Ethnomusicology Forum

ISSN: 1741-1912 (Print) 1741-1920 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/remf20

Gypsy/Klezmer Dialectics: Jewish and Romani

Traces and Erasures in Contemporary European
World Music

Carol Silverman

To cite this article: Carol Silverman (2015) Gypsy/Klezmer Dialectics: Jewish and Romani Traces
and Erasures in Contemporary European World Music, Ethnomusicology Forum, 24:2, 159-180,
DOI: 10.1080/17411912.2015.1015040

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2015.1015040

Published online: 17 Apr 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 952

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 3 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=remf20

Download by: [189.58.21.150] Date: 03 November 2016, At: 03:34

Ethnomusicology Forum, 2015
Vol. 24, No. 2, 159180, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2015.1015040

Gypsy/Klezmer Dialectics: Jewish

and Romani Traces and Erasures in
Contemporary European World Music
Carol Silverman

As klezmer and Balkan Romani music have become popularised in Western Europe
since 1989, an increasing number of performers in both of these genres are non-Roma
and non-Jews. This holds especially true for the new performance complex Gypsy/
klezmer that imputes connections between two of Europes quintessential Others, and,
in transforming their ethnic specificities into a generic hybridity, facilitates the
appropriation of their cultural goods by outsiders. I interrogate this complex and its
semiotic conflation of Jews (absent Others constituted historically as over-present) and
Roma (too-present Others who are historically absent) in the current European political
climate that is multiculturalist but increasingly xenophobic. I note that Gypsy/klezmer
performers claim a double authenticity based on a kind of hybridity that validates
appropriation. I argue that specificities of Romani and Jewish geography, history and
musical style are erased precisely as the Gypsy/klezmer complex becomes more popular.

Keywords: Roma; Jews; Klezmer; Gypsy; Appropriation

The Balcony Players are an energetic Gypsy & Klezmer band that takes pride in
making people happy and dance around the world. (Balcony Adventures Around
the World 2012)
Klezmer and Gypsy musicthey sit quite naturally togetherit is all great music
dance music; and there is an anthropological relationship between themthat
geographical swayyou can follow the musical journey of similarities.

Carol Silverman, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Oregon, has engaged in
research with Roma for over 25 years in the Balkans, Western Europe and the USA. Her book Romani Routes:
Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2012), winner of the Merriam Prize
from the Society for Ethnomusicology, explores how Romani music is both an exotic commodity in the world
music market and a trope of multiculturalism in cosmopolitan contexts. Correspondence to: Carol Silverman,
University of Oregon, Department of Anthropology, Eugene, OR 97403-1218, USA. Email: csilverm@
uoreogn.edu

2015 Taylor & Francis

160 C. Silverman

(Interview, Donald Ridley, trombone, Trans-Siberian March Band, London, 18

September 2013)
Mix a dose of klezmer with a pinch of ska, add a shot of Balkan and a smidchen of
Gypsy, top it all off with a tablespoon of jazz and dollops of punk, then put
everything through the blender et voil, youve got the recipe for Amsterdam
Klezmer Band. Their fat brand of Klezmer Balkan grabs everyone by the balls.
When brass, double bass, accordion and percussion all take each other on with
pulsing grooves full of subtle yet raw energy, they really make an audience sweat.
(Rijven 2007)
The above quotes from albums, interviews and media reviews illustrate how the tags
Gypsy and klezmer are increasingly found side by side in world music discourse and
performance.1 What is the synergy between these discursive and musical concepts at
this particular moment in Europe? On what terms is this interplay occurring, and
why are non-Jews and non-Roma the primary performers? Music provides a valuable
performative window to historically unpack and re-examine current Jewish and
Romani positionalities in Europe, and to reveal their symbolic, artistic, political and
economic valence.
To analyse this Jewish/Romani dialectic, I explore the discursive work that Gypsy
and Jewish musics accomplish in the current political climate, which is simulta-
neously multiculturalist and increasingly xenophobic (i.e., anti-Semitic and anti-
Romani). I contrast the position of Jews as current absent Others who are
historically over-present with Roma as current too present Others who are
historically absent. Moreover, I examine how the recent world music marketing
strategy of authentic hybridity (Taylor 2007) helps propel Gypsy/klezmer as a sonic
brand. I argue that by strategically harnessing the cultural capital of two Othered
groups, performers create a doubly authentic music; they also validate appropriation
by invoking the innovative, hybrid quality of the two styles. Interrogating appropri-
ation, I argue that many specificities of Romani and Jewish musical style, identity,
geography and history are erased precisely as the Gypsy/klezmer mix becomes more
popular. Thus not only are Jews and Roma increasingly absent as both the performers
and consumers in this scene, but also historic and regional styles are rendered
irrelevant as a formulaically fused, New Old Europe Sound predominates in both
live and digital performances.

Emergence of the Gypsy/Klezmer Mix

This section provides a short history of the popularisation of klezmer and Gypsy
music in Western Europe. I begin with klezmer because its revival chronologically
began before the Gypsy craze. Indeed, the American revival of klezmer in the 1970s
propelled its expansion when Jewish American musicians began touring in Germany
in the 1980s (Ottens and Rubin 2002; Slobin 2000; Waligorska 2013). Spurred by the

1
I use Gypsy as a marketing category and Roma to refer to the ethnic group. Balkan refers to the southeastern
European peninsula. Space limitations prevent me from presenting a detailed music analysis.
 Ethnomusicology Forum 161

booming business for klezmer, Western European bands and festivals proliferated in
the 1990s, especially in Germany (Waligorska 2013: 278).2
Notably, many performers and consumers of post-1990s klezmer music were non-
Jews whose interest in the music was not only about its sound aspects but also about
dealing with the place of Jews in historical memory (Gruber 2002). After Germanys
unification in 1989, fascination for Jewish culture, both current and past, arose.
Germans were coming to terms both with the Holocaust and with a growing Jewish
population of Germany that became the third largest in Western Europe (Waligorska
2013: 4). In a sense, Jews became familiar figures in popular conceptions of Western
European history. Numerous Holocaust memorials were created across the region,
every German student was required to know about concentration camps, and many
publications examined native complicity with Nazi ideology. The Holocaust also
entered popular culture in Germany via television series, Yiddish language classes and
art and theatre projects (Waligorska 2013: 423). This burgeoning knowledge
contrasted with the tiny numbers of actual Jews in the region; hence I characterise
Jews as over-represented in history and under-represented today.
Non-Jewish fascination with klezmer is thus tied to guilt, nostalgia and historical
reconstruction. In addition, Jews are often said to be obsessed with history. As
Bohlman writes: So prevalent is klezmer on Europes festival and recording scene
that many regard it as the symbol for healing the wounds left by the holocaust (2009:
86). But selective omissions of Jewish history still exist in Europe today. Bohlman
further claims: Klezmer translates the Jewish into the global, yet the revival of Jewish
music also points to absences and silences surrounding Jews and Jewish culture
(2009: 88).
The Gypsy craze commenced in Western Europe in the same post-1989 time
frame, although the two scenes did not overlap until a decade later. Demand for
Romani music swelled after Balkan groups were permitted to tour, and musicians
travelled from local communities to global stages. With the documentary Latcho
Drom and the fiction films of Emir Kusturica, most notably Time of the Gypsies and
Underground, with scores by Goran Bregovi, Balkan Romani music reached a wide
European populace.3
In the mid-1990s, non-Romani DJs like Shantel began sampling Balkan Romani
music in their dance-club sets. This turned into a youth sub-culture composed of
dozens of DJs on four continents. Robert oko trademarked the term Balkan Beats,
now a transnational phenomenon referring to Romani music (Dimova 2007). Today,
Balkan Beats DJs play mixes in clubs in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Melbourne,
Istanbul and Mexico City, and in every city and some small towns in Western Europe
(Silverman 2012, 2013, 2015). Balkan brass band music has become so ubiquitous
that a Balkan or Gypsy festival without brass would be an oxymoron; in fact, the
terms Balkan, brass and Gypsy are now used interchangeably in marketing. Brass

