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Zorn List Digest        Wednesday, June 7 2000        Volume 02 : Number 959



In this issue:
-
       RE: Bach/Caine
       max'n'cecil, joey'n'ron, dsware, laguardia high
       artists and self-expression
       sonic boom
       Odp: artists and self-expression
       Re: Odp: notation (was artists and self-estimation)
       Tonic Tonight (Moore/Gordon/Mori/Olive/O'Rourke)
       Re: Verbatim
       Misha Mengelberg
       RE: notation (was artists and self-estimation)
       Re: notation (was artists and self-estimation)

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

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 22:50:54 -0700
From: "Dave Egan" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Bach/Caine

Hi guys,

I saw Uri play the Goldberg variations with the Seattle Chamber Players in
March.  Just piano, violin, cello, clarinet and flute.  Very good, with
Uri's trademark arrangements, but maybe a little more like a straight
rendition with the acoustic instrumentation.  I made a recording of the
show, and I have an extra pair of CDs if either of you are interested.  Let
me know.

- - Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail]
> [mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Peter Gannushkin
> Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 12:54 PM
> To: XRedbirdxx @ aol . 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: [e-mail]
>
>
>
> -
>


- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 10:21:19 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: max'n'cecil, joey'n'ron, dsware, laguardia high

absolutely historic night on columbia's campus. that's the first thing, knowing
i got bragging rights on some piece of jazz lore for when i'm an old guy. (a
couple i know were also at the 1979 and 1989 max/cecil sets, but what're you
gonna do).

the historic feel is relevant because it really permeated the evening, i
thought. and it may be why the audience (1,000 at least?) was surprisingly quiet
and respectful. a beautiful night.

that said...

tubamaster bob stewart and the laguardia high jazz band (w/soloists james
spaulding(!), wes anderson and someone else) - strong playing of big band
charts, mostly ellington and a piece from peer gynt which i assume was duke's
arrangement, altho bob didn't say so. ended with a strong version of mingus'
moanin'. to say they were great for their age would be a disservice. just a
strong, energetic big band steeped in tradition.

ron carter and joey baron - well... uh, good thing joey was there. i've always
found rc to be rather hit or miss. this seemed like 45 min of so of him going
'and i know this riff and i know this riff and i know this riff and i know this
riff...'. always-a-joy joey, however, excels in such a setting (i used to love
to watch him divine rhythms from the pedal-induced chaos frisell would create,
when it seemed bf didn't even know where he was going (tho maybe that was just
the shtick).

david s. ware quartet - ok, i've never been a champion of dsw either. i seem to
end up seeing him one place or another every summer, and i sorta think he's a
blowhard without much to say. but this was great. great. strong statement of an
aylery, gospelly theme by shipp, then ware came in and they took it to the sky
(there being no roof). great playing all around. lovely to see parker lay out a
fearsome noise, rattling the bricks of my stodgy alma mater. my first time
seeing brown, too. where'd he come from?

max roach and cecil taylor - one of the aforementioned couple said 'even if it
wasn't good, it was great.' seems like it took them a good 20 minutes to start
playing together, and even then each was pushing more than listening. but so the
fuck what? 2 brilliant players, the solos and the final duet were exceptional,
and damn if it's just good to see max pound for over an hour. rumors about his
failing health (true or not) be damned.

oh, and next time there's free history in the making, pick up after your damn
selves, y'all. that's all.

np: bobby zankel quintet - prayer and action



- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 14:22:28 GMT
From: "Bill Ashline" <[e-mail]>
Subject: artists and self-expression

Bruce wrote:

<The distance between 2 pitches can be assessed in any music. With regard to
counterpoint, if there is more than one voice happening at any given time
then counterpoint exists. There are only 4 types of movement: contrary,
oblique, parallel and similar. Any 2 or more voices or instruments in any
culture exhibit this behavior, no? I am taking the time to explore this
discussion with you and others because I truly wish to understand other
peoples perception of musical experiance.>

This can be a valuable exercise I think for bringing out a
structural/formalist approach to music using conventional vocabulary of that
sort.  I think itÆs a limited approach though for looking at other aspects
of music, including emotive/affective aspects.  For those matters, we need
to use a different vocabulary.

