Has anyone heard Bob Ostertag's Verbatim? If so, any thoughts? The line-up is excellent: Mark Dresser (double-bass), Gerry Hemmingway (percussion), Phil Minton (voice) & Ostertag (samples, electronics). I've only heard it once now...I just got it, and find it really interesting, but I don't think I quite understand.
Regards
Daryl Loomis
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 13:54:41 EDT
From: Eisenbeil@aol.com
Subject: Re: artists and self-estimation
In a message dated 6/5/00 12:39:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
proussel@ichips.intel.com writes:
<< For you musicians/artists seem to be all in the same box: you are one or
you are not one. Because the number of artists that can reach us has
increased
dramatically in the past few decades, we (the consummers) are faced with a
tough choice: how to filter the superflous and derivative from the true
original and genuine stuff? Maybe you have an answer, but I don't. >>
Hello Partrice,
How do you determine what is superflous and derivative? Not necessarily of
the present but even perhaps of merely 30 years ago. Or if you prefer, of
50, 100, or 300 years ago. What do those words mean to you with respect to
music? And conversely, what does original and genuine mean with respect to
music? What is your aesthetic criteria for evaluation?
I'd like to communicate with you and others about these concepts but I need
to understand your POV with respect to these terms and not just from a
superficial orientation that is generated by the flux of comparitive
analysis; ie : Kenny G is superflous and Louis Armstrong is not.
etcetera ad infinitum
I am aware that several of the writers and many of the readers here are
informed by modern philosophical and psychological backgrounds. Methods of
evaluation really haven't been defined using these referance points. I
hope someone can define their musical aesthetic from a post modern vantage.
I've not come across a single writer here who uses musical analysis as a way
of expressing, from an objective musical analytic POV, the concepts that are
employed and developed upon by a specific composer in even one specific work.
An I don't mean to imply that that is necessary or the better way to churn
out thoughts. Granted , musical anaysis , cut and dry objective evaluation,
is not poetic but it does offer a sense of reason which can be compared and
contrasted with other works using a specific unified vocabulary. For
instance, understanding and expressing likes and dislikes using vocabulary
that illuminates the inner workings of the music as in: intervals that are
emphasized in one Masada composition in contrast to another. Or perhaps,
what makes so and so's counterpoint(in a string quartet, or jazz quartet)
original and unique in contrast to Mr. Doodycum's superflous and derivitive,
though perhaps sonically alluring, flavor of the week.
Regards,
Bruce
www.eisenbeil.com
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 10:55:53 -0700
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <proussel@ichips.intel.com>
Subject: label Ampersand?
Does anybody know who is behind the label Ampersand which just started
with three reissues of Cramps records (including Cage's CHEAP IMITATION)?
Thanks,
Patrice.
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 14:27:41 -0400
From: Mike Chamberlain <mikec@rocler.qc.ca>
Subject: Re: label Ampersand?
Patrice L. Roussel wrote:
>
> Does anybody know who is behind the label Ampersand which just started
> with three reissues of Cramps records (including Cage's CHEAP IMITATION)?
Patrice,
What???!!!! The Cramps covered Cage?
Which albums? Presumably "Songs the Lord Taught Us" (one of Alex
Chilton's finest moments, imho), the first one (with "Human Fly" I can
never remember the title) and what?
Aaah.....I will never forget the night I was introduced to The Cramps.
I kept asking my friend to play the albums over and over and over again.
- --Mike
- --
Mike Chamberlain
Teacher, Writer, Broadcaster, Father, Farmer, Baseball Fan, Jazz Nerd,
Sumo Nut, Bald Guy
"I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused."
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 11:37:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: "m. rizzi" <rizzi@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: label Ampersand?
Mike Chamberlain, demi-God and Icon sez:
>> Does anybody know who is behind the label Ampersand which just started
>> with three reissues of Cramps records (including Cage's CHEAP IMITATION)?
>What???!!!! The Cramps covered Cage?
Sadly no. Patrice is referring to the
record label Cramps, which did put
out that Cage tribute compilation
that included Joey Ramone singing
acapella. darn fun.
rizzi
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 15:27:07 EDT
From: XRedbirdxx@aol.com
Subject: Bach/Caine
Anyone catch Uri Caine's Bach Goldgerb Variation Project this past weekend at the Jazz Standard??
Do tell!
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 13:37:47 -0600
From: "Matthew W Wirzbicki (S) " <M_WIRZBICKI@ColoradoCollege.edu>
Subject: RE: artists and self-estimation
Bruce wrote:
>what does original and genuine mean with
>respect to
>music? What is your aesthetic criteria for evaluation?
