How representative San Diego is of US folk culture at large is hard to say, but I am impelled to share with you some of the wealth of my diggings from here. This constitutes a biased account, but perhaps some food for thought. My idea of a good festival is to be able to be both a partici- pant and an audience member. It also helps if there are dulcimers featured. Listed below are the festivals I attended since the spring in order of my preference, largely based on this criterion. This is about half the festivals that were within my reach during that period.

San Diego Folk Heritage (SDFH) annual festival, held on the grounds of a La Jolla elementary school. Only one day, but what a day!! There were two stages going all day with outstanding local and regional talent, which I caught between workshops, which also went on all day. My favorite was learning bluegrass harmonies from the talented, humorous and friendly Bluegrass Patriots http://www.bluegrasspatriots.com/ who came from Colorado. They demonstrated the principles and then participants chose their “voice” and 15 minutes later we were all doing it!

And then there were organized theme jams. I of course joined the dulcimer jam lead by Connie Allen, which also had auto-harp and guitar stragglers. Then we became stragglers the next hour for the blue-grassers (including some of the guest Patriots) scheduled next under that tree. Later in the day I joined a multi instrument “traditionals” jam and it was

Claremont Spring Folk Festival. Here they had one main stage and a lot of workshop activity. My big excitement was three workshops, learning from renowned David Schnaufer (the world fretted dulcimer virtuoso). Listening to CDs of his I own, I was sure he was a snobby sort of into-his-own- extraordinary-music sorta guy. Wrong again. More generous, modest, caring, down-to- earth, sincere a person you won’t find, with an amazing gift for teaching. So I just zipped through the stages for quick listens between workshops and it sounded like I was missing something good there, but what could I do? I did catch the dulcimer act with Connie Allen, Cynthia Smith, and Jim Dulcin. OK, I’m biased. Schnaufer also was the main bill for the night concert and it was a real pleasure. To sample that experience, I recommend Delcimore (CD0699001), check it out at http://www.colectingdust.com This CD starts out with crickets in his back yard and folks from New York have been returning it because they thought it was a flaw in the CD. Wake up and hear the crickets!

Southern California Dulcimer Heritage Summer Solstice. It was an amazing experience. Not only had they garnered some cream of dulcimer performers carrying traditions from the U.S., China (Zhiming Han) and England (Roger Nicholson), but about 25-30 hammered dulcimers appeared with

their owners and maybe another 50-60 fretted dulcimers. There were simultaneous workshops just for fretted dulcimers and one could participate in every nature of picking, tuning, and musical genre.

My cup ranneth over. I needed a clone. And there was a string band for contra dancing all day. And there were special workshops for Irish and Chinese techniques. They had a lunch-break, hour-long stage with Kevin Roth (long time fine folk performer, first dulcimer record out in the 60’s on Smithsonian), Maddie MacNeil (also editor of Dulcimer Player News, the national magazine), and Cynthia Smith among others. My favorite night stage performer was Ken Kolodner on wicked hammer dulcimer and fiddle. He ranges from Irish through Balkan and Eastern European and if you want to sample that try listening to Horizons (Dorian, DIS80103) which also includes flutes, guitar, and cittern, see him at http://www.surfnetcity.com.au/~rotr/dorian/dorkolo.htm

Train Festival sponsored by the SDFH (like IFS) and the local Poway park, housing a train museum. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, eight straight hours of train songs --

stretched to include hobo songs, building the railroads, crashes, allegories and who knew there were so many. They had two stages and four sets of performers. I thought this was a bit stingy at first, but in the end, if you as a group took time to work up a one-hour set of train songs, mostly not overlapping with the other performers, why not do it twice? This was the only free festival, and it was well attended by people who just came to the park for the fun of it. They had an old train running the periphery with passengers and steam and whistles. During one set we were suddenly distracted by gunfire and four cowboys were robbing the train. They jumped off with the money- bags, fought amongst themselves, killed half, then women in 1800’s dresses came out and shot the rest and saved the gold. The train moved on. The performer finished his song. Only in America! Someone even sang Bill Grogan (Hogan)’s Goat, a song I learned when I was four, and it made my day.

One theme all these festivals held in common (aside from excellent music) was a great core of volunteers (musicians and non-musicians) selling tickets, manning sales stands, doing sound, folding chairs. There was never a massive crowd, but a good turnout. All were single day festivals and none cost over $25. Palatable food was also available at a reasonable price. It’s nice to have an actual 2-day weekend.