2
Rubins paper in this volume analyses the role of Israeli clarinettist Giora Feidman.
3
Markovi (2008) documented Bregovis influence. Tony Gatlifs fiction films, especially Gadjo Dilo, also
promulgated Balkan Gypsy music and culture. See Silverman (2012, 2013).
162 C. Silverman

came to dominate the scene in part because the Kusturica/Bregovi films featured
brass bands in striking, outlandish scenes that reinforced historical stereotypes of
Gypsies as free, unruly, quasi-criminal, and outside the bounds of society.
Additionally, the repertoire narrowed to 2/4 and 4/4 metres because they are more
accessible to western audiences.
Brass fit well with the 1990s quest for authenticity in world music marketing
(Taylor 2007). Most Europeans shun the electrified wedding music played on
synthesisers that is characteristic of Romani community events, even though this is
perhaps the most vital genre in the Balkans. Brass bands, on the other hand, are acoustic
and seem older and more authentic; audiences note their energy, loudness and visceral
power. Western audiences can also relate to Balkan brass because Western Europe and
the United States have their own brass musical traditions. Finally, in the newest phase
of world music marketing that valorises hybridity, brass bands are depicted as fusion or
authentic hybrid because of their innovative repertoires and collaborative projects (see
Taylor 2007; see also Markovic, this volume, and below).

Historical Positions and Multicultural Stagings

To unpack the relationship between Gypsy and klezmer, I suggest that we contrast the
historical positionality of Jews with Roma. Whereas Jews are over-determined in the
realm of the Holocaust, Roma are over-determined in the realm of music. The Gypsy
musician is a very powerful historical stereotype; Gypsies are assumed to be genetically
talented, to embody music and, with it, to draw out the souls of their patrons. But while
Roma are revered for their music, they are reviled as people (Silverman 2012). As
Europes largest minority (at 12 million) and one of its quintessential Others, Roma
are socially, economically and politically marginalised in virtually all arenas of society
but their music has found a secure place in the European market.
In the post-socialist period, harassment and violence towards East European Roma
increased, along with marginalisation and poverty. Despite human rights campaigns,
Roma still have the lowest standard of living in every Balkan country, with
unemployment reaching 80% in some regions. Roma face inferior and segregated
housing and education, poor health conditions, discrimination in employment, hate
speech and physical violence. When East European Roma began migrating to Western
Europe after 1989, xenophobic politicians encouraged a hysterical fear of foreign
hordes, and an anti-Gypsy backlash ensued. Especially since 2007, when Bulgaria and
Romania were admitted into the European Union and migration from the Balkans
became more prevalent, deportations and evictions have increased all over Western
Europe as right-wing anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic parties have
gained ground (Cooper and Brackman 2014; Higgins 2014).
Roma remain absent from mainstream European history in textbooks, museums and
memorials. Romani activists have been advocating for years to gain visibility, specifically
in Holocaust commemorations; more than 500,000 (possibly one million) Roma were
murdered by the Nazis (Hancock 2002) but this number is often under-reported; in fact,
Jews sometimes claim unique ownership of the Holocaust, diminishing Romani suffering.
 Ethnomusicology Forum 163

As Streck notes, referring to Ruthers (2012): While the Holocaust dominates the
Europeanindeed globalculture of remembrance and its institutions, Roma studies are
left to eke out an existence on the margins (Streck 2013: 262).4 Roma are clearly less
powerful and less integrated into European institutions. I claim that just as Roma are
under-represented in history, they are over-represented as current threats (e.g. criminal
migrants on your doorstep).
Inversely, Jews loom large as historical victims but their current population figures
are very small. Jews are thus positioned as Europes historical Other and Roma as
Europes current Other, creating a potent combination. A famous scene in the 1998
Romanian fictional film Train of Life imagines a connection between Jews and Roma,
unified by persecution. In this scene, Romani and Jewish musicians (both fleeing
from the Nazis) inspire and compete with each other in an orgy of shared music and
dance.5 As I will illustrate, my consultants, too, invoked and romanticised this shared
Othering not only as a function of common experiences of discrimination, but also as
shared cultural and musical characteristics marked by migration, innovation and
cosmopolitanism.
In reality, Jews and Roma migrated for different reasons, Jewish and Romani
cosmopolitanisms are different, and migration is rarely romantic. Nevertheless,
double Othering can provide a powerful sense of musical authenticity while
simultaneously deflating actual politics. I will illustrate how most Gypsy/klezmer
bands shy away from political engagement while partaking in a bland multi-
culturalism. In blending Gypsy and klezmer, bands create appealing cultural capital
that appears to be emancipatory but often reproduces stereotypes and, moreover,
often omits Jews and Roma.
As an antidote to xenophobia, many Europeans champion multiculturalism, which
is often staged in terms of cultural goods. Partaking of ethnic music (and food, dress,
etc.), for example, is assumed to foster understanding, even if the ethnic musicians
are absent. Although Romani music has been conscripted into the multiculturalist
European project via festivals and albums, few projects are educational, benefit Roma
and have Romani leadership.6 For example, the Belgian Balkan Trafik festival7
receives liberal city, national and European Union funding for multiculturalism

4
Ruthers states: In contrast to the Roma/Gypsies, the Jews have sought out and found access to majority
societies since the Enlightenment. Because they were well educated and adaptable in comparison to other parts
of the population, they often had a decisive role to play in modernisation processes. The Roma/Gypsies,
however, never overcame the threshold of literacy and remained at the margins (2012: 53). Ruthers
provocatively compares performative stagings of authentic history in Kazimierz, Cracow by non-Jews and at
the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France by non-Roma, by invoking the carnivalesque.
5
This scene has been widely viewed on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8Hvit4Mms (accessed 5
July 2014).
6
One difference between the two groups is that klezmer music is embedded in the Jewish heritage tourist
industry that romanticises the shtetl (small town) and attracts many Jews. In contrast, there is no Romani
heritage industry; in fact, Roma are often written out of national histories and official state folklore; they are
assumed to be foreign others (Silverman 2014). However, the Council of Europe is developing The Roma Routes
tourist trail of heritage (see www.romaroutes.eu).
7
See www.balkantrafik.com
164 C. Silverman

despite having little educational programming. Sometimes a festival or concert that

merely features Gypsy or klezmer music is assumed to promote multiculturalism,
even if there are neither Roma nor Jews nor educational programmes. In using the
romance of Otherness to construct a utopian multicultural imaginary, non-Romani
performers such as Shantel and Bregovi rely on stereotypes, which in turn are often
promoted by festivals (Silverman 2013, 2015).
Jews and Roma rarely collaborate in multicultural projects involving music.
However, in 2013, at the height of expulsions of Roma in France, the Union of Gypsy
Associations and France's Jewish umbrella group came together for an evening of
music and cinema, aimed at challenging the stereotypes that discriminate against the
Roma community.8 Paris Reporter Christina Okello stated in a television clip:
Gypsies and Jews [are] bound by a common history of persecution Klezmer and
Gypsy music are evocative of pain and joy, forged in the Nazi death camps of Europe.
Today Jews are better integrated into society and the Roma remain frequent targets of
discrimination Despite all this, their music is joyful and full of life, a sign that the
human spirit cannot be broken. Common allies through their past, united through
their music, a music of emotion and positive energy, that Gypsies and Jews hope
remove a stigma of misery theyve long been associated with.
In this sweeping statement, Okello managed to equalise Romani and Jewish persecution,
unite them through art, and reduce both Romani and klezmer music to laughter
through tearsa common trope of Jewish shtetl (small town) humour. According to
her, music will supposedly mitigate oppression: Groups like the Gypsy Kings have
helped change international perceptions of Roma through their guitar music and
flamenco dancing. This remains a utopian goal.

