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zorn-list Digest       Saturday, August 23 1997       Volume 02 : Number 109



In this issue:

    Re: Pieces
    Re: Back on Bacharach/Sean Lennon
    Re: Dave Douglas/Chris Speed/Skuli
    Re: Beauty
    Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello, Laurie Anderson, Mingus
    Re: articles on Zorn
    Melvins
    Attachment Problem Investigation
    RE: Attachment Problem Investigation
    Praxis music
    Re: Back on Bacharach
    Re: Dance for Le Corbusier
    Re: Dance for Le Corbusier
    Re: Pieces
    Re: Parachute years or Masada?
    Re: Parachute years or Masada?
    New Zorn/Previte Duets record
    West Orange and Christian Marclay
    list or articles on Zorn
    Re: Oswald (was: Re: Parachute years or Masada?)
    Re: West Orange

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.

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:28:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Pieces

I think that Bucketheads association with musicians that are avant-garde
(Bailey, Zorn etc.) is just through his association with Bill.  He's not a
very musically "deep" person, if you ask him what he's really into, he'll
tell you Shawn Lane, Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads, and a few other
"Guitar-god" like people.  He loves blistering guitar work!

And he watches the Texas Chainsaw Massacre at least once a day.
Jody

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:29:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Back on Bacharach/Sean Lennon

In a message dated 97-08-22 15:37:40 EDT, [e-mail] writes:

> A lot of posts from Zorn-list are coming through as ASCII text attachments
>  instead of regular e-mail.
>
>  Does anyone else have this problem?

YES, and it is annoying!

>  Zorn content -- who on this list has faith in Sean Lennon's ability to
>  improvise?  He's a featured performer at the next Zorn improv night.

Ohman, that is the funniest thing Ive read today!!!!  I wonder how many
Beatles fans will walk out of that one...

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:33:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Dave Douglas/Chris Speed/Skuli

In a message dated 97-08-22 17:47:10 EDT, you write:

> Speaking of Skuli Sverrison, I have his latest CD.  Everything on the CD
>  is done by Skuli.  I have to say that it is one of the most intense CDs
>  ever.  You'd never expect this kind of thing from hearing Skuli play in
>  other people's bands.
>
>  The CD is called "Seremonie" on extreme records.

I also recommend this!  Very textural sounding stuff, none of those fast
Skuli licks like you might expect.  Skuli is one of the most technically
gifted bassists Ive ever heard, and this shows a different side to him.
Jody McAllister

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 17:53:02 -0600
From: Barry Gilbert <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Beauty

I once heard this quoted once by, of all people, Martin Mull in 1979.  Just
to rise to his challenge, after hearing this quote a few of my friends and
I did an improvisational architectural dance performance with music. I did
my dada impressions of the Eiffel tower, Hoover Dam, the Empire State
Building, etc.  It was received with a lot of huh?'s and
what's-this-world-coming-to's.

At 06:09 PM 8/22/97 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>    [e-mail]:
>    Well, this thread is already out of control, and as much as I'm
>    tempted to interject my interpretation, I don't think it would
>    accomplish much. But I'll leave you with a quote, I believe
>    attributable to Frank Zappa: "Writing about music is like dancing
>    about architecture."
>
>    bburton:
>    Not *that* quote again!  There was a lengthy thread recently on
>    another list I'm on regarding true authorship of that quote.  I'm
>    gonna go with Mingus just cause he carried a gun.
>
>    y9d62:
>    I've heard this quote attributed, in various forms, to Elvis
>    Costello and Laurie Anderson.
>
>it seems everybody steals from poor monk (hadn't heard of the armed
>robbery, tho'). so what's wrong with dancing about architecture?  i,
>for one, find it quite endearing that patrice pirouettes wherever i
>put up a facade.
>-b
>

Barry Gilbert
Boulder, Colorado

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 20:07:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Newgarden <[e-mail]>
Subject: Frank Zappa, Elvis Costello, Laurie Anderson, Mingus

Additionally, I've heard that quote attributed to the great composer
Martin Mull...

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 20:16:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Caleb Deupree <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: articles on Zorn

>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 15:26:03 -0700
>From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
>
>    Here is a list of article/interview on Zorn:

Andrew Jones wrote a chapter on Zorn in his book, Plunderphonics,
'Pataphysics + Pop Mechanics, SAF Publishing (UK), 1995, pp. 143-155.  ISBN
0-946719-152.  With the 1995 pub date, Zorn's work after 1994 (including
Masada) and the recent releases that fill in the gaps (e.g., Filmworks) are
not discussed.

