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zorn-list Digest        Wednesday, 19 February 1997    Volume 02 : Number 063

In this issue:

    A Question brought about by Zorn vs. Cage.....
    COBRA
    Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn
    Re: Next batch of Tzadik releases
    Re: Next batch of Tzadik releases
    Victoriaville 97
    Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn
    Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn (early)
    Replacement for Painkiller at the Knit
    Re: Zorn book blurb
    Re: radical jewish culture?
    Re: Zorn book blurb
    Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn
    Knitting Factory Birthday
    Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn (early)
    Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn
    Acceptance of Zorn by the "serious" Cage audience
    New "Philadelphia Improvisers Network" page
    Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn
    Zorn, Cunningham and Academia
    Zorn and Eye at the Knit... NOT
    Re: Zorn, Cage, fakery
    Nicholas Collins
    Re: Nicholas Collins

See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the zorn-list
or zorn-list-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Wilson, King of Prussia" <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 00:14:43 -0600
Subject: A Question brought about by Zorn vs. Cage.....

  Hey all,

  The recent thread of Zorn vs. Cage has been really interesting.  I find
myself at somewhat of a loss because I am not familier with Cage's work,
but  I am very much a Zorn fan.  But while reading the thread, I realized I
know little about the man aside from what from what others have written
about him.  Because of his media blackout, I hear few direct quotes, and my
distrust of other's words always rears up when I hear explainations of his
work.   This, combined with the fact that I have never seen him perform (he
seems to have INCREDIBLY bad timing when he comes to Chicago (not bloody
often))  leads me to ask the following questions:
  Where can I find interviews with him?  Anyone have a list?  Does anyone
have anything they could send me over the net?

  Anyway, enough about this.  I assume this is a question alot of people
are asking, so maybe everyone could contribute what they know......

 Thanks for taking the time.....


















                                read icculus



------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 10:50:47 CST
Subject: COBRA


Can anyone tell me where to get a hold of the "score" ( or shall I say,
"rules" ) for Cobra?

Is it published anywhere? PD?

Thanks in advance,

Lyle R.

------------------------------

From: Bob Boster <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 19:46:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn

On Mon, 10 Feb 1997, Ernest Glib wrote:

>
> patrice,
> would the image lose some force were cage construed as suggesting a
> re-evaluation of what are the `critical decisions in the process of
> composing?' -b
>
Well put, or even substitute constructed for construed.

Bob


------------------------------

From: Torsten Nielsen <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 13:02:28 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: Next batch of Tzadik releases

> Here is the next batch (courtesy of David Newgarden):
>
> In Late Spring or Summer
> Mike Patton
> Burt Bacharach
> Filmworks IV
> Zorn - New Traditions In East Asian Bar Bands

Is this a new Mike Patton cd? Any info? Is it solo voice?

Jonas

------------------------------

From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 08:19:54 -0800
Subject: Re: Next batch of Tzadik releases

On Wed, 12 Feb 1997 13:02:28 +0100 (MET)  Torsten Nielsen wrote:
>
> > Here is the next batch (courtesy of David Newgarden):
> >
> > In Late Spring or Summer
> > Mike Patton
> > Burt Bacharach
> > Filmworks IV
> > Zorn - New Traditions In East Asian Bar Bands
>
> Is this a new Mike Patton cd? Any info? Is it solo voice?

It is definitely a new record, but I have no more info on it.

    Patrice.

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (James Hale)
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 18:45:34 -0500
Subject: Victoriaville 97

I received the preliminary lineup for the Victoriaville International
Festival Musique Actuelle today.
The dates are May 15 - 19.
Acts include: Phil Minton Quartet, Fred Frith Quartet, William Parker
Quartet, Bobby Previte's The Horse You Rode In On, William Hooker and Lee
Ranaldo, Borah Bergman, ROVA x 8, Doctor Nerve, etc. ... 23 in all.
Check out their homepage at www.bw.qc.ca/FIMAV97

James Hale



------------------------------

From: Ernest Glib <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 17:34:27 -0500
Subject: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn

patrice,
would the image lose some force were cage construed as suggesting a
re-evaluation of what are the `critical decisions in the process of
composing?' -b

------------------------------

From: Ernest Glib <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 16:42:42 -0500
Subject: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn (early)

thing is, everytime i try to construct cage, i wind up on the same
side as, and am promptly torn to shreds by, ol' wil's fearfully
symmetric vision so i cop out and construe. i wonder if anyone now
wants to comment on zorn's early works cd -- a question keldon asked a
while back -- and why no one's offered mild rebuke to patrice's
decorticating keldon (divine's butt'd fit betwixt major and
negligible) and core-dumping on the bruised bark chips. -b

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steve Smith)
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 12:40:59 -0500
Subject: Replacement for Painkiller at the Knit

For those who have been waiting to find out who would replace Painkiller at
the Knitting Factory on Sunday, February 9, it'll be Zorn and Fred Frith.
Fred plays solo here tonight in a double bill with the Wayne
Horvitz/Briggan Krauss duo.  And as for a show of related interest, Anthony
Coleman's Selfhaters are here in the Alterknit Theater on Friday Feb. 14.

