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Zorn List Digest      Wednesday, October 6 1999      Volume 02 : Number 767



In this issue:
-
       More media moans
       more signs of the Times
       The "Inauthentic" Jew?
       Re: Zorn List Digest V2 #766
       Re: more FMP news
       RE: more on the times
       Re: contacting avant
       NYT started it....
       Re: more on the times
       The "Inauthentic" Jew?
       Re: NYT started it....
       Jon Rose/David Watson free concert in NYC 10/11
       Free Flutists?

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 09:58:18 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Subject: More media moans

> >whatever ethnic musics they want, the piece seems to say, but Jews have a
> >special obligation to represent their own culture in a certain way --
> >even if that way is never stated
>
> Kurt, pardon if I took your comments out of context, or missed something,

Kurt can tell you for certain, but my reading of this was that the
ARTICLE was claiming that Jews have a special obligation etc etc,
and that Kurt, like you, begs to differ (not unreasonably).

I know I caused a flame war last time I grouched about this, but it
does seem to me that the national press in the UK is completely
and wilfully clueless about contemporary music in a way that it
isn't about the plastic arts. It may not be cutting edge, but
broadsheet arts coverage seems reasonably informed about
paintings and sculptures but totally uncomprehending when it
comes to music.

I mention this because (a) it pisses me off, and (b) I can't see why
it should be so. Surely some small London exhibition of conceptual
sculptures is no more accessible to newspaper readers than a new
CD by Evan Parker (say). I know this is slightly off-topic but I'd be
interested in anyone's thoughts on this, esp in relation to Zorn's
non-participation policy, which strikes me as being rather defeatist.

Rich

- -------------------------------------------------
Latest on (musings): reviews (with MP3s) of
new CD releases featuring, among others, John Stevens,
Chris Speed, Dave Douglas, Wayne Horovitz, Bobby Previte,
Francois Houle, Hans Tammen, Keith Tippett, Jerry
Granelli, Thurston Moore...
http://come.to/musings.com
+++STOP PRESS+++
Also Run Ra, John Tchicai, Braxton, Ganelin Trio...

- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 99 10:40:42 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: more signs of the Times

Day 3 of the post Times fracas... philz, I think you're kinda right. My
reactions at least are a little oversensitive and thinskinned. But when I read
the piece, I didn't feel like I was just reading a bad article. I felt like I'd
fallen for the bait-and-switch. I actually thought I was going to read a piece
about Arto, someone I'd trust the Times more to talk about (he's got that whole
multi-culti portrait of a scenic vista avant Buena Vista thing, plenty of what
the Times likes to do, and I thought I'd just learn a little about his anxiously
awaited new rekkerd). I turn to the jump, see a disarmingly huge photo of JZ's
mug, and start to descend downhill with the writer.

You're right again, philz (not trying to be facetious -- you really are). Much
of the article, especially the first half, focuses attention on the
accomplishments of deserving artists. But the writer is clearly setting us up
for a fall. In the end he wants to add oomph to his position, that Zorn has no
business feeling like an outcast Jew in New York City and that it's funny for
him to use Jewish iconography and wear Jewish clothes. Steve's excerpts help
show that, but the real probblem is in the overall construction of the piece,
devolving from describing the music as "an almost palpable feeling of intimacy
among strangers, of community, that goes beyond esthetic pleasure," to that last
line about "Jewish kitsch." If that's really all Zorn's doing, why devote so
much of the article to him. Why not run an enormous photo of someone who's work
is valid? Or why not write about something like Roy Nathanson and Anthony
Coleman's duet, which I like, but which I could see (at times) described as
"Jewish kitsch." Kitsch is something cute you put on a shelf, and if that's all
Masada is, then the author is in the end showing contempt for that group of
strangers who feel a sense of community because of the music. (That group, in
part being us. Like you, I was in that crowded room at the old Knit years ago,
realizing as I stood in the dark listening to the sounds of a train the depth of
the piece. But apparently what we shared, philz, was more like "Good Times" than
"Roots.")