Gypsy/Klezmer: A Performance Complex

When Joel Rubin alerted me several years ago to klezmer bands playing Balkan Gypsy
music, I was surprised. In my mind, the geography made no sense; klezmer music
was centred in Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, not the Balkans. Moreover, the Balkans
has its own Jewish musicSephardic, not klezmer! Jewish and Romani musicians did
play together professionally in some parts of Bessarabia (the border region between
Moldova and Ukraine) and possibly Carpathia (border area between southern
Ukraine, Romania and Hungary) but this was a tiny part of the East European and
Jewish musical repertoires.9 According to Joel Rubins research:

8
This and the following quotes are from: Jewish News 1 Channel: Jews and Gypsies tackle discrimination of
Roma community in France, 1 June 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovvQYjueCPo (accessed 7
July 2014).
9
Feldman (1994) published on probable klezmer/Romani interaction in Romania; more recently he has carried
out research in Moldova and Bessarabia. Stroms 2005 film deals with Romani/Jewish music interaction in
Carpathia; the Tyachiv Band still plays mixed repertoire from the Carpathian region (see http://beyondkarpaty.
mutiny.net/2010/10/mano-v-nyu-yorku-tyachiv-s-manyo-family-band-visit-new-york-city/ [accessed 10 January
2015]). In addition, Muzsikas (1993) released a CD of pre-holocaust Hungarian Jewish repertoire that was
remembered by Roma who survived, but this interaction was not widespread. My consultants were largely
unaware of these projects. Note that there are performers of Sephardic Balkan music, but they are not part of the
performance complex I describe.
 Ethnomusicology Forum 165

Jewish bands in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus, which formed the vast majority of
klezmorim in Eastern Europe, were almost always Jewish family bands. They would
occasionally have non-Jewish members if they didn't have enough family members
or if they needed specialised repertoire.10
However, after I discovered dozens of live acts11 as well as many DJs mixing klezmer
and Balkan, I realised that geographical and historical symbols can be more potent
than maps and actual history.
I refer to Gypsy/klezmer as performance complex rather than a genre
emphasising music making and human action as opposed to categories and
taxonomies (Madrid and Moore 2013: 1011). It is not one style or genre, but rather a
practice of performance, of representation and of discourse. Sometimes klezmer music
alternates with Balkan music, sometimes it is assumed to be one and the same, and
sometimes they are fused. Most of my interviewees agree that the complex started when
klezmer performers noticed the popularity of Gypsy music, specifically Balkan Beats;
some were captivated by the Gypsy sound; others wished to cash in on its wider youth
appeal.
This performance complex is the part of the New Old Europe Soundloud,
energetic, brassy, sweaty, dirty (Kaminskys introduction, this volume) with a circus-
like feeling and modal melodies on instruments that iconically represent Eastern
Europe, such as clarinet, accordion, trumpet and violin. I note several moves to create
this Sound. First, conflating of Balkan and Gypsy; this eliminates any music from the
Balkans that is not Gypsy (dozens of genres) and eliminates any Gypsy music that is
not from the Balkans (dozens of genres). Second, conflating Gypsy with brass, which
eliminates many genres. Third, narrowing metres to 2/4 or 4/4, which eliminates
many additive Balkan metres. Fourth, ignoring Sephardic music, which is the Jewish
music of the Balkans. Fifth, crafting a generalised version of klezmer that is tied to no
particular place or time.12
The Amsterdam Klezmer Band (AKB) is one of the most successful groups to
embrace Klezmer, Balkan style or typical Yiddish music mix with Balkan, Gypsy
and Russian (AKB 2008). With 11 albums and more than 1000 performances since
1997, they label themselves a mini brass band. Their publicity materials claim:

10
Personal communication, 1 August 2014.
11
A sample of these bands include the Amsterdam Klezmer Band, The Balcony Players (Amsterdam), Trans-
Siberian March Band, The Turbans, Shekoyokh (London), LOrkestina and the Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer
Orchestra (Barcelona), Sholem and Crakow Klazmer Band (Krakow), Miserlou and Knoblauch Klezmer band
(Berlin), Kapelsky (Dortmund), Kbetch (Israel), Balkano (Chicago) and Underscore Orkestra (Portland, OR,
USA). In 2010 a Klezmer/Jewish/Balkan/Gypsy Music Facebook page was created.
12
I focus on the first and fifth moves; the second and third are analysed in Silverman (2013). Simplistic, mistaken
and exoticised assumptions about musical commonalities can be found on the Internet, such as this comment by
Evan Heimlich: Klezmer music of Jewish immigrants overlaps with music of Eastern European Gypsies,
especially in oriental, flatted-seventh chords played on a violin or clarinet. http://www.everyculture.com/multi/
Du-Ha/Gypsy-Americans.html#ixzz1NahjhRe. In addition, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett perceptively analysed how
klezmer itself is a constituted heritage term and omits many East European Jewish genres (1998). However, the
historic narrowing of Jewish musical genres to klezmer by Jews differs from the recent broadening process of
non-members to create the Gypsy/klezmer complex.
166 C. Silverman

AKB was successful long before the Balkan hype became a worldwide phenomenon.
They suddenly found themselves being sampled and mixed by dance producers, to
their own astonishment. It appeared that the unique sound of the seven band
members was perfect for the popular Balkan Beat. (http://amsterdamklezmerband.
com/band/biography/ [accessed 30 January 2015])
In 2013 the AKB won a generous two-year Dutch government arts grant, with the
possibility of two more years of funding. Due to their popularity, AKB members are
full-time musicians.
The AKB, like all other groups I interviewed, valorise the idea of mixture, and
define klezmer neither as a musical style nor profession nor repertoire, but rather as
an innovative attitude:13
This omnivorous attitude allows the band to bring out the true essence of klezmer,
that party and wedding music with a tinge of melancholy played by itinerant
Jewish musiciansthe klezmorimwho absorbed everything that came their way
into their music. As contemporary heirs to this tradition, this magnificent seven
mix contemporary styles into the steaming melting pot. (http://amsterdamklezmer
band.com/band/biography/ [accessed 30 January 2015])
Trombonist Joop Van der Linden explained to me that you really cant define
klezmer Music doesnt have borders. Klezmer is not only Jewish Everyone who
plays klezmer adds something to it.14 When I asked Van der Linden about Balkan
elements in relation to klezmer, he said they have:
the same scales, chords, the same sounds It fits well together We just like it
People say we are more Balkan than klezmer, but no one can claim styles
There is nothing to be gained in imitation We are not a museum bandwe play
new klezmerthe tradition of innovation is essential to klezmer.
He added that we were helped by the Balkan craze Gypsy sells Balkan sells. In
addition, the label new klezmer gives license to innovate.
Similarly, Donald Ridley, trombonist in the Trans-Siberian March Band, a 14-piece
brass band, remarked:
We are aware of the Gypsy brass scene and we do covers of Bregovi ; the
klezmer stuffwell, musically there is a broad swaththe Pale in Russia down
through Eastern Europe into the Balkans into the Middle East into India. We pick
tunes we like and that people dance to. (Interview, 18 September 2013; also see
opening quote)
He further emphasised the bands costuming:
We are not wholly authenticwe dress up a lot and give it some welly We wear
silly costumesit is like our tuneswe pick them by what we think is fun; there is
no rhyme or reason. We dress in a pasticheburlesque. The Balkans lend
themselves to thatyou go bonkers to it. We are not purists!

