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Zorn List Digest       Friday, December 15 2000       Volume 03 : Number 201



In this issue:
-
       'Bad Hawkwind' (the 18 minute track on Nani Nani)
       Re: Basketball and such
       Re: now some pearls of wisdom from mr. ian penman (zappa)
       Re: Basketball and such
       zappa and rodman
       Re:  Re: now some pearls of wisdom from mr. ian penman (zappa)
       escalator video
       Re: now some pearls of wisdom from mr. ian penman (zappa)
       Re: Frank Zappa (Mike Keneally)

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

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:37:12 +1100
From: "Julian" <[e-mail]>
Subject: 'Bad Hawkwind' (the 18 minute track on Nani Nani)

I asked this at the time of the original discussion, don't think anyone ever
replied... What is actually happening on this track, anyway?


- -

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

Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 23:43:57 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Basketball and such

In a message dated 12/14/00 10:09:35 PM, [e-mail] writes:

<< Michael Jordon/Fred Hopkins - both superstars who made everyone around them

better >>

well, I'm a huge hoops fan, and I'm not going to pursue this topic too much
because a large part of it seems to rely on taste when it comes to the
musician side of it. the one thing I will say is that Jordan should be
Coltrane. (Fred Hopkins? Bobby Previte? this was the best basketball player
ever, even if he couldn't hit a curveball.)

Jon
www.erstwhilerecords.com

- -

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

Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:57:32 -0600
From: "sergio luque" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: now some pearls of wisdom from mr. ian penman (zappa)

hello steve:

thanks for your comments, i just want to clarify some of MY points (i do
not pretend to convince you):

> that just as Penman brought an anti-Zappa bias to his essay, so too did
you
> bring a pro-Zappa bias.

of course. but my subjective problem with the article is that for me it was
EXTREMELY biased, as in 'too much'. biased to a point of being not that
useful and, at some parts, ridiculous. i wouldn't like neither an extremely
pro-zappa biased essay, really.

> But you shouldn't confuse a "smart critique" -  which, even if it
sometimes
> overreaches and paints Zappa with too black and personally pointed a
brush,
> this largely is - with a "favorable" critique.

come on!,  i'm not that dumb :-)

i was "expecting a smart critique", and within the context of "This was, in
fact, the very essay that made me rub my eyes", i was expecting, and
wanting, an interesting well argumented negative essay, and for me this is
a bad done work, not because it is negative, because it is bad and shallow,
and makes me wonder if he had an agenda to fulfill or something.

as matt teichman put it:

"It would be interesting to read a more carefully fleshed-out critique of
Zappa's work"

> mr. penman: "but tell me this: if you were stuck on the proverbial desert
> island, which disc(s) would you rather have - one solitary song by Brian
> Wilson or the entire Zappa back catalogue?

many people would prefer the "solitary song" and that is great but, for me,
to say this whithin an essay about zappa is a pedantry.


regards,
______________________________________________________________________
sergio luque                                      [e-mail]
the conlon nancarrow web pages             www.tomate.com.mx/nancarrow




- -

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

Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 23:59:17 -0500
From: Steve Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Basketball and such

[e-mail] wrote:

> well, I'm a huge hoops fan, and I'm not going to pursue this topic too much
> because a large part of it seems to rely on taste when it comes to the
> musician side of it. the one thing I will say is that Jordan should be
> Coltrane. (Fred Hopkins? Bobby Previte? this was the best basketball player
> ever, even if he couldn't hit a curveball.)

The man has a point.  But given that it's perhaps possible to have a "best
basketball player ever" thanks to things like scores and stats (which is not to
downplay the grace and artistry he brought to the game) and it's absolutely NOT
possible to have a "best jazz player ever" - and anyone who thinks it is is a
fool - what I was really trying to do was find a performer who did certain things
in ways somewhat analogous to what Jordan did with his team on the court.

And truth to tell, most nights Previte makes me feel exactly as good as Jordan
did...

