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From:     John Zorn List
Sent:     Tuesday, November 04, 1997 9:30 PM
To:     [e-mail]
Subject:     John Zorn List V2 #141


John Zorn List        Tuesday, November 4 1997        Volume 02 : Number 141




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Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 16:39:20 -0800
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: all talk, no info here

On Tue, 04 Nov 1997 18:43:46 -0500  Steve Smith wrote:
>
> [e-mail] wrote:
>
> > A main concern with some of the musicians I heard from was that Zorn
> > was
> > playing so much, it seemed like he wasn't giving anybody else a
> > chance.
>
> I don't think Zorn is responsible for that phenomenon, if you follow my
> meaning.  If you could get a few hundred people to turn up for Zorn or
> 50-60 to show up for (fill-in-the-blank), who would you be more likely
> to book?  It ain't necessarily right, but it's the truth.
>
> I'm still amazed to have seen a standing room only crowd for Derek
> Bailey last Monday night.  Much bigger crowd than Tuesday or Thursday.
> Do you think it had something to do with the fact that Monday was the
> only night Zorn played practically all night, whereas he played somewhat
> less on Tuesday, not at all on Thursday?  Bailey was mentioned today in
> the NYTimes (in a nice review of his and John Fahey's recent shows here
> in NY) as playing tonight with Andy Statman, Tony Tritchka and Gregg
> Bendian.  He's not, in point of fact, but despite the provocative lineup
> I don't imagine that there would have been a standing room only crowd at
> that one, either.
>
> Zorn's cult of personality does lead to more bookings, no doubt about
> it.  He's back this Saturday with Medeski and Ribot, and shows up many
> times in the new Knit calendar, including another two night Bacharach
> festival in late December.  But to think that he's deliberately trying
> to crowd out other worthy musicians would seem to be antithetical to his
> having established two separate recording labels to promote same.  And I
> do think most artists know where responsibility actually lies - at the
> clubs doing the bookings.

I think that if the problem was only coming from the clubs, life would
be wonderful.

I am afraid that there is a more serious reason: saturation of a genre that
is already only attracting a minority. There is no large audience for most
of the music we are talking about. And the ones that are really interested
by this music have a hard time to keep up.

Get ten Knitting Factory in NYC, and I am pretty sure that they will give
up after few months (or will target more commercial kind of music, in order
to survive).

I remember going to the KF (many years ago) to see Tim Berne and arriving
one hour before the show because I was affraid it would be sold out... And
we ended up to be just 30 in the audience. More recently, I experienced the
same with other downtowners (10-15 persons at the AlterKnit). Even the KF
seems to have a hard time to fill the place with the less known downtowners...
You imagine with more clubs promoting this music?

My feeling? The amount of music put out in this genre is growing much
faster than its audience. The audience was always limited; it is still.
Hard to get people listening to non-mainstream music (and I am even
questioning why we should even try to convince them to do so).

    Patrice.

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Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 11:51:56 -0600 (CST)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: all talk, no info here

A main concern with some of the musicians I heard from was that Zorn was
playing so much, it seemed like he wasn't giving anybody else a chance.
That seems kind of exaggerated to me, but I wonder if Zorn at the KF
several times a month is better than several artists in his place once a
month each.  I can't believe I missed the 'last' Masada shows, but my
friend bootlegged a Liebman show (he's taking lessons, don't worry about
the moral conflict) that was amazing; I'll take what I can get either way,
I suppose.


On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Christopher Hamilton wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, James Douglas Knox wrote:
>
> > Err, well; methinks its healthy there's some discussion of this
> > subject. Hearing the re-issue of the Cynical Hysterie Hour - the real
> > revelation was not how great this disc sounds, but how slight so much of
> > Zorn's most recent work sounds in comparison. I mean; he's releasing so
> > much stuff onto the market, and a lot of it is (for me, personally)
> > totally redundant. I certainly didn't used to feel this way about his
> > work.
>
> I'm not sure which records you think are redundant.  If you're talking
> about Masada 1-256 (or whatever they're up to this week), I've defended
> the volume of this stuff before, so I won't repeat myself.
>
>      In any case, I doubt that the dropoff in quality you're talking about
> has much to do with Zorn's overproduction.  So far as I can tell, the
> difference in Zorn's output now and his output in the 80's is that a
> larger percentage of it's documented now.  Check liner notes and you'll
> find references to a number of Zorn compositions that went totally
> unrecorded in the 80's. So far as I can tell, he's not actually more
> prolific than he used to be.
>
>      That being said, I do think _Kristallnacht_ is the most
> recent album he's put out that stands with his very best work.  But I also
> think his recorded output in the last few years has been, on average,
> stronger than his early 90's work.
>
>      This kind of pattern seems fairly common among avant-gardists who
> reach a degree of fame.  Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, and Paul Bley leap
> to mind as similarly prolific musicians.  I suspect one reason for this is
> that individual records by these artists don't sell in the quantities that
> more mainstream records do.  Selling a lot of records to a few people
> helps make up the difference in income.
>
>      Another reason, of course, is the understandable desire of artists to
> document their work.  (Heck, my improv group religiously archives every
> rehearsal tape, and we have fewer fans than band members!)  How much of
> that work is worth preserving for posterity is another question.  It's too
> early for me to get the critical distance to decide whether Zorn is Duke
> Ellington, Chet Baker, or Stan Kenton in this sense.
>
>      I understand Braxton has spoken disparagingly of "the fallacy of the
> good night".  If I understand the phrase correctly, his point is that
> musicians don't really work by producing single masterworks/performances,
> but by a sort of continuous artistic development; it's a fallacy to try to
> understand an artist's work in terms of the former.  While it would be
> crazy to try to listen to many musicians this way, I think this is how I
> approach many of my favorite musicians (Zorn, Miles, Ornette, Eno).
> Although masterworks are welcome, I'm not especially looking for them.
> I'm just fascinated watching a talented musician develop over time.
> Perhaps this is why I'm not bothered by possible overproduction.
>
>      Sorry,  That rant lasted much longer than I'd meant it to.
>
> Chris Hamilton
>
>
> -
>
>


