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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: Sophie Solomon
Location: London
Instruments: violin
Music: Klezmer
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HOW I CAME TO THIS MUSICÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýWHERE I PLAYÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýA FAVOURITE SONG |
  
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 ÌýÌýListen (3'25) to Solomon & Socalled perform 'Electro Taxim' from 'Hiphopkhasene' (Piranha CD-PIRI1789)
A favourite song: Electro Taxim
This is from the SOLOMON & SOCALLED HIPHOPKHASENE on Pi’ra:nha (CD-PIR1789)The whole concept of the project was to raise a lot of (post modern) questions about what is authenticity in music; to take some of the most authentic players and mix their performances with the hip hop and recreate the structure of a traditional shtetl Jewish wedding, with the beats underneath it.
A taksim is an improvisation. It was played by Klezmer musicians - a bit like a doina. In fact the taksim was the Turkish form and it was super ceded by the doina which was the more Romanian form. Because it was designed for listening rather than dance, Klezmurim would often play it for their wealthier patrons, who might have been able to afford more skilled musicians or who wanted to listen to music in a more refined style. It might also be a break or an intro in a dance set. Someone told me that musicians would play a taksim while they were waiting for more money to be thrown into the pot before they would play another dance tune, but I don’t know if that’s true.
This particular taksim was discovered by Zeb Feldman, a professor of Ottoman Turkish music, in the archives in Jerusalem. It was recorded by one of the great Klezmer violinists, Pedotser. I heard it being played by Steve Greenman, another great player, and was quite inspired by his improvisation and went away and experimented with David Krakauer, on the idea of playing these improvisations in a way that is very sensual and very much a conversation between the two players. It’s very intense but very simple.
We reiterate simple lines in slightly different ways as the piece goes on. Its not wild, or flash playing about how many notes you can play or how many octaves you can cover. It’s much more about saying some very intimate things to each other. It’s quite intense . It really moves me to play taksims - really powerful meditative experiences. We recorded it in one take, myself, David Krakauer on clarinet and Josh Dolgin (aka DJ Socalled) on accordion. I’m playing the viora cu goama , the Romanian trumpet-violin which was made for me over there. It’s a half violin, half trumpet weird bastard offspring of the two instruments. It was designed to be played when they went out to record Gypsy music, because a conventional violin was not loud enough to be picked up over the other instruments. It’s an extremely haunting sound… like an old 78 rpm recording.
We called it Electro Taxim because we put a nice wodge of effects on it and also because of the electricity, the tension, which flowed between the musicians in that intense one take.
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