Steve Smith
[e-mail]
NP - Ahnuld the Schwartz, 'Total Recall'


- -

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

Date: Thu, 14 Dec 2000 22:21:35 -0800
From: "Martin Wisckol" <[e-mail]>
Subject: zappa and rodman

would it be grammatical to say that zappa had an ersatz philospophy?

i followed his music acutely until the late 1970s, at which time i walked
away. but i've periodically come back. so. now i'll offer this opinion,
that his guitar work on apostrophe and overnight sensation -- those albums
"strictly from commercial" with plenty of sophmoric lyrics -- is
brilliant. and not really for the notes, the premeditated aesthetic so
much as for the soulful electric roar, the seductive sensuality. i've been
listening lately to the recently released box "the jimi hendrix
experience" (skip the first disc and melt straight into the rest), and it
strikes me that zappa's '70s guitar work comes close to the same vibe in a
way that i imagine i might have been able to articulate three beers ago....

and steve smith, let me thank YOU, for the $100 i dropped at
cybermusicsurplus after you mentioned they were having a $6 sale on black
saint. i hope my mother, who asked me to track down an impossible-to-find
OOP 100 aspects of the moon by yoshitoshi, will enjoy the copy of roscoe
live at the knitting factory instead for xmas.

martin

n.p. monk, complete riverside recordings, disc 6 "sweet and lovely" w/
gerry mulligan. do yall play these games driving home from work, like who
are my favorite musicians to enjoy? hendrix, miles, monk and bird. call me
old fashioned.





- -

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

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 01:33:40 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re:  Re: now some pearls of wisdom from mr. ian penman (zappa)

It would seem to me that, if a critic is going to do an essay that purports
to be in depth, you should care deeply for the work about which you're
writing, and should have some kind of high regard for the work in question
(the better to make your points about which are the highs, which are the
lows).

Zappa has probably ruffled more feathers than just about any musician we can
name, and on more levels.  I think I'd have enjoyed eating dinner with the
guy.  Ian Penman, on the other hand, sounds (reads) like a dork to me.  And
some of the stuff I've read today on the list got up in my craw as well.

When I read a comment like "after reading this essay, I sold my collection of
40+ Zappa albums", I have to wonder about why somebody bought those albums in
the first place.  And when I read a comment to the effect "I probably needed
his music when I was seventeen, but now I'm past that", I find it even more
objectionable.  Frank had his low periods just as anybody else has had when
the make a ton of records over years.  And, believe me, I'll jump over ten
"Titties And Beer"'s to get next to thirty seconds of a "REDNZL".  What made
me laugh in jr high doesn't work so well anymore.

On the other hand, the musical imagination, depth of craft, and personal
vision that governs the best parts of FZ's work -- and there are certainly a
great many such moments -- has earned him a great deal of respect, and to
dismiss the stuff outright is kind of crass.  How does one outgrow
challenging music? Maybe if you can write something as interesting as "Inca
Roads", you could dismiss it.  But I doubt that you would, because you'd know
it's not easy to think up music like that, and it's tougher still to get your
group to be able to execute it.  Can you transcribe "Inca Roads"? Can you
deal with the times signature stuff hands-on? It's unwise to dismiss stuff
you can't do.  Not liking something is one thing, but dismissal is another.

But Zappa is a great target, because the way he has been painted as a
musician and as a thinker is unfriendly to a lot of people who hold their
favorite stuff as the True Grail Of Musical Progressivism.  Frank knew how to
call a lot of shjots as he saw them, and he was correct in stating that the
avant-garde had spawned as much trend-spotting, bandwagonism, and bad music
as any other musical world.  He was right about the troubles of being a
composer, as well.  Those of us who have enjoyed the thrill of a "respected"
contemporary music ensemble mutilating our compositions will tell you Frank
was on the money about that stuff.  Those of us who have signed record deals
and spent time in the offices of a record company will tell you Frank was
right about that stuff, too.  And those of us who have had to deal with
forming our own ensembles and getting our music played accurately will tell
you Frank was right about that, too.  He tilted at all those windmills, did
it with a fantastic sense of humor, and made some really incredible music in
the process.  Flo & Eddie, "Dinah Moe Humm", and a few dozen compositions
that made for low comedy and little else won't erase his enormous
contribution, nor negate the fact that his artistic batting average was high,
even miraculous, given the huge amount of work he squeezed out.

I'm thirty-five and don't feel like I've outgrown Zappa, Tower Of Power, Uri
Caine's quartet with Joel Levine, the Minutemen, Bill Evans, or any of the
other stuff that got my rocks off when I was seventeen.  And there's probably
no essay ever to be written by a critic that will make me think I was wrong
for loving any music I love.

as ever --
skip h

NP: Kool & the Gang, GIVE IT UP

- -

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

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 02:54:23 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: escalator video

In a message dated 12/14/00 4:33:12 PM, you wrote:
[e-mail] wrote:
> just saw the video of the making of carla bley's 'escalator over the hill'
> by stephen gebhardt; moving, stunning, and made me feel old in a good way.
> the sound and film are astoundingly clear.  highly recommended.

