the fact that no one saw fit to sample the voice of the Ur-Tevye, Zero Mostel. Some renditions are just plain silly fun, like The Residents' version of "Matchmaker", others are klezmer rave-ups ("Tradition" by the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars or Hasidic New Wave's "Wedding Celebration"). Eugene Chadborne deracinates "Miracles of Miracles" and places it smack-dab on some back porch in Appalachia, all twanging guitars and strumming banjoes, transforming it into a slightly bent hillbilly revival song. Still others are played straight, like Uri Caine's touching "Sabbath Prayer" with the Yiddish singer Lorin Sklamberg or Jill Sobule's Brooklyn-inflected rendering of "Sunrise, Sunset". In between are choice cuts of experimental derring-do, including Negativland's remarkable deconstruction of "Tevye's Dream" or the duo Come's stroke of genius - having Tevye ask Golda the seminal question "Do You Love Me?" over a pay phone from some downtown deli. The Paradox Trio round things off with a Sephardic-tinged version of the play's closing number, "Anatevka", which relocates the little shtetl from the Pale of Settlement to somewhere on the Balkan peninsula. But why not? When you're in love (with good music), the whole world is Jewish! Posted by Stephen Fruitman at 00:00, 01 Mar 2000