13
See Waligorska (2013) and Kaminsky (2014, this volume).
14
Quotes related to the AKB are from interviews on 7 December 2013. Note that AKB leader Job Chajes
discovered his Jewish roots in the 1990s; also note that new klezmer is a broad term encompassing original
compositions inspired by klezmer.
 Ethnomusicology Forum 167

Another group of bands forego loud brass for the more intimate string sounds.
The Balcony Players, for example, moved from klezmer to Gypsy/Balkan when they
busked on the street in the Balkans, met Roma and arranged lessons and jam sessions
with them. The bands founder, Dutch violinist Moniek de Leeuw, was quite honest
about members lack of historical knowledge, stating: It is hard to study about this.
Ive heard that klezmorim and Gypsies both travelled around to play weddings,
and even played together. We travel, like them American bassist Martin
Mazikowski added: Klezmer and Gypsy mix really well. There are no big differences
between them.15
Unlike most groups, the Balcony Players visited Balkan Romani villages, collaborated
with Romani musicians, and were troubled by prejudice against Roma. They donate 50
cents from each album sold to the non-governmental organisation Balkan Sunflowers.
Martin remarked: We hope to reach people who dont have the image of the bad Gypsy
We spread positive stories. But concern for Roma was also mixed with romanticism
Mazikowski said: We want to spread our happy vibe to the Gypsy children in the
villagesthey dont have much but they are so happy! For example, they are so
thankful to be photographed.
LOrkestina (Barcelona 19972003) was perhaps one of the first European bands to
play a mix of klezmer and Balkan Romani music. They titled their first album Soul of
Europe: Jewish Gypsy (2002). Founder and British accordionist Jon Davison explained
that he discovered Balkan and Romani music in the 1990s and spent years mastering
the styles. He considers himself a purist, shunning synthesisers, brass and electrifica-
tion. In Barcelona he played with Bulgarians and taught them klezmer. Davison said:
We were playing music from these two communitiesso why not put them
together and find something in common? I dont know if this is true, but some
musicians in Romania play for Roma and for Jews and for everyone else. I was
interested in crossing identities, passing over boundaries, not in fusions.16
The Jewish Gypsy album continues to generate negative YouTube comments to the
present day.17 Some people object to the title while others voice nationalistic and
racist claims. Davison responded to these comments in March 2014:
Just to clarify the title It's merely an album name, reflecting our repertoire which
came from both traditions in the same part of the world, and putting the two words
together like that is clearly unlikely/impossible in reality. So it's just a concept for
an album, no more, no less.
In May 2013, Davison answered accusations of appropriation about LOrkestinas
second album Transylvania Express (2003) with:
The origins of the tunes are all credited Of the six tunes, there are: one
Romanian, one Jewish, one Gypsy and three Bulgarian You don't have to be
from a place in order to play music that is traditional , and we never claimed we

15
Quotes from the Balcony Players are from interviews on 8 December 2013.
16
Quotes from Jon Davison are from an interview on 20 September 2013. Davison did not mention specific
regions of Romania, and he thus generalised Romanian to Balkan.
17
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iUHW2yzErQ (accessed 6 July 2014).
168 C. Silverman

are from all the places we play music from. Anyway, tracks 1, 4 and 9 are all
traditional Bulgarian tunes and three of us are Bulgarian!
The London-based string band The Turbans also works from original recordings,
and pays attention to style, although their repertoire is organic and random according
to founder and violinist Darius Thompson.18 Thompson explained why he combines
klezmer and Balkan Gypsy: They have been playing in the same region for hundreds
of years; they have cross-informed each otherboth had wedding bands. A lot of the
songs are similar. On the other hand, he readily admitted: I am not an academic, and
I need to research the scene Im in Ive only been doing this for four years.
Regardless of technical ability, all of the bands discussed above have recently turned
toward original compositions rather than traditional tunes. Many claim this gives
them freedom of expression to fuse styles. This also frees them from claims of
imitation and appropriation (see below) and solves the problems of copyright.
Chicago-based clarinettist Bryan Pardo who leads the band Balkano, similarly notes
that he: Grabs bits from Eastern Europe not tied to any ethnicity. Anything east of
Czechoslovakia and north of Anatolia it turns out many players are Roma.19
Balkanos website stresses Old and New Worlds: Balkano melds the soul of traditional
Klezmer, the energy of Bulgarian wedding music and the melodies of Turkish Roma
music with American rock and jazz. The result is an exciting original blend of the Old
World and the New .20 Pardo announces the region of the tunes to audience
members, but says we play in rock clubs, festivals. No one is looking for an education
they just want to dance. For Pardo and many others, entertainment is paramount.
Kapelsky, a group from Dortmund, released an album in 2009 entitled Ostperanto
FolkjazzGipsy Swing, Klezmer, East European Folk & Jazz. Their website states: This
is the blend used by four musical vagabonds to chase after the myth of unchained
melancholy. With polka, klezmer and gypsy sounds, they explore the Slavic soul deep
into the Orient.21 The title Ostperanto (East in German + Esperanto) encapsulates the
contradictory strands in the Gypsy/klezmer complex. Esperanto is an invented
language meant to foster peace and multicultural understanding, precisely like this
musical blend. Ostperanto locates the style in the East, yet universalises it.
Symbolic geography further defines the East (or the Balkans) as a vast wild, untamed
area that is outside Europe, at its edge, associated with the past.22 The region
encompasses two exotic OthersJews and Romaand furthermore evokes their
migration, their emotion and their innovation. In the Gypsy/klezmer performance
complex, moreover, Jews and Roma are assumed to have the same emotive qualities:
fiery passion, soul, energy, melancholy and wildness. As Kirshenblatt-Gimblett states:

18
Quotes from Darius Thompson are from an interview on 21 September 2013.
19
Quotes from Bryan Pardo are from an interview on 18 November 2013.
20
See www.balkano.org (accessed 30 January 2015).
21
See www.kapelsky.de (accessed 30 January 2015).
22
Thanks to Joel Rubin, David Kaminsky and Alex Markovic for sharing their interpretations of Ostperanto. See
Todorova (1997) for discussion of the symbolic historic geography of the Balkans.
 Ethnomusicology Forum 169

The place is thena dreamy chronotype of Jewish gypsies, fiddling their way from
place to place, picking up the sounds around them, and fusing them into a zany
foot-tapping musical icon pierced by the soulful cry of a fiddle or clarinet. The
place is not now. (1998: 73)
Gypsy stereotypes perpetuated by the band Gogol Bordello (Jablonsky 2012) and
filmmaker Emir Kusturica add a circus-like, burlesque quality to the Gypsy/klezmer mix.
Band members thus emphasise several themes: Jewish/Romani connections via
migration, persecution, cosmopolitanism, openness and innovation, and the amorph-
ous region of Eastern Europe. Like the Swedish non-Jewish musicians that Kaminsky
(2014, this volume) studied, these Gypsy/klezmer musicians embrace a post-nationalist
stance where music is not glued to the land, but is viewed as universalistic. This
dislocation from particularity (Waligorska 2013: 1667; also see Kirshenblatt-
Gimblett 1998: 72). allows anyone to appropriate the music and its cultural capital,
regardless of ethnicity.

Balkan Beats DJs and Gypsy/Klezmer Mixes

Sentiments about DJs vary among performers of Gypsy/klezmer. Thompson, Davison
and the members of the Balcony Players all disdained DJs for their loud, formulaic
back beats and disproportionate market share. Others, like the AKB and the Trans-
Siberian March Band, have collaborated with DJs. Most musicians agree that DJs
have widened audiences and attracted a younger hipster scene. Karin Kranenborn, an
Amsterdam saxophonist who plays with both RaRomski (a Balkan Romani band) and
Ot Azoy (a klezmer band), remarked that DJs and live musicians helped each other
at first; furthermore, DJs made klezmer a party genre.23
Although the 1990smid-2000s were the height of the Balkan Beats scene, DJs still
find stable work today. For example, the Trans-Siberian March Band regularly do live
shows with DJ Yoda at the Rich Mix club in London, where they perform their
standard repertoire interspersed with Yodas wide-ranging mixes and visuals. In 2006,
Essay released the album Amsterdam Klezmer Band Remixed; DJ Shantels contribu-
tion to the album, Sadagora Hot Dub, became a pan-European hit and reinforced
the overlap between Balkan and klezmer. The synergy between Shantel and AKB was
facilitated by being on the same label, Essay; this also made it easier to secure
permissions for the remixes. The AKB recently released a remix album on their own
label with DJ/producer Jori Collignon called BLITZMASH, combining a unique mix
of Klezmer-Balkan-style with razor sharp percussion and electronica (http://
amsterdamklezmerband.com/744/#more-744 [accessed 14 February 2014]).
Karen Kranenborn attributes the original impetus for Gypsy/klezmer live
performance to DJs mixing the two genres, and points to Shantel. Shantel began as
an undistinguished German techno DJ, but in the early 2000s he began to spin Balkan
Gypsy music, and his Bucovina Club parties in Frankfurt began to attract wide

