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Zorn List Digest        Thursday, June 8 2000        Volume 02 : Number 960



In this issue:
-
       Re: Misha Mengelberg
       Ives
       Eisenbeil, Merzhbow
       Max and Cecil and all them
       Misha Mengelberg
       Re: Odp: artists and self-expression
       Re: Misha Mengelberg
       Re: Misha Mengelberg
       RE: notation (was artists and self-estimation)
       RE: Misha Mengelberg
       Re: Max and Cecil and all them
       Odp: Odp: artists and self-expression

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 18:52:47 -0400
From: Peter Gannushkin <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Misha Mengelberg

Hello Dann-Brown,

Wednesday, June 07, 2000, you wrote to me:

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

DB> Can anyone give their opinion on these?  High points, etc.?

Both are beautiful. I like No Idea more though.
Joey Baron and Greg Cohen are playing on it and Brad Jones replaced
Cohen on Who's Bridge.

- --
Best regards,
Peter Gannushkin
e-mail: [e-mail]



- -

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

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 19:13:38 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Ives

an ives must is the Universe Symphony. there is a realization done by larry austin which rather misses the mark. but johnny reinhard in nyc has a realization too. has been performed in 96, recording in the works i believe. he's at [e-mail]. there may be a website on it too; try searching his name and universe symphony.

Jb

- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 19:52:07 CDT
From: "samuel yrui" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Eisenbeil, Merzhbow

<<Thanks for your input Samuel.  I don't know Merzhbow's work.  Is there
something that you would specifically recommend?
Bruce>>

  Yes. I don't know the exact title but I have it one tape.  Something with
Rainbow in the title. I also have an album called Oersted. I like the album,
and the packaging is pink. (I'm a sucker for pink.)
      -Samuel

________________________________________________________________________
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- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 21:24:16 -0400
From: Matt Teichman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Max and Cecil and all them

Laguardia High School Band:  Good for a high school band, but I have to
say, these kids are pretty lucky to get an entire Max/Roach Cecil Taylor
captive audience to play before :)  The drummer was excellent and the
bassist was not bad, but the vocalist (who came out for one number) was
disturbingly off key.

Ron and Joey:  A really groovy 45-minute-or-so-long duet between Ron Carter
and Joey Baron.  I've never had the pleasure of seeing either of them live
before, and it was quite a great experience seeing both of them in action.
Now I have some inkling as to how Joey Baron articulates such a large set
of delightful sounds on such a diminuitive kit.

David S. Ware:  The David S. Ware quartet (unfortunately, no Susie Ibarra
in this edition, but Guillermo Brown is also an excellent drummer) was a
real treat to see.  Unfortunately, since it was a big outdoor event, the
sound quality left something to be desired.  William Parker was absolutely
inaudible, but it sure looked like he was playing some great stuff :)  When
no one else was playing, however, he was quite audible, and on fire!  It
really threw the speaker system for a loop when he started doing his crazy
bow stuff.  Matt Shipp was a genius as always.  He seems to break new
musical ground every time he sits in front of a piano.  I've never heard of
this Guillermo Brown guy either, but I quite enjoyed his solo.

Max and Cecil:  Unfortunately, I was forced to bail out of this historic
event early in the night, but I did manage to catch the first half hour of
Max Roach and Cecil Taylor, who I'm told went on for another half hour with
their opening piece.  Max had this funny drum that did all these crazy
pitch bends; maybe someone else on this list can explain the technical
details of what was going on with that drum.  Cecil was magnificent!  He
was all over the place, and still it seemed like his fingers couldn't quite
keep up with all the ideas pouring out of his head.  Beautifully free,
stream-of-consciousness stuff.

- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 20:35:20 CDT
From: "samuel yrui" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Misha Mengelberg

Um. On Eric Dolpy's 'Last Date', there is a piano player, name spelled Misja
Mengelberg. Can I assume this is one and the same as Misha?
  and... is Misha Mengelberg a male or a female?
    thanks in advil,
           -Samuel

np:Rachmanninov: Rhapsody on Theme by Paganini

(just trying this whole NP thing. don't know why...)

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- -

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

Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 01:39:45 GMT
From: "Bill Ashline" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Odp: artists and self-expression

Marcin wrote:
>
>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).

Boy you are ignorant, aren't you.  Adorno was one of the many intellectuals
who escaped Nazism in the forties.  If you bothered reading anything other
than his books on music, you'd know this.

>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.

On what do you base this argument, his book on Aesthetic Theory perhaps?  If
you're going to claim that he has an "absolute lack of interest in `actual'
theory of value," whatever "actual" means, I'm going to argue that you've
never read the man at all.

> > 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'.

I'd most assuredly say that.  It comes out in your particular love for music
over other "forms of life," a Wittgensteinian phrase that I'm sure you'll
recall.

>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.


That says it, doesn't it?  Your preference for Anglo-American philosophy
over continental European.  Fodor and Quine don't exactly go together
though.
________________________________________________________________________
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- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 22:00:40 -0400
From: Mike Chamberlain <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Misha Mengelberg

samuel yrui wrote:
>
> Um. On Eric Dolpy's 'Last Date', there is a piano player, name spelled Misja
> Mengelberg. Can I assume this is one and the same as Misha?