A pulic service announcement from Steve Smith, yr. pal at the Knit



------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Herb Levy)
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 1997 10:11:43 -0800
Subject: Re: Zorn book blurb

Patrice Roussel wrote:

>> >At least, Cage had a strong sense of humour (the same cannot be said of
>> >many of his worshippers).
>>
>> Ditto for Zorn.
>
>There is still a slight difference: Cage is the darling of academia. Zorn
>is still not accepted in this temple.

While there could be some disagreement about how accepted Cage is within
the academy, it took him thirty years or more to get much attention there
at all.

By that standard, Zorn's probably at least a few months ahead of Cage.



Herb Levy
[e-mail]



------------------------------

From: "M.Ho" <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 97 12:37:12 EST
Subject: Re: radical jewish culture?

I read a marc ribot interview that was explaining how he,
Zorn, Lou Reed and others organized an event in Germany a few years
back called the Radical New Jewish Culture Festival in order to make
a statement against the rise of the neo-Nazism and the increase
activity of anti-semitism.

"Twenty-six people were killed in Germany last year [1993] by
Rightists," says Ribot.  "There is a resurgence of neo-Nazism.  Many
of the bands I work with are Jewish, which is an issue.  Especially
those of us that use elements of hardcore in our music - we did not
want to have our silence seen as complicity, so we tried to make some
kind of statement."
>
> Hi.  What's this radical jewish culture reference mean?  Does it mean
> that the themes of the music are either jewish in nature or have many
> influences from that culture or what?  Thanks for the info.
>
>
> scott K. Lawlor
> http://w3.gwis.com/~slawlor
>
>


------------------------------

From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 08:45:58 -0800
Subject: Re: Zorn book blurb

On Fri, 7 Feb 1997 10:11:43 -0800  Herb Levy wrote:
>
> Patrice Roussel wrote:
>
>
> >> >At least, Cage had a strong sense of humour (the same cannot be said of
> >> >many of his worshippers).
> >>
> >> Ditto for Zorn.
> >
> >There is still a slight difference: Cage is the darling of academia. Zorn
> >is still not accepted in this temple.
>
> While there could be some disagreement about how accepted Cage is within
> the academy, it took him thirty years or more to get much attention there
> at all.
>
> By that standard, Zorn's probably at least a few months ahead of Cage.

I think I did not express myself clearly (which happens more often that I
would like :-). I was trying to talk about the special contemporary audience
that is always afraid to miss any "creative" event. An audience that has
despise (best case), or condenscending (worst) attitude toward what is
not "their" music.

This is why I kind of gave up on contemporary music 15 years ago. I was willing
to keep up with the antics of the composers, but it was getting harder and harder
to deal with the snobism and elitism of the audience.

This is what I had in mind when I said that Cage was their little darling.

Compared to Cage's audience, Zorn's one look like a bunch of guys you could
have a beer with :-).

My use of "academia" was definitely incorrect, and applies (as Herb immediately
recognized) to a more recent period. Now, Cage is an institution, but I agree
that it took a long time to reach that level.

But the situation I was describing ("the darling" of the beautiful and hipster-
than-thou people), was happening fairly early in his carreer. To my knowledge,
Zorn is not even mentioned in any of the arty magazines that will never miss
any performance of Cunningham, etc. This is a temple where having clean shoes
is not enough to be accepted...

    Patrice.


------------------------------

From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 13:17:18 -0800
Subject: Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn

On Mon, 10 Feb 1997 17:34:27 -0500  Ernest Glib wrote:
>
> would the image lose some force were cage construed as suggesting a
> re-evaluation of what are the `critical decisions in the process of
> composing?' -b

I have read this sentence about ten times and I do not understand it.
Is it based on a limitation of my understanding of the English language
or the diameter of my brain, not sure...

If you really want an answer, could you rephrase it?

    Patrice.

------------------------------

From: NGUYEN VAN TAN Olivier <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 22:02:16 +0100
Subject: Knitting Factory Birthday

Hi,

For a French man, do you have any news of the shows at the Knit ?