- --
Caleb T. Deupree
[e-mail]
;; For every complex question there is a simple answer.
;; And it is wrong.  (H. L. Mencken)

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 11:31:58 +1000
From: "Julian" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Melvins

Just thought I'd let you know that the Melvins were the "house band" this
morning on Australia's alternative music show Recovery. For those of you
who don't know about this show, imagine Letterman with a much much lower
budget, then swap Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra for the Melvins.

While we're on the topic, why does the band come up in this list so much?
What is their link to John Zorn? The only thing I know about is their
mention in the Leng Tch'e booklet. Is there anything else?

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 18:46:50 -0700
From: mike burma <[e-mail]>
Subject: Attachment Problem Investigation

>From:     [e-mail]
>In a message dated 97-08-22 15:37:40 EDT, [e-mail] writes:
>> A lot of posts from Zorn-list are coming through as ASCII text attachments
>>  instead of regular e-mail.
>>  Does anyone else have this problem?

>YES, and it is annoying!

    Hi folks, Mister Regional Zorn List Repairman here.
    I need everyones help (well, maybe not all 426 of
    you :) in fixing this problem.

    If you are seeing this attachments problem
    (especially IOUaLive1 and SlightAche):

    * Is it occurring for every zorn-list message?
    * If not, please tell me *exactly* which messages
    contain the ugly problem.
    * Tell what email client software you are using
    to read your zorn-list messages.

    If anyone is NOT seeing this problem at all,
    please let me know as well (I may regret
    asking this question :)

    Thanks everyone,
    mike rizzi

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 19:03:37 -0700
From: mike burma <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Attachment Problem Investigation

    D'oh, I almost forgot. Please send your answers
    to my previous email to this address ([e-mail])
    and NOT to the whole zorn-list (that would be the
    only thing more boring than a discussion about that
    damn ubiquitous Dancing Architecture quote).

    Thank you, and you, and you, and...
    mike rizzi

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 14:01:17 +1000
From: "Julian" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Praxis music

Anyone know of any Praxis tabs/sheet music available anywhere?

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 00:01:01 -0400
From: Steve Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Back on Bacharach

max wrote:

> I've been listening to the tribute cd quite a bit lately and was
> wondering if someone could give me some info. on a few of the players
> I
> hadn't heard before. I was most impressed with the arrangements by
> Erik
> Friedlander, Marie McAuliffe, and Eyvind Kang... Does anyone know what
>
> else these fine musicians have done? Yuka Honda and Guy Klucevsek are
> also great and I would like to know more about. Any help would be much
>
> appreciated...

Since lots of folks have already addressed everything else you asked
about, I thought I'd address your last mystery.  Marie McAuliffe is one
of the brightest up-and-coming jazz composers in New York.  My wife and
I checked out a set by her and her band during the New York Jazz
Festival and we were quite blown away.  She doesn't seem to play very
often, but I'll definitely be watching for her.  If I had to put her in
a category I'd say she's like Marty Ehrlich, another musician who's
making very creative new music from within a fairly traditional
framework.  Her compositions were consistently interesting and her
arranging was also first rate.

Koch Jazz, the label that released Carol Emanuel's excellent "Tops of
Trees,"  will be issuing Marie's first album later this year.

Steve Smith
[e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 00:07:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Hamilton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Dance for Le Corbusier

On Fri, 22 Aug 1997 [e-mail] wrote:

> But I'll
> leave you with a quote, I believe attributable to Frank Zappa: "Writing about
> music is like dancing about architecture."

1) What's wrong with dancing about architecture?

2) If you don't want to write (or read) about music, it may not be wise to
subscribe to text-oriented mailing lists about it.

3) I've heard that quote attributed to a number of people.  The earliest
is T. Monk, so I'm inclined to credit it to him, but I don't have any
solid information.  Can anyone else solve this age-old mystery?

Chris Hamilton

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:17:20 -0700
From: Schwitterz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Dance for Le Corbusier

>
>
> 3) I've heard that quote attributed to a number of people.  The
> earliest
> is T. Monk, so I'm inclined to credit it to him, but I don't have any
> solid information.  Can anyone else solve this age-old mystery?
>
> Chris Hamilton

How could it be Monk?  Someone who "danced about" airport terminals and
"danced about" his piano bench should be careful making disparaging
comments regarding "dancing about" architecture.