Patrice wrote:

<If I remember well, Adorno's main "argument" to demolish Stravinsky is that
the composer is bourgeois (would have been fun to check who was paying
Adorno's bills...). Starting with this rock solid "axiom", and going
backward (you fix the target first), he is able to make his point. Is that
what we can call intellectual integrity? And Adorno is usually the pie in
the face that you get when you dare to doubt about the relevance of these
music critic theorists... Fortunately, more people remember Stravinsky than
Adorno.>

I would never throw Adorno into anyoneÆs face since his theories on music,
particularly jazz, constitute a very inadequate reading.  But before I threw
Adorno out in trash, IÆd spend more than just an hour or two looking at the
Dialectic of Enlightenment and Minima Moralia so that you can see the hell
from which he emerged.  As far as his expanding the text of music into areas
outside the hermetic and solipsistic spaces of notation, I think that was a
positive contribution, despite all his high modernist aestheticism.  If more
people remember Stravinsky than Adorno, itÆs because the institutions that
support Stravinsky are lot more powerful than those that support Adorno.
The power of these institutions are exemplified in some of the responses one
sees on this list.

╪ <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.
╪ <Wow! What a strong statement. Even the post-modern critic? Even with the
help of deconstruction? That's really disappointing. For a few minutes, you
almost convinced me. >

"Qualification" and "homework" were your words.  You should be better than
this at reading joking hyperbole.

<Sorry, I did not know that stating that some artists are more important
than others was taboo. >

Not taboo.  Revealingà

<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 >
╪ < You should tell that to people from Cambodia. >

Bad example.  Would you like to read my article on Cambodia?  Since you
prefer simple explanations, it would probably be moot to point out to you
that Pol Pot got his brilliant ideas about constructing irrigation systems
by reading the mythic fabrications of the 19th century French explorers in
the French libraries in the late fifties.  Now did more people die in
digging these irrigation systems or in being bludgeoned to death?  Is it
worth pointing out as well that French imperialists landed in Indochina long
before "badly-read Marx" did, thereby setting the stage for the
anti-colonialist rebellion of the Khmer Rouge?  Shall I go on for another 35
pages or so?

╪ 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.>
╪ < Wow! What a shrewd finding! The conspiracy theory is always more
appealing. The likely reason (a big company sprinkling money here and there
for tax purposes) looks boring in comparison (and not worth writing a
paper). >

Actually, Haacke is an artist, believe it or not.  Not a Picasso to be
certain, and so I wouldnÆt expect you to know him as such.  This image was
the basis of an installation he did in Germany awhile back.

<After the successes of structuralism, Marxist, and post-modern theories (I
am sure that I am forgetting a couple), I won't surprise you by saying that
I gave up that lofty objective. >

But perhaps if you read more than just two or three sentencesà.

Your serveà





________________________________________________________________________
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- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 15:38:18 +0000
From: Simon Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: sonic boom

>i've visited the exhibition. it sounds more exciting in paper. The brazilian
>forest thing is very neat, best pieces are by Max Eastley as usual. Eno's
>quiet club is... quiet.

Can't really go along with Francesco's overall assessment of the show,
although I agree with him about Max's being the best pieces.

In any case, myself, Dan Hill and Matt Fretwell from the ---+motion team
went down during the preparation of the show and interviewed some of the
artists involved. In a couple of weeks we'll have videos of the interviews
up on the site, but for now we've put up transcripts of interviews with
David Toop (who curated the show, of course), Max Eastley and Stephan Von
Heune. During the course of the week we'll add transcripts of our chats
with Thomas Koner, John Oswald and Russell Mills & Ian Watson.

You can read the interviews at:

http://motion.state51.co.uk

We've also (finally) posted up our interviews with Paul Bley, Tomasz
Stanko, Pole and Mike Ladd. Again, video versions to follow soon.