--judi ganchrow

May 4-5, 2001

Karei Deshe

For information:

Menachem Vinegrad

04-696-2231

Lahav Forest is a little over an hour from the capital, Tel Aviv and Sde Boker. The turnoff is about 1/2 hour after Route 3 from Jerusalem meets Route 40 heading for Beersheva. You drop down south of Kiryat Gat on 40, pass a gas station at a red light. Get into the left lane and turn left onto 326 at the Dvira Junction. About 7 km. in on that road, you'll see a map of the Lahav Forest. Turn right and go up the hill to the Joe Alon Bedouin Center and park. Look for the stairs across from the center. Bring your instruments and a picnic lunch. For those investors who don't wish to sit on their assets, bring folding chairs. For last minute updates and info phone Laurie at (08) 653-2080. My cellphone (058) 459-543 will be on from about 10:45. See you there!

--Laurie O. Z.

by Amira Erlich

The Shabbat table in my father's home gave me some of my best-loved childhood memories. My father excelled at turning the Shabbat songs into entertaining games, and at other times into exciting concerts. He would sit at the head of the table surrounded by his young daughters who didn't know yet how to sing in harmony, and he would try - even today we laugh at it in order to hide our wonder - to sing all the vocal parts at once. It seemed to us, young girls unskilled in music, that he really did manage to sing the songs we loved in three voices, and sometimes even four, all by himself. These memories came back to me when I listened to Rachel Jaskow's new disc, Day of Rest (Menuha), which mostly contains Jaskow's arrange- ments of Shabbat songs in several voices. Here is my father's beloved magic returned: Jaskow, like my father, sings all the vocal parts by herself, using multiple recording techniques. My idyllic childhood memories will not be offended if I admit that the wonders of technology treat Jaskow well and leave my father a little bit behind. At the Sabbath table he had to be content with only what his natural voice could do. Rachel sings the Sabbath songs as they ought to sound: relaxed, heavenly and heart- warming. Her arrangements and pleasant voice (or voices) remind one of folk songs from the Middle Ages, and indeed Sabbath songs are mostly just that. And unlike the usual rushed atmosphere of the Sabbath table, here the listener finds himself thirsting for another verse, another refrain. The exalted beauty of the arrangements on the disc is drawn from the familiarity and accessibility of the melodies. Jaskow proves that these well-known tunes are exemplary works, and that one doesn't have to go far in order to find a rich Jewish musical culture.

At the end of the disc, Jaskow adds Lullaby in C, actually a love song written by Ray Scudero, for which she wrote the Hebrew version. Her personal style, as expressed by the choice of this song -- the only one on the disc that is not a Sabbath song -- is influenced by the perfect sound of the pure harmonies in the other tunes. Thus the singer-arranger ends Sabbath eve in a consecrated atmosphere, wishing the listeners -- and also giving them – a night of rest.

December 15, 2000

Happy Birthday to: Judy Greenbaum, Harold Jacobs and Roby Shmerling

Belated Happy Birthday to: Marc Gittelson.

Condolences to: Paul Graham on the loss of his brother-in-law.

Welcome back to the Ganchrows.

NOT TRAD ADS - fee is NIS 10 (NIS 5 for members).

**Sandy Cash's new CD, EXACT CHANGE, is available for NIS 60, plus NIS 15 shipping (per order). Send a check, along with your name and shipping information to P.O. Box 1639, Bet Shemesh, 99522. For more information,

call Sandy at (02)991-9686 or contact her at:

**SHELLEY ELLEN - guitarless, also available for performances (03) 674-5356. **Jill Rogoff's THE CELTIC CRADLE and ACROSS THE NARROW SEAS (ALC 129) are available on cassette. Tel/Fax (02) 679-0410.

**SUZALEH'S SILK ART - Glassed and framed, modestly sized and modestly priced, door signs, mazal tovs, etc. Handmade by Sue Tourkin-Komet (02) 676-3346.

DISCLAIMER: FolkNotes is the official publication of the Israel FolkStuff Society. Views are those of the writers, not necessarily those of IFS.

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are, unless otherwise noted, copyrighted by IFS 2001.

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Contributors: Sue Komet