Another odd statement here, as Steve clipped for us, is "By invoking his own
history of oppression, he can assert his right to play the blues, without the
racial envy that often burdens white musicians." This is freaked and stupid. Not
to diminish the accomplishments of many many many brilliant black musicians,
there is this odd idea in America that heartfelt, extemporaneous music is the
property of people of African descent. The terms we use, like "blues" or
"soulful," evoke African American traditions, and the popular conception is that
everything comes from slave songs. As has been said here before, who came first
decades or centuries ago has little to do with creative expression in the
present, but still, improvisation is not a single tradition. Beethoven, Chopin
and others used to improvise in concert. In fact, the improv segment that would
follow a composed work was often considered to be the highlight of a
performance. If you listen to European liturgical music (like Bach's violin
solos), it seems likely (though I don't know) that expanding upon the work while
playing could have been done. And I can't imagine that the klezmer tradition
hasn't always included improvisation. African Americans have no doubt added more
to the tradition of improvised music in America than any other cultural
grouping, and you (not necessarily philz, but anyone) can decide what value you
think that has as a race-based argument. But to say that anyone who picks up a
horn without having sheet music in front of them owes a debt to African slaves
is short-sighted. The tradition is far richer and more diverse than any one
continent.



- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 16:46:44 +0200
From: Stephen Fruitman <[e-mail]>
Subject: The "Inauthentic" Jew?

The "quality and authenticy...of his very Jewishness", as Steve Smith
pointed out, seems indeed to be the ill-chosen target of Adam Shatz=B4 NY
Times attack on John Zorn. Albeit that he appends a disclaimer that
ultimately, Zorn=B4s Jewishness will be "primarily of interests to scholars
of ethnicity". Well, here=B4s one chiming in, who also happens to be a music
lover with his own crotchety tastes and believes that the Radical Jewish
Culture being produced over there is both radical and very Jewish indeed.

The bee in Shatz=B4 bonnet I would loosely identify with the term
"essentialism". Essentialism prefers "authenticity" (and what in the world
is that, now?) - and which promises some sort of symmetry and completedness
- - over diversity, which leaves a lot of threads dangling and questions
unanswered. He claims for instance that Zorn=B4s compilation tributes to
musicians such as Marc Bolan and Serge Gainsbourg (wonder why he didn=B4t
mention Bacharach - is his oeuvre somehow more blatantly Jewish?) reek of
an "atavistic form of identity politics". However, as Zorn stated when I
queried him good-naturedly via fax about the
Bacharach-as-Great-Jewish-Musician postulate, he answered to the effect
that Bacharach=B4s music need not be played by a klezmer band with payes
a-flyin=B4 in order to be considered Jewish; in fact, he asked me, under the
circumstances, isn=B4t Irving Berlin=B4s "White Christmas" just about one of
the most Jewish cultural artefacts around?

There are many levels to this argument, in my estimation, all of them quite
fascinating. But foremost to the discussion at hand is the one which
refutes Shatz=B4 self-appointed position as arbiter of Jewishness. Despite
the fact that he dedicated the entire series of Masada studio CDs to Ahad
Ha=B4-am (ideologue of cultural Zionism), I would classify Zorn as more of a
follower of Micha Berdyczewski, a disciple of Ahad Ha=B4-am=B4s who took
Nietzschean exception to his master=B4s own "essentialism": For AH, a
radically new Jewish culture was to be based solely on _Jewish_ cultural
artefacts, to wit, the texts of the Bible and the Prophets. No foreign
influence was to be allowed, indeed, it was to be rooted out. MB on the
other hand said, in so many words, that as a Jewish author and Jew,
whatever I _do_ is Jewish. This allows for a more expansive, individualist
interpretation of what "Jewishness" (or anythingness) is in age of
fragmentation, creating community while effectively safeguarding against
the exclusionary "tribalism" Shatz tut-tuts over.

Yet despite all this ethnography and dabbling in the history of ideas,
there is of course a value judgement made by Shatz on the music, that the
result is "simply radical kitsch", which may well be the instigation for
these speculations about Zorn=B4s motives in the first place. So in the fina=
l
analysis, the reader is left with the impression that all this ink has been
spilled for no other reason than the fact that the writer likes Arto
Lindsay=B4s music and deems it "authentic", while he does not care for
Zorn=B4s, which he must wave off as "inauthentic" in order to lend his own
taste some form of "verifiable" credibility.