Cheers

Simon



- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 19:33:42 +0200
From: "Marcin Gokieli" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Odp: artists and self-expression

Bill Ashline wrote (commenting Patrice L.)

> I would never throw Adorno into anyoneÆs face since his theories on music,
> particularly jazz, constitute a very inadequate reading.  But before I
threw
> Adorno out in trash, IÆd spend more than just an hour or two looking at
the
> Dialectic of Enlightenment and Minima Moralia so that you can see the hell
> from which he emerged.  As far as his expanding the text of music into
areas
> positive contribution, despite all his high modernist aestheticism.

What do you mean? What kind of 'hell' one can find in these cheap kind of
social philosophy that consist in showing great education and no
responsiveness to-- actual social life (reaction to jazz is just a great
example - just imagine that the mfer could just go and see Charlie Parker
live instead of wrting his #$$% - he did it in NYC in the forties). The most
striking fact of his writing is absolute lack of interest in actual theory
of value - compare MacIntyre's After Virtue, where large sections (chapters
XIV, and also XI & XV) are devoted to the discussion of the theory of value
and the structure of value judgement.


> If more
> people remember Stravinsky than Adorno, itÆs because the institutions that
> support Stravinsky are lot more powerful than those that support Adorno.
> The power of these institutions are exemplified in some of the responses
one
> sees on this list.

Well... THAT IS STRONG
I doubt if you seriously say that the interest people show in Stravinsky and
not in Adorno is just a function of 'institutional support'. And i do not
mean just Adorno in particular - I  would say the same thing about the
thinkers i admire much more, as Kant, Wittgenstein, Fodor, and Quine. I do
like much more listening to l'histoire du soldat then reading the Critiques,
despite the fact that i do both quite intensively.
Information is not knowledge, & music is  the best. That's all, really all.

Have fun,
Marcin Gokieli
[e-mail]

<<Thanks to this excellent device
man shall reenter paradise.>>
Auden & Kallman, Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress"


- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 15:57:27 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Odp: notation (was artists and self-estimation)

In a message dated 6/6/00 3:40:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[e-mail] writes:

<< Well, i think that this talk about complicated music complicates the issue.
 Just notate a BBKing solo and give it to a guitarist to play. You'll see the
 limitations of notation.

 Marcin Gokieli
 [e-mail]
  >>

Is that because of notation or because of the guitarists ability to read?
Seriously, being a guitarist myself, I am the strongest proponant that the
map is not the territory.  In order to bring this around to the original
concept that was being discussed, I think that with regard to discussions of
quality, in order for us to have discussions that go beyond surface aspects
of good work vs.  bad work, concepts that can be quantified in a notational
system that is somewhat universal should be expressed and discussed.  In the
book that Zorn edited, ARCANA, many musicians express concepts that are the
underpinnings of their work.  These are modern composers and improvisors with
extensive backgrounds.   What makes a music critic qualified?  Do they play
an instrument?  Do they understand the underpinnings of an artists work?   I
don't mean to imply that YES is the best answer to these questions.  In the
best music the musicians at some crucial point discovered the escape tunnel
to the universal music-stream.   To describe this , I find it impossible but
nonetheless, there are musical concepts, intervals and counterpoint that
exist that help to define the architecture and movement along the way to the
point of departure.

Regards,
Bruce

www.eisenbeil.com

- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 16:04:55 -0400
From: Dan Hewins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Tonic Tonight (Moore/Gordon/Mori/Olive/O'Rourke)

I really want to go but, alas, I cannot for I have to go to DC for a
day.  If anyone is going and happens to tape (if allowed) I would
love to get a copy.  Please email me privately.

