Interesting - when we sing El Nora Alila toward the end of Yom Kippur at our synagogue, the mood is very far from "abject humility." The tune we use is very upbeat.

Will Fly, klezmer has very little to do, directly, with what Volgadon is writing about. Klezmer is secular, piyutim are religious; klezmer is (traditionally) instrumental, piyutim are vocal. Today's klezmer bands do play vocal music, and some of it is certainly very sad, and maybe could be thought of as blues, but they don't do piyutim.