The same.
>   and... is Misha Mengelberg a male or a female?

XY

- --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: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 22:13:37 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Misha Mengelberg

Nice try- but it's supposed to be something that totally throws off everyone on the list, while impressing them with your diversity in musical tastes.

Example:

- --
np: Menudo- Exitos Grandes

=dg=

=========================

In a message dated Wed, 7 Jun 2000  9:36:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "samuel yrui" <[e-mail]> writes:

<<
np:Rachmanninov: Rhapsody on Theme by Paganini

(just trying this whole NP thing. don't know why...)

 >>



- -

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

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 20:54:01 -0600
From: "Matthew W Wirzbicki  (S) " <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: notation (was artists and self-estimation)

>>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?

I suppose the word "like" isn't effective.  He can play "like" BB King but
he will be filtering the sounds of BB King through himself.  Unless he can
have no conciousness of his own existance and entirely assimilate his being
to the being of BB King (maybe with the help of modern science) he will only
sound "like" BB King.  Granted, the difference may sometimes be very slight
especially if the player is very skilled and has an audio recording to
emmulate but the source of the emotive character of the solo will be absent
and that will effect the sound.

A good performer will be able to mold an emotive character which is a
balance of the indications in the score and his/her own inclinations.

The same thing happens with any score.  No two people will ever play it
quite the same way.  Just listen to a couple different interpretations of
Beethoven sonatas and the diversity of approach is pretty clear.

Matt Wirzbicki

- -

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

Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 01:10:26 -0300
From: "Hugo Linares" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: Misha Mengelberg

>
>DB> ....specifically the two albums "Who's Bridge" and "No Idea".
>
>DB> Can anyone give their opinion on these?  High points, etc.?
>
>Both are beautiful. I like No Idea more though.


On the contrary, I think "Who's Bridge" is unbeatable; though "No Idea" is
beautiful indeed.
Though I recommend both, you should try "Who's Bridge" first.

My two pesos.


Hugo Linares



- -

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

Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 02:14:25 -0400
From: Steve Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Max and Cecil and all them

Matt Teichman wrote:

> Laguardia High School Band:  Good for a high school band, but I have to
> say, these kids are pretty lucky to get an entire Max/Roach Cecil Taylor
> captive audience to play before :)  The drummer was excellent and the
> bassist was not bad, but the vocalist (who came out for one number) was
> disturbingly off key.

Seconded regarding the drummer and the vocalist.  But the band was not just
"good for a high school band," I'd have to say.  They were a lot better than my
college big band, for one example...  And there were some terrific solos by
Warren Vache (with his arm in a sling!), Wes Anderson and especially James
Spaulding.  I enjoyed this a lot more than I enjoyed...

> Ron and Joey:  A really groovy 45-minute-or-so-long duet between Ron Carter
> and Joey Baron.  I've never had the pleasure of seeing either of them live
> before, and it was quite a great experience seeing both of them in action.
> Now I have some inkling as to how Joey Baron articulates such a large set
> of delightful sounds on such a diminuitive kit.

Jeez, I wish I had something better to say about this set.  It got real tired
real quick.  Ron Carter is a great figure in jazz history, but I didn't hear
that he had a lot to say on this gig.  Joey was Joey, completely dependable,
affable and enjoyable.  Low point for me was when Joey started playing a
clearly discernible Monk tune on his drums and Ron joined in - only Ron didn't
play ANY of the correct notes for said tune's melody...

> David S. Ware:  The David S. Ware quartet (unfortunately, no Susie Ibarra
> in this edition, but Guillermo Brown is also an excellent drummer) was a
> real treat to see.

I'm still on the fence regarding Mr. Brown.  In re: Matt's and Kurt's question
regarding where he came from, he was introduced to Ware by Cooper-Moore, in
whose ensemble he'd been playing recently (prior to the Ware/Ibarra schism).

> Unfortunately, since it was a big outdoor event, the
> sound quality left something to be desired.  William Parker was absolutely
> inaudible, but it sure looked like he was playing some great stuff :)  When
> no one else was playing, however, he was quite audible, and on fire!  It
> really threw the speaker system for a loop when he started doing his crazy
> bow stuff.

I found the bowed solo to which Matt refers to be brutally painful - not the
solo per se, but the solo as delivered through the sound system.  But, given
the overamplification, I found many parts of the evening to be painful from a
purely sonic perspective.  I understand the urge for artists to play in front
of huge crowds, but some of this music just sounds far better played in smaller
rooms, with minimal amplification.  Hope that doesn't sound too elitist...

> Matt Shipp was a genius as always.  He seems to break new
> musical ground every time he sits in front of a piano.

Funny, I had quite the opposite reaction - not that I disliked anything Matt
played, far from it, in fact, but I felt his playing to be rather more
conservative than usual, and in general fairly derivative of McCoy Tyner's
comping style with the "classic" Coltrane quartet.  In fact, in the heat of the
moment, I told my girlfriend that I thought Shipp's playing was inhabiting the
middle ground between Tyner and Taylor... the space defined by Alice Coltrane,
a brilliant and underrated player.