* On the 4th, the day of the birthday
* on Painkiller, on Sunday
* on Diamanda Galas, on Monday


Thanks a lot

Olivier


------------------------------

From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 13:18:57 -0800
Subject: Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn (early)

On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 16:42:42 -0500  Ernest Glib wrote:
>
>
> thing is, everytime i try to construct cage, i wind up on the same
> side as, and am promptly torn to shreds by, ol' wil's fearfully
> symmetric vision so i cop out and construe. i wonder if anyone now
> wants to comment on zorn's early works cd -- a question keldon asked a
> while back -- and why no one's offered mild rebuke to patrice's
> decorticating keldon (divine's butt'd fit betwixt major and
> negligible) and core-dumping on the bruised bark chips. -b

Am I the only to have trouble to read you? I can barely grasp what
you are trying to say :-). Could you add a little bit of redundancy
in your message?

    Patrice.

------------------------------

From: Larry Solomon <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 16:40:46 -0700
Subject: Re: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn

On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 16:42:42 -0500  Ernest Glib wrote:
>
> thing is, everytime i try to construct cage, i wind up on the same
> side as, and am promptly torn to shreds by, ol' wil's fearfully
> symmetric vision so i cop out and construe. i wonder if anyone now
> wants to comment on zorn's early works cd -- a question keldon asked a
> while back -- and why no one's offered mild rebuke to patrice's
> decorticating keldon (divine's butt'd fit betwixt major and
> negligible) and core-dumping on the bruised bark chips. -b

HUH??!! What genre of Python-like banter is this?
- --

Best!

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Larry Solomon
The Center for the Arts            http://www.AzStarNet.com/~solo
Tucson, AZ
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Linda Highland)
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 16:47:30 -0500
Subject: Acceptance of Zorn by the "serious" Cage audience

My first introductiojn to Zorn was 5 or 6 years ago, whe at the end
of a Cage symposium at the NE Conservatory (attended by Cage himself,
possibly an artist in residence at the time) they performed works of
other contemporary performers,  One was Zorn, and I thought it was
amazing. It causeed me to seek out more of his work.
I notice many in the audience, however, looking less impressed, and
sure enough, I believe a reviewer questioned whether Zorn had "soul", or
someting like that. I believe I also heard comments about his work being
too angry....
Interestingly enough, my then roommate, a student from Israel, had
brought her sketch book to draw some of the proceedings and one of these
"serious" Cage aficiandos kept giving her dirty looks and finally
grabbed her hand  to stop her from drawing.  The "noise" of the pencil
against the paper was distacting him from the performace..,,,,Cage
followers too stuffy for Zorn?  What a surprise!

------------------------------

From: "Toshi D. Makihara" <[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 09:09:14 +0900
Subject: New "Philadelphia Improvisers Network" page

Hi all.

I recently checked Ben Burck's "Philadelphia
Improvisers Network" page, and it is gone! Burck
moved out of Philadelphia, and the page was no
longer maintained by him. His whole web site is no
longer available.. I am glad that I saved all the
data just in case.. I created a new "Philadelphia
Improvisers Network" page at:

 http://www.voicenet.com/~tosmos/pin.htm

The list of Philadelphia improvisers is now at:

 http://www.voicenet.com/~tosmos/pinnames.htm

Please update your link if you still have the old
URL (http://pobox.upenn.edu/~burck/improv.html)..
These pages are now maintained by Toshi Makihara
([e-mail])..

Thank you.

T o s h i   D.   M a k i h a r a  -  percussionist
[e-mail]  |  http://www.voicenet.com/~tosmos
BASE-MENT:  http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tosmos
New Music PhiBa:  http://www.voicenet.com/~tosmos/nm_phiba.htm

------------------------------

From: "Ockham's stubble" <[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 20:36:56 -0500
Subject: Zorn and Cage and back to Zorn

you seemed to be saying that the `image' of cage flipping coins for 20
years indicated a `problem,' which you described as leaving the
`critical decisions in the process of composing' to chance. the quotes
are not scare quotes, they enclose text that i am certain was in your
post (which i no longer have). one impression i get is that cage
wanted to think again about the decisions a composer makes when
creating a piece of music. this is distinct from simply making other
decisions. in particular, he might come up with different anwers than
conventional wisdom concerning which decisions are the critical ones.
given this, i wondered whether the image offered might be missing its
mark, or at best land a glancing blow. how's that? (i prefer the
original formulation.)

i'd like to leave the second message alone.

zorn is taken up, at least around here, in music courses with titles
involving the word avant-garde. perhaps the coverage is superficial,
but his presence is not denied and he is regarded as an innovator.
there are political objections, however: i heard that last year (i
think) someone read a paper at a meeting somewhere (is that vague
enough?) and the point was that we shouldn't put up with his portrayal
of women. i believe spillane and torture garden were among the
offending releases. please don't leap down my throat for writing this.
my opinion, if you care for it, is that given the diversity of his
output, this is rather like taking kafka to task for portraying
travelling salesmen as repulsive bugs.