Sz


- --
=D0=CF=11=E0=A1=B1=1A=E1

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

Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 21:38:44 -0700
From: Jeff Spirer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Pieces

At 01:47 PM 8/22/97 PDT, David Brunelle wrote:
>
>>Just out of curiosity, what is the name of the new studio?  Is it still
>in
>>NYC?
>
>According to the liner notes for Sacred System 2 on the Axiom page, it's
>called Orange Music and it's in West Orange, New Jersey. Why, I don't
>know. I live in New Jersey and have been through West Orange, and have
>never seen a nice section of town!

Independent studios are rarely in nice sections of town.  Greenpoint was in
a meat packing district in Brooklyn.  There were no cabs at night, and it
wasn't very safe to walk from the studio to the subway.  On top of that,
the subway line didn't feel all that safe at night.

The new studio was picked because it was the right space at the right
price.  There are two studios there - one is built around the same set of
equipment at Greenpoint and may have a similar sound, although it isn't the
same space, obviously, and Greenpoint was an unusual space.  The second
studio is all new and will reflect a different sound.


Jeff Spirer
Axiom/Material
http://www.hyperreal.org/axiom/

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 00:33:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Hamilton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Parachute years or Masada?

On Fri, 22 Aug 1997 [e-mail] wrote:

> Well, that's not the first time I've heard the notion that Zorn may be
> playing us all for a buck recently.  But I think Masada is the most mature
> thing he's done.  Sure, the tunes are basically all the same, but the
> improvising and chemistry of the players is of a very rare quality in
> contemporary music.

Masada is Zorn's idiomatic jazz project.  Think of any of Zorn's hard bop
heroes.  I'll pick Sonny Clark, since I'm most familiar with him.  His
tunes are all basically the same, in that they belong to the same idiom.
The playing shows development from album to album, but not in leaps and
bounds.  If you really love Clark's take on the idiom, you'll want 'em
all, but most fans will be happy with two or three.

     The point I'm making is that the Masada albums aren't supposed to
represent conceptual advances.  They're just good, idiomatic tunes well
played.  There is in fact development in the approach to playing the tunes
but it's marginal in comparison to the leap between, say, _Spillane_ and
_Naked City_.  But ... within that idiom, the tunes are significantly
different from each other.

     I don't see why so many people have a problem with this.  The idea
that an album should be a big statement didn't become a commonplace until
late 60's rock, and it's arguably done more harm than good.  If you don't
want seven, ten, twenty Masada albums, just stop buying them.  If the
market's being oversaturated with Zorn product, DIW will eventually notice
and stop putting them out.  Completists (and I come close to being one
myself) have no one to blame but themselves.

Chris Hamilton


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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 00:39:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: Christopher Hamilton <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Parachute years or Masada?

On Fri, 22 Aug 1997, gschwend d. atelier wrote:

> can't remember who actually started the parachute/masada discussion; but
> this is my first mail to the list anyway.

Welcome aboard.

> even though i'm a huge fan of zorn, i think he's recently been trying to
> make as much money as possible out of his popularity. i cannot
> understand this, since i feel that the quality of some of the works went
> down with the quantity. (i hope i'm not starting too big a discussion
> with this last statement.)

My initial reaction to this was agreement, but when I went to my
collection to look for examples, I was hard pressed to find a weak record.
In my case, at least, I think the problem is just that they've been coming
too quickly for me to really absorb.  Which records do you think are of
low quality?

Chris Hamilton

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 01:24:22 -0400
From: Steve Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: New Zorn/Previte Duets record

To all -

This has been mentioned before some time back, but now that the release
is imminent (and while I know we're all saving our shekels for the
Parachute Box), I thought I'd post more details about the new Bobby
Previte / John Zorn disc "Euclid's Nightmare," the premiere release from
Previte's new Depth of Field label.

The disc is due out on September 16.  It's distributed by Koch so you
ought to see it in all your favorite record stores.  It's got 27 tracks,
all in the range of 1-2 minutes (with a single epic-length piece
clocking in at 3:44) and none of them titled (although they were
originally named with astrological symbols).  These are new recordings
made in March of this year.  The package is a cardboard and plastic
digipak, minimal and very nice looking - not as homemade as Screwgun,
not as high tech as Tzadik, but somewhere in between.