Ooh... Is this available?>>

hi joseph & crew,
the distribution is just now being set up, but you can buy direct from
the filmmaker, which is always a good idea.  his email is:
[e-mail]
and i believe the price is approx 30 plus shipping.
enjoy !
steve koenig
n.p. in my head: that wonderful dissonance at the end of "der rosenkavalier";
i just got back from the met opera. horrible conductor played it as if it
were a tchaikowsky symphony, but the singers were great.

- -

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

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 03:01:00 -0500
From: Steve Smith <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: now some pearls of wisdom from mr. ian penman (zappa)

Round Two:

sergio luque wrote:

> my subjective problem with the article is that for me it was
> EXTREMELY biased, as in 'too much'. biased to a point of being not that
> useful and, at some parts, ridiculous. i wouldn't like neither an extremely
> pro-zappa biased essay, really.

Yeah, Penman sunk his fangs into Zappa and shook his head like a dog with an
old sock.  But that's what the magazine wanted, I'd expect, or else they'd
have given those discs to another writer.  And Penman saw a chance to say
everything he ever wanted to say about Zappa.

But Penman said it in print, which seems to give it more gravity in the "real
world" than if he were to say it on a mailing list, where all are equal and
you could all read his opinion and call him a fuckhead moments later, as if it
were a conversation.  Criticism in print doesn't work like that.  When you are
still in a learning stage and you see something in print, I think it
instinctively has a greater ring of verisimiltude than if you were older and
wiser and more secure in your own opinions.

Some of the best criticism in my experience is "extremely" biased.  One of the
most moving moments in all of the music criticism I've read - in fact, one of
the handful of pieces that made me sit up and say "hey, I'd like to DO this
someday" - was a piece in which Gary Giddins stated that hearing Louis
Armstrong and Earl Hines playing "Weather Bird" was as important a musical
experience as - and an *equal* experience to -  hearing Bach's B minor Mass.
And then in the same column he went on to describe, more lucidly than I'd ever
read pretty much anywhere, the inner workings of a certain Cecil Taylor piece,
and then equate it with both preceding examples.  Now if that's not exteme
bias (as in "too much," were you to ask fans of Bach and Armstrong both), I
don't know what is.

But here on the Zornlist, since all of the above resonates with we outside
music fans, the above won't sound like an extreme opinion at all.  It
resonates with what we know to be "our" music's grounding in the tradition(s),
and moreover, it's positive.  (Bear with me, I really am going somewhere with
this...)

On the other hand, when someone attacks one of our sacred cows, we tend to
respond with bristling and a circling of the wagons.  I felt it when Zorn was
attacked in the New York Times last year.  In that case, the attack was
clearly unsupported by any evidence, musical or otherwise.  You clearly feel
the same way about Penman's Zappa essay.  Therefore, I'm all for the healthy
debate that this has engendered.

These examples aside, most music criticism is too wishy-washy to inspire any
kind of real reaction, pro or con, and that includes my own writings in the
"real world."  That's why I like to see a good scrap here on occasion.  I've
simply seldom been a part of one before... ;-)

> come on!,  i'm not that dumb :-)

I never for one moment meant to imply that you were.  And judging from your
"smiley" emoticon, I hope and assume that you understood this.

> i was "expecting a smart critique", and within the context of "This was, in
> fact, the very essay that made me rub my eyes", i was expecting, and
> wanting, an interesting well argumented negative essay, and for me this is
> a bad done work, not because it is negative, because it is bad and shallow,
> and makes me wonder if he had an agenda to fulfill or something.

I think I understand what you're saying, and again, maybe my own subjective
experience in re: Zappa made me ascribe to this column more importance than it
actually had to the rest of the world.  I think I admitted as much in my
second post.  It was the essay that made ME rub my eyes and gave me the
courage of my building convictions, but I don't mean to demand that YOU rub
your eyes as well.

But personally, having read the Penman essay again and again and again during
the exchange of e-mails that have appeared since Dan first drew attention to
it and I chimed in with my personal recollection, I continue to find it for
the most part a well-argued if nasty-spirited criticism.  Penman asserts his
premise at the very beginning, and supports it paragraph by paragraph.  *Of
course* he had an agenda.  Every professional music critic has an agenda or
he/she would not be a professional music critic.  The agenda is in general to
bring the music to the attention of the masses, but in specific it's to bring
"my" vision of the music to the masses.  Why else would one write about music
instead of earning a respectable living?