perfunctorily yours, b

------------------------------

From: "Geert.Buelens" <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 13:45:11 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Zorn, Cunningham and Academia

Hi,

Apparantly, arty magazines, arts festivals etc in Europe (or at least,
Belgium) don't have the same attitude towards Zorn/Arts as the one
Patrice described. Cunningham and Zorn perform in the same venues, get
(most often positive) press reviews etc. Just a few weeks ago, Stuc in
Leuven (Louvain, in French) had a three week Zorn filmfestival (Thieves
Quartet, the Japanse pornmovies, Art of Remembrance...) and performances
by Anthony Coleman (one, Messing Up Stockhausen; the other was a sort of
lecture on Radical Jewish Culture); there's even a high brow essay on
Zorn in Dutch ('The corpse of the Composer' - re. Roland Barthes 'death
of the author').

Geert



 To my knowledge,
> Zorn is not even mentioned in any of the arty magazines that will never miss
> any performance of Cunningham, etc. This is a temple where having clean shoes
> is not enough to be accepted...
>
>     Patrice.
>
>

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Steve Smith)
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:00:40 -0500
Subject: Zorn and Eye at the Knit... NOT

Dear Zornlisters -

The ever-mercurial Mr. Zorn has announced the following change in plans for
his February 21 performance at the Knitting Factory:

Yamataka Eye was unable to make it to New York for this performance.
Instead Zorn will be performing with John "Plunderphonics" Oswald and
Makigami Koichi.  Makigami is of course an equally fascinating Japanese
vocalist who can be heard on his Tzadik solo CD "Kuchinoha" as well as seen
and heard in the Derek Bailey videotape "Company in Japan," while Oswald,
aside from his plunderphonics escapades, is also a first rate improvising
sax player.  What his role in these shows will be is anyone's guess, though
it appears that Zorn has him listed as "tape manipulation."

So far Zorn has indicated no changes in the lineup for March 2 (Ruins,
Mainliner and Zorn / Arto Lindsay).

- - Steve
[e-mail]

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Smith
Public Relations Manager
Knitting Factory / Knitting Factory Works
74 Leonard St., New York, NY 10013 [phone] ext. 22
[e-mail]            http://www.knittingfactory.com
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------



------------------------------

From: James Douglas Knox <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 16:55:02 +1100 (EST)
Subject: Re: Zorn, Cage, fakery

In a coupla interviews Zorn refers to Nicholas Smolinsky's 1952 book,
"Lexicon of Musical Invective", which documents how the 'great' composers
(who basically define the canon of historical classical music) were
received by their contemporaries. I.e. as fakes w no no technique, noisy
racket-mongering punks, and v much worse unkind words. It seems everyone
from Mozart to Varese suffered similar malicious treatment at the hands of
bovine reviewers and jealous peers. But what these people are really
complaining about is: this music is too unfamiliar, too challenging. Just
goes to show: any fan of classical music, contemporary or otherwise,
expressing these sentiments is dead ignorant of their own sub-cultural
tradition!

Every generation seems to pick up the neglected (and by then, usually
dead) composers of the previous era, while remaining hostile to its
contemporary innovators. I dunno, I despair of it.
Cheers,

Jim k

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Linda Highland wrote:

> I notice many in the audience, however, looking less impressed, and
> sure enough, I believe a reviewer questioned whether Zorn had "soul", or
> someting like that. I believe I also heard comments about his work being
> too angry....
> against the paper was distacting him from the performace..,,,,Cage
> followers too stuffy for Zorn?  What a surprise!
>


------------------------------

From: James Douglas Knox <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:04:32 +1100 (EST)
Subject: Nicholas Collins

Hi, unnh, just wondering if anyone know's how to get hold of music by
Nicholas Collins. In particular, "Devil's Music" (if its still available)
and "100 of the world's most beautiful melodies". Thanks, and Cheers,

Jim K



------------------------------

From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 08:21:21 -0800
Subject: Re: Nicholas Collins

On Wed, 19 Feb 1997 17:04:32 +1100 (EST)  James Douglas Knox wrote:
>
> Hi, unnh, just wondering if anyone know's how to get hold of music by
> Nicholas Collins. In particular, "Devil's Music" (if its still available)
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On Lovely, right? This is still available, I am pretty sure (I bought mine
just two years ago).

> and "100 of the world's most beautiful melodies". Thanks, and Cheers,
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This one is out of print.

    Patrice.

------------------------------

End of zorn-list Digest V2 #63
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