>I hope someone can define their musical aesthetic from a post modern
>vantage.
I'm pretty ignorant about the concepts behind post-modernist thought, but
aren't we engaging in post-modernist behavior when we say - as I think many
have said over the course of this discussion - that quality is really judged
by the unique reaction of the individual listener. Maybe I'm way off the
mark.
>understanding and expressing likes and dislikes using
>vocabulary
>that illuminates the inner workings of the music as in: intervals that
>are
>emphasized in one Masada composition in contrast to another. Or
>perhaps,
>what makes so and so's counterpoint(in a string quartet, or jazz
>quartet)
>original and unique.
I'm going to snip Joseph Zitt's comment here
>>Well, considering that Western "classical" and "jazz" musics are among
>>the only musics in which harmonic movement is a significant factor...
This is just the problem. We don't have a set of terminology for some of
the musics which are now emerging and we have yet to discover a working
terminology for the musics of many of the world's cultures. Talking about
intervals and counterpoint is hardly helpful in a discussion of most musics.
We can write gamelan music or talk about the music in africa or even notate
that music, but the scope of understanding that our system of notation and
our cherished western music vocabulary offers does not begin to help us
understand how the music is heard by the people who make it...the people who
understand that musical language.
I don't think that disecting the music through webs of learned musical
concepts is going to help separate the superflous from the genuine, simply
because the concepts themselves are inadiquate descriptives.
Take LMC or Taku Sugimoto. I don't think you could really say that they're
moving into any really new areas of counterpoint but yet some people
consider their music to be genuine. What sorts of terms would you use to
talk about Kevin Drumm's music? ..
I do think that analysis is extreemly interesting, but I'm not sure it's the
most effective tool to separate artistic success from failure.
Matt Wirzbicki
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 15:54:04 -0400
From: Peter Gannushkin <shkin@shkin.com>
Subject: Re: Bach/Caine
Hello XRedbirdxx,
Monday, June 05, 2000, you wrote to me:
Xac> Anyone catch Uri Caine's Bach Goldgerb Variation Project this
Xac> past weekend at the Jazz Standard??
I saw them yesterday. The ensemble includes almost the same people as
Mahler's project: Uri Caine - piano, Greg Tardy - clarinet and tenor
sax, Ralph Alessi - trumpet, Diane Monroe - violin, Barbara Walker -
vocals, DJ Olive - turntables, Drew Gress - bass, Ralph Peterson -
drums and two poets.
Caine did the same thing with Bach as with other composers before. He
played solo a little, arranged Bach for piano, violin, double bass and
trumpet in a very good Bachish way and added lots of R&B, jazz and
some klezmer music. Excellent arrangement and piano playing as usual.
Diane Monroe, Barbara Walker, Drew Gress and Ralph Peterson were great
too. Others were quit good but not so interesting.
The only bad thing was the worst acoustics in the city of Jazz
Standard. It was not unexpected though.
- --
Best regards,
Peter Gannushkin
e-mail: shkin@shkin.com
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 12:58:35 -0700
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <proussel@ichips.intel.com>
Subject: Re: artists and self-estimation
On Mon, 5 Jun 2000 13:54:41 EDT Eisenbeil@aol.com wrote:
>
> << For you musicians/artists seem to be all in the same box: you are one or
> you are not one. Because the number of artists that can reach us has
> increased
> dramatically in the past few decades, we (the consummers) are faced with a
> tough choice: how to filter the superflous and derivative from the true
> original and genuine stuff? Maybe you have an answer, but I don't. >>
>
> How do you determine what is superflous and derivative? Not necessarily of
> the present but even perhaps of merely 30 years ago. Or if you prefer, of
> 50, 100, or 300 years ago. What do those words mean to you with respect to
> music? And conversely, what does original and genuine mean with respect to
> music? What is your aesthetic criteria for evaluation?
I am not talking about absolute judgements at all!
My point was that people should not feel intimidated to say what they think
about music. Specialists might have more knowledge, but since they always
have an agenda (getting their paycheck, complying to the latest intellectual
fad, etc), a non-specialist who has escaped brainwash has something to
say that can be as relevant.
Like everybody here, I have read a pile of crap written by alleged specialists
(Boulez, Adorno, etc). And what? How does what these "enlighted" intellectuals
once wrote stand now? How many PhDs do we need to be slightly less wrong that
these specialists?
Yes, there are some interesting ideas that they expressed, but this is hidden
under a pile of dogmatism and fadish attitude.
At least critic is totally harmless (not like political theories...).