> as matt teichman put it:
>
> "It would be interesting to read a more carefully fleshed-out critique of
> Zappa's work"

I'd been planning to respond directly to Matt's post earlier, but your post
arrived shortly thereafter and contained the seed of my counterpoint, and so,
I'll respond to both here.

In what way could Penman's essay have been a "more carefully fleshed-out
critique of Zappa's work"?  If he had actually completed the "monumental,
work-by-work deconstruction of the Zappa canon" that he threatened in
paragraph six, would that have made the difference?  Would it have been
necessary to go tit-for-tat, as it were, with his opinion of every song's
musical and sociological value in order to prove the broader philosophical and
sociological points he was trying to convey?  Yes, his opinions are
*absolutely* (and presumably intentionally) bound to draw the ire and
repudiation of Zappaphiles, but if you really look deeply at the
personality-based problems he raises, can you truly offer a sound repudiation
of any of it purely in terms of musical analysis?

> many people would prefer the "solitary song" and that is great but, for me,
> to say this whithin an essay about zappa is a pedantry.

Most people, judging from personal instinct as well as the "Desert Island
Discs" lists that appear in every issue of Tower's Pulse magazine, would
rather not be stuck on a desert island with one song when they could have a
collection.  And if I were going to be stuck on a desert island, I'd rather
have my copies of 'Larks' Tongues in Aspic,' 'Desire Develops an Edge,' 'A
Love Supreme,' 'The First of a Million Kisses' and Beethoven and Mahler's 9ths
along with me rather than pretty much anything else.  (Maybe I'd also long for
'Abbey Road' to remind me of the normal civilization I'd left behind...)

But then, most people would rather not be stuck on a desert island, period,
and only music critics posit such challenges, anyway.  ;-)

Let me posit the following as a parting shot, since it's getting way too late
to think critically.  I disagreed with the Times attack on Zorn since it
wasn't supported in musical terms.  You seem to disagree with the Penman
attack on Zappa for the same reasons.  But here's one crucial difference that
can go a long way towards coloring your perception of a fellow human being and
his/her perceptions: one of the above works with words and one doesn't.  To
what extent might this make a difference?

Steve Smith
[e-mail]
NP - Electric Light Orchestra, "Mr. Blue Sky," 'Flashback' (Columbia/Legacy
box set) - and gawwwwddd am I mellow and happy now...


- -

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

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:58:53 GMT+0100
From: "Jeroen de Boer" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Frank Zappa (Mike Keneally)

Hmmm, I was thinking of including Keneally into the discussion.. In
fact I brought his latest release, _Dance_, to work today and am
listening to it now. I only have the album for a couple of days now,
and I'm not sure what to think of it. My favourite Keneally-realease is
_Boil That Dust Speck_. On this album imo he has the best
combination of excellent songwriting, musical (read jazzrock) skills
and a lot of Zappa.

Both _Sluggo_ and _Dance_ are more on the poppy side, although
some songs contain unimaginable instrumental parts, altough this
factor seems to decrease on _Dance_.

But in the end I keep buying his albums, because he suprprises me
time and time again.

Jeroen

ps.
He's an increasingly good producer also..


> I am going to take this Frank Zappa discussion as an opportunity to
> shamelessly promote, Mike Keneally, one of my favorite musicians.
> Mike Keneally played guitar and keyboards for Frank Zappa in the late
> eighties, and after Zappa's death, he released a handful of stellar
> albums, which can be purchased at www.keneally.com i would suggest
> "Sluggo!" or "Dancing" as starting points, and i do encourage all of
> you to check out the site, and perhaps even download a couple tracks
> from Napster.   If you like Zappa, you'll love Mike Keneally, and if
> you don't like Zappa, you'll still love Mike Keneally.   Keneally CD's
> also make great holiday gifts, so give the gift of Keneally this
> holiday season!!!   Seriously, you will love his music, so please give
> him a listen.  thanks
>
> David
>


- ----------------------------------------
Jeroen de Boer
music director Open Electronic Festival/Cyberslag Foundation
Munnekeholm 10, 9711JA Groningen
The Netherlands
tel/fax: [phone]
gsm: [phone]
[e-mail]
http://www.cyberslag.com
- ----------------------------------------

- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #201
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