23
Quotes from Karen Kranenborn are from an interview on 8 December 2013. Similarly. Gruber (2002) and
Slobin (2000) note that audiences respond ecstatically to acoustic klezmer performances.
170 C. Silverman

attention. He soon became the highest paid Balkan Beats DJ in Europe. Shantel also
has a special interest in things Jewish. At a 2011 show in Cologne he remarked to me
that he was one of the few DJs who mixed Jewish music with Balkan Beats; he
claimed this was daring in Germany, with its ambivalent past in relation to Jews.24
The same year he released the album Kosher Nostra: Jewish Gangsters Greatest Hits
(Oz Almog and Shantel 2011), a tribute to vintage Jewish American recordings.
Shantel has marketed himself with a mythical past based on his ancestry. His
grandparents were German Jews from Bucovina, a borderland between Moldova and
Ukraine. He claims that he:
listened to the record collection of my grandfather; this was the first music
inspiration I got; I heard immediately this was not a pure style I travelled to
Chernowitz, to learn about the multicultural character of the city where German,
Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Gypsy, and Jewish musics melded.
Jean Trouillet of Essay expounds: For Shantel, Bucovina is not a regional brand but it
is an imagination of how at one point in history people were living together. This
dismissal of regional specificity allows Shantel to transfer his metaphor of diversity to
the Balkans (which are nowhere near Bucovina) and further claim a connection to
Balkan music. This narrative has bolstered Shantels success, although some critics
have been sceptical. Australian music journalist Garth Cartwright writes cynically
that Shantels background is largely concocted: sure his mum or grandmum was
from Moldova but thats like saying my granddad was half Maori and claiming some
kind of faux authority on all things Polynesian.25
Shantel has capitalised on the current multicultural moment in several ways. First,
he envisions the dance club as a utopian, levelling space where ethnicity does not
matter. The club experience is just about bringing people together: Its only music,
you know. Its to make people happy, not to fight against each other (Lynskey 2006).
Second, he evokes the inherent cosmopolitanism of Roma and Jews, but embodies it
in himself. In 2010, Jean Trouillet wrote:
Yet he does not see himself as some kind of prophet of multiculturalism. Nor does he
have any aims of creating hippy-dippy, save-the-world music Shantel sees himself
as a cosmopolitan, a searcher, always on the lookout for new discoveries and new
emotions that he can channel into his own personal music mix. He is the herald of
central European creolisation. (http://www.essayrecordings.com/essay_authentic.
htm [accessed 1 May 2014])
The lyrics to Shantels (2009) song Planet Paprika reinforce his personal claim to
cosmopolitan hybridity: Do you think I am Russian? Do you suggest Romania? The
truth is I am just exotic & erotic cause I am coming from the Planet Paprika! Shantel
claims ersatz heritage, ironically, with an act of Othering, by reducing ethnicity to the
exotic and erotic.

24
This paraphrase and quotes are from interviews with Shantel on 20 March 2011 and Jean Trouilett on 25 April
2011; also see Silverman (2015).
25
See http://www.garthcartwright.com/ (accessed 1 May 2014).
 Ethnomusicology Forum 171

Shantels most important mantra is the word Tsiganizatsia (Gypsification), which is

the chorus of his 2007 hit song Disko Partisani. Shantel claims: Tsiganizatsia
means diversity in a positive way; it means a kind of chaos and maybe a kind of
anarchic point of view which has a very creative and a positive impact. The same word,
however, is used by anti-Gypsy xenophobes to spread alarm about incoming hordes of
Roma. Pro-hybridity and anti-Romani narratives may have strong resemblances, and
what may be exotic and erotic to some may be threatening to others.

The Other Europeans

A recent project that includes actual professional Romani and Jewish musicians of high
calibre from several European countries and the United States in a respectful dialogue is
The Other Europeans. Its approach is radically different from the bands and DJs
discussed above and thus illuminates the gulf between the commercial and scholarly
approaches. In contrast to the bands and DJs in the world music circuit, The Other
Europeans are motivated by educational, cultural, historical and stylistic concerns.
Director Alan Bern, a Jewish American composer and klezmer musician living in
Berlin who has a doctorate in music composition, describes The Other Europeans as
an intercultural dialogue: Yiddish and Roma music, culture and identity supported
by three organisations: other music e.V. (Germany), the KlezMORE Festival Vienna
(Austria) and the Jewish Culture Festival of Krakow (Poland):
The core activity is to create and present two new bands, one Yiddish and one
Roma Each band will develop and perform separate repertoires with common
Romanian roots, and the two bands will collaborate to create a crossover
repertoire and style. Complementing this process, the festivals will also present
symposia, workshops on instrumental music, vocal music, dance and language, and
a film series, all focused on an intercultural understanding of Yiddish and Roma
cultures.26
In a 2012 documentary about the project entitled Broken Sound, Bern states: The
idea is to find the real distance between the Yiddish and the Roma style so we can
actually understand how to put them together.27 Thus The Other Europeans is not a
fusion band based on presumed connections between Jewish and Romani music.
Instead, it faced considerable hurdles trying to precisely locate specific musical
connections between Jews and Roma. The musicians decided to focus on Bessarabia,
where at least some documentation demonstrates that Roma and Jews interacted in
professional musical roles. They further narrowed down to the 1920s, the pre-World
War II decade when Jews were still present in numbers and before Bessarabian
klezmer style had been influenced by the jazz and pop elements of American klezmer.
Reliable information was still very hard to find, in part due to the decimation of the

26
These quotes and information are found online: http://www.other-europeans-band.eu/archiv_the-other-
europeans/project.htm (accessed 7 July 2014).
27
See http://www.1meter60-shop.de/index.php?route=product/film&product_id=50
172 C. Silverman

Holocaust, but Bern laboured on to excavate older layers of klezmer music via
archives and older performers.
Unlike Jewish music, Romani music was still alive in Bessarabiaand two key
musicians in the project were from Moldova. Of course this music had changed
considerably since the 1920s, thus presenting a different kind of challenge. Unlike
1920s Jewish music, which was preserved on a few rare recordings, no recordings
existed of 1920s Romani music. In other words, the problems that the Other
Europeans faced highlight exactly what the Gypsy/klezmer performance complex
otherwise ignores; that is, the difficulty of locating particular styles from specific
historical periods and geographical locations.
Another difference is that The Other Europeans eschew the exotic Othering
approach that many Gypsy/klezmer performers embrace. In Broken Sound Bern
remarks: In commercial world music, there is a lot of bullshit about Jews and
Gypsies, because to West Europeans, the Jews are exotic and the Gypsies are exotic.
He writes on the project website:
Precisely the complex interculturality of Roma and Jewish cultures provoked
nationalist chauvinist ideologies in the past to condemn them as rootless,
parasitic, degenerate, and worse. Such attitudes are by no means relics of the
past; they are visible throughout Europe today in recurring anti-Semitic and anti-
Roma outbursts. In contrast, the same transcultural character of Yiddish and Roma
music is romanticized and embraced by contemporary world music pop culture,
which frames it as subversive and transgressive and therefore hip. Currently there
is a popular wave of Roma and pseudo-Roma music and a similar wave of post-
klezmer-inspired New Jewish Music. There are both imaginary affinities between
them as well as genuine historical and musical contact.
Bern thus rejects the simplistic analogy between Jews and Roma as itinerants that
Gypsy/klezmer performers invoke. Instead he paints a more nuanced picture of Jews
and Roma specifically in Bessarabia as transcultural actors who transmitted musical
knowledge, some of which was shared. Furthermore, he criticises the current
romanticisation of the transcultural (and I would add the hybrid, see below) in
world music discourse, instead insisting on genuine history. Finally, The Other
Europeans project approaches politics in a more engaged way than other Gypsy/
klezmer performers. Bern constantly invokes historical and contemporary discrim-
ination, and American klezmer musician Mark Rubin, interviewed in Broken Sound,
remarks that although music can remove politics and stigma, this is more than music
we are talking about.
With generous funding from the European Commission, The Other Europeans
sponsored an opening conference/symposium and several tours from 2007 to 2010. In
2009 the CD Splendor was released with extensive liner notes, but recently the project
appears dormant. With a roster of 14 musicians, perhaps it is too expensive to
support; or by being historical, it is too educational for the world music market; or
perhaps, with virtuosic strings and reeds as well as brass, it deviates too much from
the New Old Europe dirty brass sound. It certainty shies away from the romantic
 Ethnomusicology Forum 173

staging characteristic of the Gypsy/klezmer bands discussed above. Ironically, Gypsy/

klezmer bands are all finding work while The Other Europeans are not.