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Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 22:55:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Christopher Hamilton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: all talk, no info here

On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 [e-mail] wrote:

> A main concern with some of the musicians I heard from was that Zorn was
> playing so much, it seemed like he wasn't giving anybody else a chance.

Ah, sorry.  I misunderstood your point.  I think this cuts a couple of
ways.  On the one hand, any money and time we spend on Zorn, we can't
spend on another deserving avant-improv-whatever musician.  This seems
like a legitimate concern.  God knows there's too much interesting music
around for me to pick up even most of the records that catch my eye.
(Competition for live gigs is rarely a problem here in Pittsburgh,
unfortunately.)

     On the other hand  .  .  .  Zorn's relative popularity does bring in
more interest for this kind of stuff generally.  And, of course, specific
artists benefit from his imprimatur as label head, and as
attention-drawing guest star.

     So the overexposure has an upside for other musicians as well.
Whether there's a net benefit or loss, I couldn't say.

Chris Hamilton


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Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 20:23:49 -0800
From: "Schwitterz" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: all talk, no info here: AMBIENT PISS DUB

Chris or somebody on this thread wrote:

I think this is how I approach many of my favorite musicians (Zorn, Miles,
Ornette, Eno).  Although masterworks are welcome, I'm not especially looking
for them.  I'm just fascinated watching a talented musician develop over
time.

 Perhaps this is why I'm not bothered by possible overproduction.

sZ asks:

I've lost track of Eno. Is he continuing to develop? The last time I
encountered him he was in a live interview with the co-director of Twin
Peaks (not David Lynch) at the Wiltern Theatre in LA. The evening was coming
to an end, but he agreed to stay and talk a little longer if he could stop
and use the restroom. They did a slide show-music thing while he was gone. A
few minutes into it there was the very loud sound of Eno pissing.  He had
forgotten to remove or turn off his remote microphone. A classic moment.




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Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 16:27:21 +1100 (EST)
From: James Douglas Knox <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Going thru the motions, or invention? (more hot air)

I dunno, I just don't know...

On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Dgasque wrote:

> In a message dated 97-11-03 02:40:25 EST, you write:
>
> << A friend of mine recently visited the Knitting Factory for a show.  He was
>  lucky enought to talk to the musicians before and after the performance,
>  and wrote me via email of his adventures.  Funny thing, he mentioned that
>  many people he talked to thought that Zorn was overexposing himself.
>  Despite being a great musician, and always surrounding himself with great
>  musicians, is there such a thing as too much Zorn? >>
>
> Zorn overexposing himself?  Hmmmm.  Well, if one were to think about the
> voluminous output of Zappa, Sun Ra, Coltrane, Miles, Ellington, etc., and the
> number of concerts that all of these artists performed, and the number of
> great musicians that surrounded them, I would think that Zorn's just getting
> started...

Fer sure; but you haven't addressed the second part of the original query
(what is the likely legacy of Zorn's work). And the inclusion of Zappa in
the above list is pretty telling. I'm not alone in being totally
bewildered by the esteem some people hold this guy in. For me, he's just a
mediocre white guy playing tricked-up r'n'r. My personal opinion is that
Zappa's stuff hasn't aged very well - it was kind of goofy and whacky at
the time, but at a distance its increasingly hard to see what the fuss was
about.

As for invoking names like Sun Ra, Ellington, etc (someone else has
brought up the Western classical canon as well) - sure; but just how much
new and original composition is Zorn actually doing, as opposed to
recapitulating his own work or that of other composers. And sure - culture
is a continuity. but if you listen to the original of Morricone's Peur Sur
La Ville its a pretty hot S/T. Much as I like The Big Gundown, I wonder if
its really up to speed. Listen to the edits in the jazz sequences of the
S/T of The Man With The Golden Arm (from 1956?) - in comparison, Spillane
is really not such a break thru' in some regards.

Don't get me wrong - I love Zorn's work. I just wish he'd push himself a
bit more. From my remote vantage down here in Aus, it just seems like he's
exploiting an audience that's all too ready to buy whatever he releases to
the market, without any regard for whether its actually any good. Lucky
for him I guess; but sometimes I feel like right now he's in retreat from
the bolder, consistent, conceptual advances of previous years. Y'know; in
his Op interview (from '84 or something) he's talking about he wants to
dedicate some time and energy to a really intensive manipulation of his
saxophone playing, concrete style. V probably a fantastic sounding thing,
but it'd mean him sitting in a studio for an extended period of time,
working out some radically new approaches to his music. And we're still
waiting.

I think its also a problem - in fact, its the essence of one particular
kind of problem - to defend Zorn by a comparison with Bach, Beethoven, et
al. I'm not too sure how Zorn himself would feel about this.

Anyways, cheers,

Jim


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End of John Zorn List V2 #141
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