Stephen Fruitman





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

Bj=F6rn Olsson,
Inst. f=F6r id=E9historia,
Ume=E5 universitet
901 87 Ume=E5
tel. [phone] fax 143374
e-post: [e-mail]



- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 09:47:56 -0500 (CDT)
From: Whit Schonbein <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Zorn List Digest V2 #766

On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Zorn List Digest wrote:
> 1.torture garden
> 2.Grand guignol
> 3.Absinth
> 4.Radio
> 5.Heretic
> and I rate them this way 4.,5.,2.,1.,3,

my ranking, fwiw: 4 (radio - favourite), 2 (first 1/2), 5 (rewards
multiple listens - sounds like a series of free improvs with various
combinations of the band members), 1 & 2 (second 1/2 of 2; there is a lot
of
overlap with torture garden and grand guignol; the latter has many of the
same songs as the former (perhaps even the same recordings - torture
garden is on shimmy disc, not avant); torture garden is also only
30-something minutes long; grand guignol is closer to an hour or 70min),
3 (absinthe - not sure it's my least favourite, just the least listened
to - as nick said, it's ambient noises/drones).

cheers,
whit


- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 11:13:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ken Waxman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: more FMP news

All very impressive new FMP stuff. But if the title Quartet is right for
the new(er) CT session, who of the five musicians named *doesn't* play?

Ken Waxman

- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 08:58:38 -0700
From: "Benito Vergara" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: more on the times

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail]
> [mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of philz
> Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 1999 4:59 AM

steve smith highlighted some excerpts:

> >"The prime architects of the new sensibility are Mr. Zorn, *who now
> >considers himself a Jewish composer*..."

> >"Mr. Zorn is *committed to the idea of Jews as an eternal pariah
> class*..."

And philz wrote:

> Well, better leave me in the dark, I still find the article, even
> with the comments illustrated above, generally positive and
> inoffensive.

Well, Steve left out Shatz's conclusion, where he calls Zorn's music
"radical kitsch." To which I say, "Huh?"

Shatz also questions Zorn's apparent positioning of himself as an oppressed
outsider, noting that he is the consummate downtown insider in a city that
has been the capital of postwar Jewish culture, etc. Granted, putting Zorn
in that cultural context is indeed fair, but it makes him sound like a
poseur somehow. Who is anyone to question Zorn's "authenticity?" (Funny how
David Byrne criticizes the idea of the authentic in the accompanying
article.)

Ultimately, it's not dissimilar from what Cook and Morton rather bluntly
raised in The Penguin Guide (I'm quoting here from the third edition): "Even
a project like [Masada]... raises questions about opportunism. Why was his
interest in Hebrew culture not made known sooner? A desire for privacy? A
slow awakening to his cultural roots? Or a more cynical reason?"

(Cook and Morton do add in the next paragraph: "There seems no reason to
take the third course in approaching these records.")

Later,
Ben

http://www.bigfoot.com/~bvergara/
ICQ# 12832406


- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 17:58:40 +0200
From: "Stefan Verstraeten" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: contacting avant

Hi (sorry for the late response)

The best thing to do is go to forced exposure www.forcedexposure.com and
then go to the option browse by label and go to the avant label.

The  site mentions every avant release that is for sale and even gives a
brief description.

As far as I know the label doesn't have an official website like tzadik
does... never understood why

best wishes

stefan verstraeten

np frisell...good dog happy man..... one of his best albums in my opinion

>From: "Bruno" <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Request - help in contacting AVANT recodrs
>
>Hallo Zorn-heads
>
> just a quick coupla questions - I've been a bit of a Zorn fan for a while
>now, and I'm looking to track down a few more of the Naked City albums.
From
>hitting the Zorn discog, it looks like the "Avant" label have a lot of the
>stuff I'm after - so the questions are:
>
>1. does anybody know how to contact Avant records (an e-mail or WWW would
be
>nice) - I've tried to get local record stores to track them down, but they
>have NO idea



- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 12:45:41 -0500
From: Mark Corroto <[e-mail]>
Subject: NYT started it....