Debating Hybridity, Authenticity and Appropriation

In this section, I argue that by combining Gypsy and klezmer, European musicians
can invoke a hybridity that facilitates both their act of appropriation and, ironically,
their claim to authenticity. In order to make this argument, I must first unpack the
connection between hybridity and authenticity by examining current world music
marketing trends. The attraction of the exotic in world music has been noted by
numerous scholars (Taylor 1997). Roma are a prime example of this phenomenon,
iconically pictured as sexual, eastern, passionate, genetically musical and defiant of
rules and regulations (Szeman 2009). European narratives of Jewish outsiderness and
itinerancy also make Jews as just exotic enough (Kaminsky 2014) to be granted
affinity with Roma as local Others.
Precisely the outsider status of these two groups makes them a valuable authentic
marketing commodity. In the 1990s, new concepts of globalisation emerged that
produced a heightened consumption of difference. Taylor observed that Everything is
for sale, everything is appropriable in the name of making ones identityor music
(2007: 118). The global multiculturalism of the 1990s went hand in hand with that
consumption of difference. Globalisation fosters a new way of taming difference in
order to commodify it and distribute it via new technologies (Taylor 2007: 126).
In its newest incarnation, world music embraces hybridity as its primary trope,
sometimes displacing lenses of authenticity (Taylor 2007: 141). In an ironic twist,
the hybrid becomes a mark of authenticity, even tradition. According to Taylor, there
has been a shift from authenticity-as-pure to authenticity-as-hybrid; now, world
musicians are expected to be hybrid, which allows them to be constructed as
authentic (2007: 1434). The Gypsy/klezmer performance complex exemplifies this
trend, illustrated by the long list of generic tags performers use and the valorisation of
mixed styles. Performers invoke Roma and Jews as historic hybrids, and in so doing
reap the benefit of double validation.
Historically, both Romani and Jewish musical creativity grew from their multiple re-
diasporisations (sometimes forced), their openness to adopt multiple non-local styles
and their outsider status. Hybridity did not emerge from desire to claim authenticity.
Rather, the professional marginal musician needed to be a hybrid to survive. Multiple
patrons required multiple musical repertoires, and marginality necessitated border
crossings. Most significantly, Jews and Roma have had very different outsider
trajectories despite having marginality and Holocaust decimation in common; nor
could their histories of integration be more divergent. Today Roma remain the least
integrated European ethnic group whereas Jews are generally highly integrated.
All my consultants viewed hybridity as liberating and promoting tolerance. But
Hutnyk (2000) reminds us that hybridity is above all a marketing label used by world
music promoters. Bringing the musics of marginal peoples into the mainstream may
174 C. Silverman

provide visibility and even hard cash for formerly impoverished performers, but only if
they have fair contracts (which are rare). The valorisation of hybridity rarely alters the
structures of inequality. Overall prejudices against Roma and Jews have not changed,
and the appropriation of their music needs to be seen in this light.
Appropriation has been in the news a great deal lately, related to controversies over
Victoria Secrets use of Native American headdresses28 and Miley Cyrus twerking.29
The usual argument defending musical appropriation is that music can and should
never be owned by one group; its global flow enriches creativity and spurs innovation,
creating a winwin situation for everyone. My non-Jewish non-Romani consultants
all held this position. Bryan Pardo of Balkano expressed his views strongly:
It would be sad, sad world if there were some sort of ethnic cultural police who said
you are a poor white guy in Kansasyou should only play Kansas music If you
love music, why cant you play it, listen to it? It is not appropriation any more than
a Balkan band incorporating hip-hop. This is how culture moves forward.
(Interview, 18 November 2013)
All of my consultants defined appropriation solely in terms of musical sounds; none
of them mentioned economic contexts or power imbalances surrounding musical
practice.30 Their conception of the term is radically different from that of Ziff and
Rao, who define cultural appropriation as the takingfrom a culture that is not ones
ownof intellectual property, cultural expressions or artefacts, history and ways of
knowledge and profiting at the expense of the people of that culture (1997: 1).
Steven Feld has noted the divide between anxious and celebratory narratives of
world music appropriation. The celebratory narrative valorises hybridity, features
hopeful scenarios about economic fairness, and even has romantic equations of
hybridity with overt resistance (Feld 2000: 152). The anxious narrative frets over
purity and underlines the economics of exploitation. Both narratives are worthy of
interrogation. While I am not anxious about purity in Romani and Jewish musics
(because they were never pure), I am worried about economics. My deconstruction of
the celebratory narrative is not meant as a denial of hybrid Jewish or Romani musical
elements, but rather as a critique of the performative complex that sometimes results
in marginalising Jews and Roma.
Celebratory scholars eschew ownership and valorise the fertile artistic exchange of
musical styles. George Lipsitz, for example, asserts that appropriations create cultural
zones of contact where intercultural dialogue between ethnic groups can happen. He
says hybridity produces an immanent critique of contemporary social relations
(Lipsitz 1994). I hold with Born and Hesmondhalgh when they argue that Lipsitz may

28
See https://zap2it.com/blogs/victorias_secret_apologizes_removes_native_american_headdress_from_fashion_show_
broadcast-2012-11 (accessed 17 June 2014).
29
See Theriault (2013). In response to a Salon article entitled Why I Cant Stand White Belly dancers, a
Washington Post article was titled What Would Salon Think of an Article Called Why I Cant Stand Asian
Musicians who play Beethoven. See: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/why_i_cant_stand_white_belly_dancers/;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/06/what-would-salon-think-of-an-article-
called-why-i-cant-stand-asian-musicians-who-play-beethoven/ (accessed 10 May 2014).
30
For an insightful popular blog on this topic, see Uwujaren (2013).
 Ethnomusicology Forum 175

overstate the relative cultural power of these musics (2000: 27) to effect change.
Celebratory narratives espouse a democratic vision for world music (Feld 2000: 167),
which then becomes part of the marketing scheme. When audiences observe the
incredible diversity of music available, they see it as some kind of sign that
democracy prevails, that every voice can be heard, every style can be purchased,
everything will be available to everybody (Feld 2000: 167). But, in celebrating
diversity, we should not confuse the flow of musical contents with the flow of power
relations (Feld 1994: 263). Often too much attention is paid to the sound aspect of
hybrid musics and not enough to the social, political and economic relationships that
produce them. A narrow aesthetic analysis ignores who is doing the hybridity, from
which position and with what intention and result (Born and Hesmondhalgh
2000: 19).
Many performers in the celebratory camp assert that appropriation is not
problematic because there is no such thing as authentic Gypsy or Jewish music.
Historically, Roma have been characterised as the quintessential appropriators of music
and Jews are sometimes similarly described. Roma have been accused of neither having
nor creating music of their own and merely stealing the music of other ethnicities.
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau (2006), for example, writes: Purity is always a
misleading ideal. With the gypsies, or Roma its an impossible chimera real Gypsy
music is a myth. Similarly, There is no such thing as Gypsy music insists DJ Shantel
you can only talk about traditional music from different regions in southeastern
Europe (Lynskey 2006).
Some consultants claim that because Roma and Jews have appropriated, appro-
priations from them are unproblematic. They strategically underline a double valence:
not only Roma, but also Jews have appropriated, and thus so can we. I counter that
they confuse artistry with hierarchy. Appropriations by the powerful are different
from appropriations by the marginal. When disempowered people appropriate, they
hope to gain power (but rarely do); when the powerful appropriate, the marginal
often lose in the process because they cannot fight back in terms of ownership or
copyright. When Roma appropriate, for example, their status rarely changes. No
matter how powerful their music, they do not gain political power. They may provide
a desirable commodity, but they have not lost their stigma. As Lynskey (2006) writes:
Gypsy music has always been a hybrid, but for centuries the underdogs assimilated
the music of the dominant society. Now they are the ones being assimilated
Many scholars have critiqued strategic representations of klezmer by non-Jews
(Birnbaum 2009; Gruber 2002; Kaminsky 2014, this volume; Ottens and Rubin 2002).
Waligorska (2013), on the other hand, firmly defends non-Jewish participation as
cultural translation rather than simulacrum via case studies in Germany and
Poland. She deals with artists motivation for playing klezmer in terms of memory
politics, specifically the Holocaust, and celebrates the exchange of musical and
cultural ideas. According to Waligorska, the act of playing klezmer encourages a
space of introspection (2013: 273) by non-Jews that seriously affects the way they
think of themselves as individuals and as groups members (2013: 272) in terms of
176 C. Silverman