Zorn says it's his best purely "playing" record in a long time.  I've
only heard it once... what appealed was its energy and go for broke
spontaneity.  But you know with these two it's more than just free
blasting.

Bobby and I have written a website for him and his new label over the
last month, and, while I'm definitely an amateur webmaster, I'm finally
happy enough with the results to tell everyone.  There's a biography, a
concise discography with a link to Patrice Roussel's monster discography
on the WNUR Jazzweb, a news and tourdates page and a link to the Depth
of Field site.  That last site currently consists of only infomation
about "Euclid's Nightmare," as everything else is still extremely
tentative.  As more develops we'll post it, and I'd like to put up some
sound files as well.

Thanks for your time and input,
Steve Smith
[e-mail]

Bobby Previte Home Page: http://members.aol.com/Previte
Depth of Field http://members.aol.com/DOField

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 01:24:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: West Orange and Christian Marclay

In a message dated 8/23/97 12:43:48 AM, you wrote:

<<>According to the liner notes for Sacred System 2 on the Axiom page, it's
>called Orange Music and it's in West Orange, New Jersey. Why, I don't
>know. I live in New Jersey and have been through West Orange, and have
>never seen a nice section of town!

Independent studios are rarely in nice sections of town. >>

OK, when this was discussed in just one message, I was going to let it go but
now I feel compelled to briefly waste the list's time.

I grew up in West Orange, New Jersey. The bulk of it is your standard
tri-state area suburb, mostly upper middle-class. Unfortunately, I'm not
familiar with the specific location of Orange Music but we're certainly not
talking about an area that's especially dangerous.

ObMusic: The Christian Marclay compilation, 1981-1989, that Atavistic is
putting out sometime in September is one of the best records that I've heard
in a long time. Marclay is a remarkable musician, way too underdocumented on
record and even more so on CD. Does anyone know more about another Marclay
reissue coming out soon on ReR?

Jon

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 02:09:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (joel lewis)
Subject: list or articles on Zorn

hello--

i published a profile on zorn in American Book Review, about the time
Spillane came out 87?/88?-- usefull as he talks about the never realized
"live and let live " album project for elektra and talks of the just formed
& performing Naked City--- i will have to tarvel to my mini storage for the
text, but will try to retrieve it soon

joel lewis

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 08:47:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Oswald (was: Re: Parachute years or Masada?)

> > Anyone know what John Oswald has been up to since the Grateful Dead
> project?

>  Sine? No.  But i've heard about a Naked City cut-up he did for the ReR
>  quaterly music magazine/Cd.


He participated in a Zorn improv session @ the Knit on Feb 21 of this year,
also featuring Ikue Mori, Makigami Koichi, Ribot, and Shelly Hirsch.  Most
interesting.  He didn't do any typical plunderphonics -- just saxophone.  He
blows a mean one!

PWK
(p.p.o.c.)

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

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 07:50:28 -0700
From: Jeff Spirer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: West Orange

At 01:24 AM 8/23/97 -0400, [e-mail] wrote:
>
>In a message dated 8/23/97 12:43:48 AM, you wrote:
>
><<>According to the liner notes for Sacred System 2 on the Axiom page, it's
>>called Orange Music and it's in West Orange, New Jersey. Why, I don't
>>know. I live in New Jersey and have been through West Orange, and have
>>never seen a nice section of town!
>
(This was me):>Independent studios are rarely in nice sections of town. >>
>
>OK, when this was discussed in just one message, I was going to let it go but
>now I feel compelled to briefly waste the list's time.
>
>I grew up in West Orange, New Jersey. The bulk of it is your standard
>tri-state area suburb, mostly upper middle-class. Unfortunately, I'm not
>familiar with the specific location of Orange Music but we're certainly not
>talking about an area that's especially dangerous.

This was not intended to be a slam on West Orange, at least not by me.  I
lived, quite happily, in New Jersey at one time, despite fears that it
would permanently tar my reputation.  However, studios are often in
warehouse or other rundown commercial districts, which many people would
not call the "nice" part of a town.  Also, the parts of town that are not
"nice" are usually far more interesting than the ones that are "nice."  But
that's a subject for some other list...



Jeff Spirer
Axiom Records: http://www.hyperreal.org/axiom/
Photos: http://www.hyperreal.org/~jeffs/gallery.html

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

End of zorn-list Digest V2 #109
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