At the risk of assasination and censure:

My wife made an astute observation regarding the Times piece

Zorn's career is tracking the same path as Spike Lee's

preaching to the converted is boring

enlightening the uninformed is much more interesting


Sure the biography of MAlcolm X had to be made into a movie
As a book it moved me, as a film it bored the shit outta me
But Spike has a mission not to entertain but to hold up an entire people



Is Zorn pushing himself into being a LEADER OF HIS PEOPLE?
Do you want to be led?
Who are his people?

Did John Coltrane approach music like this?

I don't think so....







- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 11:44:48 -0500 (CDT)
From: benjamin elliot axelrad <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: more on the times

Has anyone read anything in the Jewish media about Zorn?  I remember
reading an article on Jewish musicians and the rebirth of Klezmer in a
free publication from United Jewish Appeal where the author critiqued
Zorn's music (specifically Masada) for only being superficially Jewish.
The author felt that Zorn was appropriating the symbols of Judaism
(wearing a tallis on stage, performing in a temple) but somehow not
capturing any of the "depth."  I'm not sure what any of this means.

(Does anyone know why Safam is so popular?)

Ben

On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, philz wrote:

> But, can Zorn or anyone be that surprised that the media is picking
> up on the Jewish angle?  Isn't that somewhat the idea, to draw
> attention to the Jewish plight?  I get the impression that some are
> upset that the media actually noticed some part of what Zorn is up
> to.  So what if Zorn is identified with Jewish culture? - He's been
> responsible for the Radical Jewish Culture series and has promoted
> Jewish artists where possible.


- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 11:56:10 -0500 (CDT)
From: benjamin elliot axelrad <[e-mail]>
Subject: The "Inauthentic" Jew?

From: Stephen Fruitman <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: The "Inauthentic" Jew?

that Bacharach=B4s music need not be played by a klezmer band with payes
a-flyin=B4 in order to be considered Jewish; in fact, he asked me, under th=
e
circumstances, isn=B4t Irving Berlin=B4s "White Christmas" just about one o=
f
the most Jewish cultural artefacts around?

- ---------------------------------
I know this is off-topic, but I'm reminded of something that Philip Roth
wrote in _Operation Shylock_.  He argues that Berlin did so much for the
Jews by writing "White Christmas" and whatever song he wrote about Easter
because these two songs effectively "shlock-ified" the two most important
Christian holidays.

Ben



- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 14:31:01 -0500
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: NYT started it....

On Wed, Oct 06, 1999 at 12:45:41PM -0500, Mark Corroto wrote:

> Is Zorn pushing himself into being a LEADER OF HIS PEOPLE?
> Do you want to be led?
> Who are his people?

What you mean "his people", kemosabe? (very old Lone Ranger joke
reference...)

Or more interestingly, what do you mean "leader"? and "pushing"?
Is his work with Radical Jewish Culture and Tzadik providing
an example that I would want to follow? Yes. (The same might be
true in those fields of, respectively, say, Liz Lerman and Robert
Fripp.) Does this mean I want to follow his lead in imitating
"Leng Tche" or Painkiller? No, not particularly.

Do I want to be led? Not a bad thing in many ways (the peculiar
compulsive antiauthority fetish pervading the Net notwithstanding)...
as long as I can choose, whom to follow, and when and how...
- --
|> ~The only thing that is not art is inattention~ --- Marcel Duchamp <|
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| Latest CD: Shekhinah: The Presence     http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |

- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 16:00:12 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Jon Rose/David Watson free concert in NYC 10/11

I thought some people here might be interested to learn that Jon Rose and
David Watson are doing a free in-store concert at Downtown Music Gallery this
coming Monday, 10/11, at 7 PM. DMG is at 211 E. 5th St., phone number is
[phone]. Rose is also playing at 11 PM the next night at the
Alterknit, which I believe is his only other appearance in town this time
through.

Jon
www.erstwhilerecords.com

NP: Harry Pussy-What Was Music? (Siltbreeze)

- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 15:33:08 -0400
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Free Flutists?

     Possibly a silly question, but, aside from the arguable example of
     Robert Dick, are there any free players around who stick exclusively
     to the flute? Not someone like Braxton who sometimes plays flute and
     sometimes plays free, but...the Derek Bailey of the flute.

     Brian Olewnick





- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V2 #767
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