> I am aware that several of the writers and many of the readers here are
> informed by modern philosophical and psychological backgrounds. Methods of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Does it help in any way? I mean, besides creating more confusion and making
the intimidating attitude even worse.
Seriously, has anybody been able to get anything out of the new philosophical
babbling (except getting a diploma, and impress those who like to be
impressed)?
I mean, how many fashionable theories will it take to get it right? Are we
getting closer from the ultimate truth with any of these new theories? Or
are we just turning in round and wasting our time?
> evaluation really haven't been defined using these referance points. I
> hope someone can define their musical aesthetic from a post modern vantage.
It should be clear by now that there is no known algorithm to decide if music
is good or bad. But a still fairly common approach, pretending reaching
objectivity, consists in using the latest fashion in ready-to-wear philosophy
(or critic theory) to "analyze" and rate a piece of art.
Are you impressed by post modernism? Doesn't it make you feel like when
doctors during Middle Age were using Latin language to hide the vacuousness
of their discourse?
I know, being French, I should not spit in the soup...
> I've not come across a single writer here who uses musical analysis as a way
> of expressing, from an objective musical analytic POV, the concepts that are
> employed and developed upon by a specific composer in even one specific work.
> An I don't mean to imply that that is necessary or the better way to churn
> out thoughts. Granted , musical anaysis , cut and dry objective evaluation,
> is not poetic but it does offer a sense of reason which can be compared and
> contrasted with other works using a specific unified vocabulary. For
Except that critic is still an a-posteriori demarche. Good to explain the
past but fairly useless for dealing with the future (where revolutions are
coming from). Because of that, there are good reasons to be dubious about
the value of critic theory when dealing with new forms of art.
> instance, understanding and expressing likes and dislikes using vocabulary
> that illuminates the inner workings of the music as in: intervals that are
> emphasized in one Masada composition in contrast to another. Or perhaps,
> what makes so and so's counterpoint(in a string quartet, or jazz quartet)
> original and unique in contrast to Mr. Doodycum's superflous and derivitive,
> though perhaps sonically alluring, flavor of the week.
Confronted with the total failure of intellectual approaches to criticism,
I think that nobody should feel ashamed to say what they think without
being intimidated by "specialists" who most of the time have no clue (but
an agenda).
Patrice.
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 17:55:25 CDT
From: "samuel yrui" <nonintention@hotmail.com>
Subject: ARTISTS and self examination
I think Merzhbow orchestrates his counterpoint beautifully.
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 19:30:39 EDT
From: ObviousEye@aol.com
Subject: Re: Zorn List Digest V2 #955
In a message dated 6/5/00 9:28:33 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com writes:
<< variations in quality seem evident. >>
According to whom? What is quality? It's not necessarily definable... thats
all i am saying. Of course comparisons between artists will forever occur,
its just that i believe it can be limiting to conversation to include an
ABSOLUTE or DEFINITE truth to something based on opinion. It's faulty
reasoning....
I was probably slightly too cut and dry in my other post....what i would like
to stress with all this babble is not that it is utterly pointless to argue,
but instead that it can be limiting if an idea or opinion does not draw from
a large base of information. Yet i still maintain that validity is a futile
subject.
ben
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 20:53:47 -0400
From: Matt Laferty <bg60009@binghamton.edu>
Subject: Re: Verbatim
I've had Verbatim for about a year now, and every time I put the track "Oxblood" on a mix, it inevitably causes beatific consternation among the recipients...I don't have any of the companion albums, but the I love the modified voice sounds as much as John Giorno's and they are much creepier.
Yep it is a creepy album, but holds up.
Matt
Daryl Loomis wrote:
> Has anyone heard Bob Ostertag's Verbatim? If so, any thoughts? The line-up is excellent: Mark Dresser (double-bass), Gerry Hemmingway (percussion), Phil Minton (voice) & Ostertag (samples, electronics). I've only heard it once now...I just got it, and find it really interesting, but I don't think I quite understand.
>
> Regards
>
> Daryl Loomis
>
>
> -
- -
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2000 18:12:07 -0700
From: Jeffrey Zima <bungle28@pacbell.net>
Subject: please!!
can somebody help me out with where zorn will be playing and with who -
a schedule?
please!
thx in advance
jeff
- -
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 04:42:18 GMT
From: "Bill Ashline" <bashline@hotmail.com>
Subject: artists and self-estimation
Patrice wrote:
<Because the number of artists that can reach us has increased dramatically
in the past few decades, we (the consummers) are faced with a tough choice:
how to filter the superflous and derivative from the true original and
genuine stuff? >
We donÆt really need any filters. TheyÆre already built in. ItÆs why we
refuse to hear so much thatÆs valuable.