Throw things at me if you must, but I don't mean this to be a criticism;
rather, I enjoyed the notion that Matt has come to the point where he's willing
to allow some overt melodicism into his playing.  Ware, too, I enjoyed a great
deal.  This must have been the closest he's come so far to realizing his dream
of playing to the size and kind of crowd that Charles Lloyd enjoyed in his
heyday.  No small irony in the fact that it comes at a time when Ware's
covering a Lloyd tune liberally based on Trane's version of "My Favorite
Things"...

Minor caveats aside, I, too, greatly enjoyed this set.

> Max and Cecil:  Unfortunately, I was forced to bail out of this historic
> event early in the night, but I did manage to catch the first half hour of
> Max Roach and Cecil Taylor, who I'm told went on for another half hour with
> their opening piece.  Max had this funny drum that did all these crazy
> pitch bends; maybe someone else on this list can explain the technical
> details of what was going on with that drum.

It was a floor tom with a foot pedal similar to the one found on a timpani -
raising or lowering the pedal with your foot changes the tension of a small pad
pressed against the drum head, thereby raising or lowering its pitch.  I
thought he used the gimmick far too much, but then that's me, a drummer (no,
dammit, NOT the drummer from Journey!!!) who knew what he was doing.  The
novelty value may have been greater for others.  Joey Baron often does the same
thing with the heel of his foot actually applied to the drumhead.

> Cecil was magnificent!  He
> was all over the place, and still it seemed like his fingers couldn't quite
> keep up with all the ideas pouring out of his head.  Beautifully free,
> stream-of-consciousness stuff.

One journalist said to me that Cecil played everything it was possible to play
on the piano that night, and I'm inclined to agree.  He was simply
breathtaking, and without an ounce of compromise even given that he was playing
to a much, much larger crowd than normal.

That said, I actually (and perhaps a bit uncharitably) found myself wondering
if Cecil reserves his best game for the gigs in which he's afforded the luxury
of playing with musicians who have been unconditionally recognized as jazz
icons, since Cecil has only recently begun to garner widespread acceptance
within that elite fraternity.  I adore Cecil unconditionally, but some of the
finest playing I've ever heard from him in a live setting was on this evening
with Max Roach and another occasion not so long ago with Elvin Jones at the
Blue Note in NYC, thus leading to the query I posed...

Agreed with Kurt that it took a while for Max to get up to speed (and I also
agree that it has everything to do with failing health, not failing
creativity).  For much of the first piece it sounded like Max was simply doing
his best to accompany Cecil, not to challenge him or even to enter into a
conversation.  But later Max seemed to be catching up, and it was a true
dialogue for the last stretch.  Max then played his classic solo composition
"The Drum Also Waltzes."  Cecil then took a solo turn that, like his solo track
on last year's CD 'Momentum Space,' perfectly crystallized his Promethean art
within the space of a few minutes.  The finale was a duo dedicated to the
memory of Tito Puente, and it made for the most satisfying duo music of the
evening.  Standing huddled under a blanket with my lovergirl, we danced in
place, entranced...

Steve Smith
[e-mail]
NP - Joel Harrison, "I Don't Live Today," demo CD-R


- -

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

Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 10:39:22 +0200
From: "Marcin Gokieli" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Odp: Odp: artists and self-expression

Bill Ashline wrote:

> Boy you are ignorant, aren't you.  Adorno was one of the many
intellectuals
> who escaped Nazism in the forties.  If you bothered reading anything other
> than his books on music, you'd know this.

Well, i read some other of his work, and do find them disgusting

> On what do you base this argument, his book on Aesthetic Theory perhaps?
If
> you're going to claim that he has an "absolute lack of interest in
`actual'
> theory of value," whatever "actual" means, I'm going to argue that you've
> never read the man at all.

Well, what he writes in Dialectics of enlightment (I am not sure whther
that's the correct english title, but probably is), which is not a book on
music, shows a lack of intret in theory: my impression was that the guy used
rhetoric to avoid statements of more theoretical value.
I did not read aesthetic theory, neither neagtive dialectics, but i think
that his way of writing is an insult to the readres.

> > > 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 - what do you mean?

> >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'.
>
> I'd most assuredly say that.  It comes out in your particular love for
music
> over other "forms of life," a Wittgensteinian phrase that I'm sure you'll
> recall.


of course it does come from my particular love for music. I just mean that
it is normal and that much more people like to listen to 'the rite' then to
read Adorno, and that it has not much to do with institutional support. I do
not know what kind of support you mean - here in Poland there is none.

> That says it, doesn't it?  Your preference for Anglo-American philosophy
> over continental European.  Fodor and Quine don't exactly go together
> though.

????! (mabe a personal post would be better on this particular topic, as we
move quite dramatically off-topic)

Marcin Gokieli
[e-mail]

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



- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V2 #960
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