Jewish history and current politics. She applauds how Klezmer contributes to the
Jewish/non-Jewish dialogue, offering a new mode of encounter, which enables non-
Jews to participate in Jewish culture (Waligorska 2013: 273). She further claims
these musical spaces open up a dialogue between Jews and non-Jews.
Waligorska pays far less attention to economics and profit than to art or identity.
She can do this comfortably because both Jews and non-Jews playing klezmer are, in
general, fairly secure economically. This is not the case with Roma. Not only are
Roma overwhelmingly poor, but many also experience discrimination and forced
migration. By contrast, the Gypsy music industry (mostly run by non-Roma) is
hugely profitable, with Shantel earning over 2000 and Goran Bregovi over 20,000
per show. There are also many more Romani musicians than Jewish musicians
struggling for work; this amplifies my point that the European problem with Roma is
that there are too many of them, whereas the problem with Jews is that there are
too few.
When I suggested to my consultants that non-Roma might be taking work away
from Roma, they vehemently disagreed, saying that they are helping audiences grow;
they explained that since they credit their sources, everyone benefits. For example,
Pardo said:
We never hide the fact that we cover a songit is pure admiration for Roma. It is
absolutely impossible that we are taking work away from Balkan musicians like
Selim Sesler [Turkish clarinettist]. I buy his CD, I go to his shows, we even opened
for him. We are in a glorious momentyou can buy his CDs, but you have to
know he exists. People like me go after the sources. I have bought dozens of
albums and gone to dozens of shows. I dont know how else to contribute to them.
It is a weird bar you are posing. (Interview, 18 November 2013)
Pardo further elaborated: I dont think in these socioeconomic terms. I think of this
as cool music.
Most non-Romani bands and DJs playing Gypsy music focus solely on the music
and neither fully examine stereotypes, politics nor economic hierarchies. More often
these groups reproduce stereotypes and foster the production of the fantasy Gypsy.
Performers may even position themselves as the virtual Gypsies via costuming and
staging. Karen Kranenborn notes:
Balkan bands do reinforce stereotypesthey go barefoot, they dress up like Gypsies
[long wide layered skirts]; audience members dress up too . I shopped for shirts
for RaRomski that were the opposite, not circus style, but urban Gypsyslick and
shiny.31
Klezmer bands also trade in stereotypesWaligorska (2013) and Gruber (2002: 227)
document shtetl costuming and fake accents, and Tkachenko (2013: 108) reports
klezmer bands in Gypsy attire.

31
Alex Krebs, who leads a Gypsy brass band in Portland, OR, USA, added a Balkan suffix to his name, wore fake
gold teeth and sold them at intermission. In contrast, some bands (especially those that have some Romani
members, such as Slavic Soul Party and Zlatne Uste in New York City and Yale Stroms Hot Pstromi in San
Diego) have dealt seriously with issues of representation and have actively resisted stereotypes.
 Ethnomusicology Forum 177

Waligorskas claim that German and Polish klezmer opens up a space of dialogue
between Jews and non-Jews is not borne out in the Gypsy/klezmer complex. My
consultants rarely bought up real Jews and Roma. They did not mention contexts,
communities, economics or politics, with the exception that some bands occasionally
played for Jewish events. In our discussions, actual Roma were absent more than
actual Jews, reflecting their contrasting historical positions. History, even the
Holocaust, rarely came up. Most musicians were completely unaware of Romani
communities in their cities and did not follow the news about xenophobia and
deportations. Many performers said they actively resisted getting involved in politics.
However, they did participate in performances under the rubric of multiculturalism,
and so benefitted from being associated with Jews and Roma. They strategically
claimed to be apolitical but then asserted multicultural politics when it legitimised
their music and helped get them work.
Performers consistently spoke of the Gypsy/klezmer complex solely in musical
terms. They wanted to be seen and evaluated as artists. These performers saw
themselves as creative entertainers, not intercultural translators. Roma, on the other
hand, could not avoid being contextual about their music because they constantly
faced marginalisation. They were very strategic in critiquing appropriation; as
marginal performers who were rarely in charge of producing their own music, they
neither wanted to endanger possible avenues of collaboration nor alienate future
sponsors. However, in private contexts many Romani musicians said they resented
non-Roma for stealing our music for profit. Roma were more likely to criticise a
well-known rich appropriator, like Goran Bregovi, than amateur bands. Further-
more, they appreciated non-Roma who took the time to learn their music well and
who included them in their live projects.32

Conclusion
Gypsy and Jewish musics accomplish significant discursive work in the current
European political climate which is multiculturalist but also increasingly xenophobic.
Whereas Jews are absent Others who are historically present, Roma are too present
Others who are historically absentyet over-determined in the realm of music. In
the multiculturalist imaginary Roma and Jews loom large, representing a kind of
diversity that can easily be made toothless via superficial staged ethnic stereotyping.
Ironically, as audiences grow for Gypsy/klezmer music, more performers are neither
Jewish nor Romani. Musicians valorise sharing, borrowing and blending, and
celebrate the flow of musical styles; yet they rarely recognise power imbalances and
economic hierarchies.
By uniting Gypsy and klezmer in one broad geographical sweep of Balkans and
Eastern Europe (which are often conflated), performers can erase the specificities of

32
Balkan Romani strategies for dealing with marginalisation are discussed in Silverman (2012). The issue of
appropriation of Romani music is the subject of research in progress (see Silverman 2013, 2015).
178 C. Silverman

region, style, history and ethnicity. Moreover, once the music is detached from
ethnicity it can be played by anyone and re-blended with anything without losing its
essence of Gypsy/klezmerness. So a double erasure ensues for Roma and Jews: not
only is their music no longer stylistically distinctive, but also they themselves are no
longer necessary as performers.
This work not only creates cultural capital for European musicians, but also
validates appropriation. The double Othering grants double authenticity and a double
validation of multiculturalism, reinforced via audience belief that they are somehow
helping marginalised groups (although this rarely translates into action). The
invocation of hybridity also adds to authenticity; not only is the Gypsy/klezmer
blend hybrid, but both Jews and Roma are each hybrids. To cap it off, the claim to
hybridity as well as to migration and innovation in klezmer and Gypsy musics serves
as a justification for appropriation by non-Jews and non-Roma. In the future, as this
complex migrates transnationally (it has already reached Mexico, Japan, and
Australia) it will be interesting to follow its manifestations.

Acknowledgements
Research was supported by the Guggenheim Foundation and the University of
Oregon Office for Research. Fieldwork 20112013 took place in Western Europe
(Germany, Austria, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal) and North America
(New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, OR, Seattle and
Vancouver, BC), buttressed by 30 years of prior fieldwork in the Balkans. Performers
specifically interviewed for this article include DJ Shantel (Frankfurt), DJ Malaka
(London) and DJ Tommi (Amsterdam); and members of the AKB, RaRomski, Ot
Azoy and The Balcony Players (all based in Amsterdam), Trans-Siberian March
Band, The Turbans, Gypsy Fever and Tatcho Drom (all based in London),
LOrkestina (Barcelona) and Balkano (Chicago).