- --Wed, Jun 07--
Thurston Moore/Kim Gordon, Ikue Mori & DJ Olive Trio with special
guest Jim O'Rourke Double Bill at 8:00pm


Dan Hewins

- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 22:42:15 +0200 (CEST)
From: Oger <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Verbatim

Bob Ostertag has a website where you can obtain CDs from him :

http://www.detritus.net/ostertag

Jacques Oger




- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 18:24:12 -0400
From: "Dann-Brown" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Misha Mengelberg

....specifically the two albums "Who's Bridge" and "No Idea".

Can anyone give their opinion on these?  High points, etc.?
- -------
Dann-Brown

np: TMBG - "Greek #3", THEN
- -------



- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 16:32:05 -0600
From: "Matthew W Wirzbicki  (S) " <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: notation (was artists and self-estimation)



<< Well, i think that this talk about complicated music complicates the
issue.
 Just notate a BBKing solo and give it to a guitarist to play. You'll
see the
 limitations of notation.

 Marcin Gokieli
 [e-mail]
  >>

Bruce replied:
>Is that because of notation or because of the guitarists ability to
>read?

no, simply because he is not BB King and therefore cannot play like him no
matter how explicit the instructions are or how skilled he is at following
them.

>I think that with regard to
>discussions of
>quality, in order for us to have discussions that go beyond surface
>aspects
>of good work vs.  bad work, concepts that can be quantified in a
>notational
>system that is somewhat universal should be expressed and discussed.

I'd be curious to see a couple examples of these "quantified concepts" with
relation to specific works/composers to see just how it will lead to quality
judgments.  Hopefully, it will not turn into a search for the masterful
mental musician who composes complex theoretical patterns and is therefore
worthy to be termed "better."

I apologize if my comments come off as antagonistic but I really am just
curious because I feel that this is some pretty shakey ground you're asking
us to walk on.  Still I do agree that it would be nice to excape the simple
desciptives and metaphores and hyperbole used so frequently to talk about a
"good" piece of music, concert, album etc.

>In the best music the musicians at some crucial point discovered the
>escape
>tunnel to the universal music-stream...there are musical concepts,
>intervals and counterpoint that exist that help to define the architecture
>and movement along the way to the point of departure.

or the architecture of the departure??

On a semi-related tone:

I recently saw a document in which a theorist tried to discover the method
to the madness of Cecil Talyor.  The basic premise was that what he does
(and the author didn't mention if he felt that Cecil Taylor was concious of
this or not) is to contract the melody (the piece in question did have a
basic theme) into tone clusters and then toy with the clusters, adding
subtracting, modifying...I wasn't at the convention or anything so I didn't
hear his whole presentation, I just caught a glimpse of the pamphlet.

Matt Wirzbicki


- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 17:56:59 -0400
From: Joseph Zitt <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: notation (was artists and self-estimation)

On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 04:32:05PM -0600, Matthew W Wirzbicki  (S)  wrote:
>
>
> << Well, i think that this talk about complicated music complicates the
> issue.
>  Just notate a BBKing solo and give it to a guitarist to play. You'll
> see the
>  limitations of notation.
>
>  Marcin Gokieli
>  [e-mail]
>   >>
>
> Bruce replied:
> >Is that because of notation or because of the guitarists ability to
> >read?
>
> no, simply because he is not BB King and therefore cannot play like him no
> matter how explicit the instructions are or how skilled he is at following
> them.

Why not?

> On a semi-related tone:
>
> I recently saw a document in which a theorist tried to discover the method
> to the madness of Cecil Talyor.  The basic premise was that what he does
> (and the author didn't mention if he felt that Cecil Taylor was concious of
> this or not) is to contract the melody (the piece in question did have a
> basic theme) into tone clusters and then toy with the clusters, adding
> subtracting, modifying...I wasn't at the convention or anything so I didn't
> hear his whole presentation, I just caught a glimpse of the pamphlet.

An interesting approach (whether or not it's used in this case).

- --
|> ~The only thing that is not art is inattention~ --- Marcel Duchamp <|
| [e-mail]           http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt |
| Latest CD: Jerusaklyn                  http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt |
| Comma: Voices of New Music    Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |


- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V2 #959
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