<This raises the question of who is more qualified to judge music: a
mediocre artist or an educated listener (educated in the sense of having
done his homework)? >
No one is qualified to judge music. No one could possibly do enough
homework.
<If every artist was of the stature of Picasso or Cage>
This is it in a nutshell. A hierarchy of evaluation. What if we are
surprised to find out that one common DJ in our time has as subtle a
knowledge about music as Mr. Cage? Would this be blasphemous?
Bruce wrote:
<I've not come across a single writer here who uses musical analysis as a
way of expressing, from an objective musical analytic POV, the concepts that
are employed and developed upon by a specific composer in even one specific
work. >
I agree with this point and am certainly not in the position of doing so
myself, but I think this is but one mode of analysis available to us and not
necessarily an objective one. The rest of your reflections I think were
highly compelling.
Matt wrote:
<This is just the problem. We don't have a set of terminology for some of
the musics which are now emerging and we have yet to discover a working
terminology for the musics of many of the world's cultures. Talking about
intervals and counterpoint is hardly helpful in a discussion of most
musicsà. I don't think that disecting the music through webs of learned
musical concepts is going to help separate the superflous from the genuine,
simply because the concepts themselves are inadiquate descriptivesà. I do
think that analysis is extreemly interesting, but I'm not sure it's the most
effective tool to separate artistic success from failure. >
Once again a very compelling set of issues here. One neednÆt invoke the
term "postmodernism" to note that the issues have become very complex and
that the old categories of great art or bad art or success or failure are
insufficient to deal with many of the experiments taking place.
Patrice wrote:
<My point was that people should not feel intimidated to say what they think
about music. >
IÆm glad you donÆt feel intimidated, Patrice.
<Like everybody here, I have read a pile of crap written by alleged
specialists à.At least critic is totally harmless (not like political
theories...). >
Political theories donÆt kill people; people kill people, which they do
anyway, without theories most of the time. As far as the timelessness of
aesthetic attitudes and the harmlessness of critics, Hans Haacke had a
different take, when he juxtaposed ExxonÆs support for the symphony next to
the effects of their investment in S. Africa during apartheid.
<Seriously, has anybody been able to get anything out of the new
philosophical babbling (except getting a diploma, and impress those who like
to be impressed)? I mean, how many fashionable theories will it take to get
it right? Are we getting closer from the ultimate truth with any of these
new theories? Or are we just turning in round and wasting our time?>
Are we still believing in "ultimate truth" and "getting it right," Patrice?
Raging, raging against the dimming of the light? I donÆt see a lot of
theory impressing anyone in the mainstream, and if itÆs "fashionable," I
donÆt see a lot of people wearing it. But I can see you find it to be both
a lot of work and a waste of time, regardless of what it might contribute to
our discussions here. Profess ignorance and a lack of interest if you must,
but if you think itÆs impressive to watch you take a vast amount of
significant literature, not bother to read much more than a lick of it, and
plop it all into the garbage can of your psyche, youÆre mistaken.
<Are you impressed by post modernism? Doesn't it make you feel like when
doctors during Middle Age were using Latin language to hide the vacuousness
of their discourse?à Except that critic is still an a-posteriori demarche.
Good to explain the past but fairly useless for dealing with the future
(where revolutions are coming from). Because of that, there are good reasons
to be dubious about the value of critic theory when dealing with new forms
of art. >
WhoÆs being "vacuous?" All youÆre supplying are feelings and insults
rather than arguments. This Napoleanic posturing is getting nowhere. Which
criticism do you read makes you claim that itÆs only useful for dealing with
the past? In logic, we call this a "straw man" argument: itÆs an
"aposteriori demarche," (the straw man) and therefore "useless for dealing
with the future" (the slippery slope emerging from the straw man).
<Confronted with the total failure of intellectual approaches to criticism,
I think that nobody should feel ashamed to say what they think without being
intimidated by "specialists" who most of the time have no clue (but an
agenda).>
Agreed. No one should feel intimidated. Not even artists and musicians who
find out their works are "failures." They should continue to go on
producing as before without any concern about offending our categories of
judgment. Once again, we "clueless" specialists who espouse yet more
"failures" and "fashions" of "intellectual approaches to criticism" as a
secret agenda to subvert the common sense that we all love and admire are to
be refused in advance no matter the persuasiveness of our appeals.
I applaud the hyperbole and the bravura, Patrice. Now letÆs get back to the
music so that we can adjudicate the good and the bad once again.