References
Birnbaum, Michael. 2009. Jewish Music, German Musicians: Cultural Appropriation and the
Representation of a Minority in the German Klezmer Scene. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook
54(1): 297320.
Bohlman, Philip. 2009. The Music of Jewish Europe: The Paradoxical Presence of a Non-minority
Minority. In Music in Motion, edited by Bernd Clausen, Ursula Hemetek and Eva Saether,
85102. European Music Council, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Born, Georgina and David Hesmondhalgh, 2000. Introduction: On Difference, Representation, and
Appropriation in Music. In Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and
Appropriation in Music, edited by Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh, 158. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Christgau, Robert. 2006. The New Bohemians. Salon, 26 October. www.salon.com/ent/feature/
2006/10/29/cristgau/print.htm (accessed 10 July 2014).
Cooper, Abraham and Harold Brackman. 2014. EU Elections: After Gains by Far Right, Does
Political Earthquake Foreshadow Grim Future? http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/
 Ethnomusicology Forum 179

01/eu-elections-after-gains-by-far-right-does-political-earthquake-foreshadow-grim/ (accessed
24 March 2015).
Dimova, Rozita. 2007. BalkanBeats Berlin: Producing Cosmopolitanism, Consuming Primitivism.
Ethnologia Balkanica 11: 22135.
Feld, Steven. 1994. From Schizophonia to Schismogenesis: On the Discourses and Commodifica-
tion Practices of World Music and World Beat. In Music Grooves, edited by Charles Keil
and Steven Feld, 25789. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
. 2000. A Sweet Lullaby for World Music. Public Culture 12(1): 14571.
Feldman, Walter. 1994. Bulgreasc/Bulgarish/Bulgar: The Transformation of a Klezmer Dance.
Ethnomusicology 38(1): 135.
Gruber, Ruth Ellen. 2002. Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Hancock, Ian. 2002. We are the Romani People: Ame Sam e Rromane Dene. Hatfield: University of
Hertfordshire Press.
Higgins, Andrew. 2014. Populists Rise in Europe Vote Shakes Leaders. http://www.nytimes.com/
2014/05/27/world/europe/established-parties-rocked-by-anti-europe-vote.html (accessed 10
July 2014).
Hutnyk, John. 2000. Critique of Exotica: Music, Politics, and the Culture Industry. London: Pluto
Press.
Jablonsky, Rebecca. 2012. Russian Jews and Gypsy Punks: The Performance of Real and
Imagined Cultural Identities within a Transnational Migrant Group. Journal of Popular
Music Studies 24(1): 324.
Kaminsky, David. 2014 Just Exotic Enough: Swedish Chamber Klezmer as Postnational World
Music and Mid-East Proxy. Ethnomusicology 58(2): 25477.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Sounds of Sensibility. Judaism 47(1): 4978.
Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of
Place. London: Verso.
Lynskey, Dorian. 2006. Dorian Lynskey on Bands Looking to the Balkans for Inspiration. Guardian,
24 November. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/nov/24/worldmusic?INTCMP=SRCH
(accessed 12 June 2014).
Madrid, Alejandro and Robin Moore. 2013. Danzon: Circum-Caribbean Dialogues in Music and
Dance. New York: Oxford University Press.
Markovi, Alexandra. 2008. Goran Bregovi, the Balkan Music Composer. Ethnologia Balkanica
12(2008): 923.
Ottens, Rita and Joel Rubin. 2002. The Sounds of the Vanishing World: The German Klezmer
Movement as a Racial Discourse. http://mki.wisc.edu/Resources/Online_Papers/MusicConf-
Papers/ (accessed 18 June 2014).
Rijven, Stan, 2007. Review of Zaraza. Beyond Magazine. http://amsterdamklezmerband.com/band/
press/ (accessed 7 July 2014).
Ruthers. Monica. 2012. Juden und Zigeuner im europischen Geschichtstheater: Jewish Spaces/
Gypsy SpacesKazimierz und Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in der neuen Folklore Europas [Jews
and Gypsies in European Historical Theatre: Jewish Spaces/Gypsy SpacesKazimierz and
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the New European Folklore]. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Silverman, Carol. 2012. Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora. New York:
Oxford University Press.
. 2013. Global Balkan Gypsy Music: Issues of Migration, Appropriation, and Representation.
In The Globalization of Musics in Transit: Musical Migration and Tourism, edited by Simone
Krger and Ruxandra Trandafoiu, 185208. London: Routledge Press.
. 2014. Balkan Romani Culture, Humans Rights, and the State: Whose Heritage? In Cultural
Heritage in Transit, edited by Deborah Kapchan, 12547. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
180 C. Silverman

. 2015. DJs and the Production of Gypsy Music: Balkan Beats as Contested Commodity.
Western Folklore 74(1).
Slobin, Mark. 2000. Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Streck, Bernhard. 2013. Review of Juden und Zigeuner im europischen Geschichtstheater: Jewish
Spaces/Gypsy SpacesKazimierz und Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in der neuen Folklore
Europas by Monica Ruthers. Romani Studies 23(2): 2626.
Szeman, Ioana. 2009. Gypsy Music and DeeJays: Orientalism, Balkanism and Romani Music.
TDR: The Drama Review 53(3): 98116.
Taylor, Timothy. 1997. Global Pop: World Music, World Markets. London: Routledge Press.
. 2007. Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. Durham: Duke University Press.
Theriault, Anne. 2013. What Miley Cyrus Did Was DisgustingBut Not For the Reasons You Think.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/anne-theriault-/miley-cyrus-vma-performance_b_3819177.html
(accessed 20 July 2014).
Tkachenko, Paul. 2013. The Real Deal: Professional Klezmer Musicians on a London World Music
Scene. Doctoral thesis, City University London.
Todorova, Maria. 1997. Imagining the Balkans. New York: Oxford University Press.
Uwujaren, Jarune. 2013. The Difference Between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation.
30 September. http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/cultural-exchange-and-cultural-appro
priation/ (accessed 10 July 2014).
Waligorska, Magdalena. 2013. Klezmers Afterlife: An Ethnography of the Jewish Music Revival in
Poland and Germany. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ziff, Bruce and Pratima Rao. 1997. Introduction to Cultural Appropriation: A Framework for
Analysis. In Borrowed Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation, edited by Bruce Ziff and
Pratima Rao, 127. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Discography and Filmography

A Man From Munkacs: Gypsy Klezmer. 2005. Film. Directed by Yale Strom. http://www.yalestrom.
com/films.html (accessed 10 July 2014).
Amsterdam Klezmer Band. 2008. Zaraza. Frankfurt. Essay. CD.
Amsterdam Klezmer Band Remixed. 2006. Frankfurt. Essay. CD.
Balcony Adventures Around the World: The Balcony Players. 2012. Amsterdam. Demo CD.
Broken Sound: The Other Europeans. 2012. Film. Directed by Wolfgang Andrae. http://www.1meter60-
shop.de
Disko Partizani. Shantel. 2007. Essay, Frankfurt, and Crammed Disc. Brussels. CD.
Kapelsky: Ostperanto Folkjazz Gipsy Swing, Klezmer, East European Folk & Jazz. 2009. AO Jazz.
Dortmund. CD.
Oz Almog and Shantel. 2011. Kosher Nostra: Jewish Gangsters Greatest Hits. London. Essay. CD.
Latcho Drom. 1993. Film. Directed by Tony Gatlif.
Muzsikas. 1993. Maramaros: The Lost Jewish Music of Transylvania. Hannibal.
Planet Paprika. Shantel. 2009. Distributed by Essay. Brussels. CD, Crammed Disc.
Soul of Europe: Jewish Gypsy. LOrkestina. 2002. Barcelona. CD.
Splendor: The Other Europeans. 2009. Berlin, Germany. KIKI CD 0012.
Time of the Gypsies. 1988. Fiction Film. Directed by Emir Kusturica, Music by Goran Bregovic.
Train of Life (Train de vie). 1998. Film. Directed by Radu Mihaileanu. Romania.
Transylvania Express. LOrkestina. 2003. Barcelona. CD.
Underground. 1995. Fiction Film. Directed by Emir Kusturica, Music by Goran Bregovic.