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Zorn List Digest        Wednesday, May 9 2001        Volume 03 : Number 414



In this issue:
-
       Re: Braxton recommendations
       Re: Braxton recommendations
       Re: State of poetry
       A Heartbreaking Report of Staggering Company

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

Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 14:11:19 -0400
From: Ryan <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Braxton recommendations

Hey Efren,

Two of the newer Braxton HatHut releases, Quintet(Basel) and Quartet(Santa
Cruz) are really amazing. My favorite Braxton is in small groups like that,
espeically the SC one (With Dresser/Crispell/Hemingway) which is such a
tight quartet! Some serious virtuosity as well as group interactions on that
disc... check out the drum solo at the beginning of track 2, disc 2 of Santa
Cruz, which leads into a composition, and an amazing bass solo. Both are
beautifully recorded as well.

If you don't have Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds, try that on. It's
in a small handful of favorite cd's of mine--I got it when I was 12 for some
reason (thank the lord) and love every note (my quartet is going to be doing
a cover of the entire album this summer for anyone that might be in the
Santa Barbara area). Braxton's soloing is amazing (so is Sam Rivers'), and
it's interesting because it's not his group (they don't have to deal with
those little drawings and stuff, if you know what I mean--and I mean that
lovingly).

Are the ECM Circle discs still in print in Europe? Anyone know any American
dealers with those in stock (I'm thinking of one 2-cd set, but I'm not
entirely clear on that).

Best,
Ryan


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

Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 11:36:07 -0700
From: "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Braxton recommendations

On Wed, 09 May 2001 14:11:19 -0400  Ryan wrote:
>
> [plenty of good stuff on Braxton recordings]

And how long will we have to wait for the reissue of NY FALL 1974?

    Patrice.

- -

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

Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 12:13:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Handley <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: State of poetry

- --- "Patrice L. Roussel" <[e-mail]>
> But this is very
> recent due to the
> availability of modern technology (both to make
> music and diffuse it)...Looks like gargabe mail was
only the first wave, the
> tip of an iceberg...

I believe we'll find our way.  If only the Church had
nipped that pesky printing press in the bud!  ;)

- ----s

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

- -

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

Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 03:02:19 -0400
From: "Steve Smith" <[e-mail]>
Subject: A Heartbreaking Report of Staggering Company

COMPANY IN NEW YORK - First Night

(with apologies to Dave Eggers, but much more to you, the reader)

April 18, 2001

A sizable crowd has convened for the first night of three Company evenings
at Tonic in New York City.  Most of the chairs are either on stage or have
been pulled out to make more room.  Most of the chairs that remain are taken
by friends and family of the ensemble and by Tonic regulars who bypass the
line at the door.  It's going to be a long night of standing.  I feel like a
curmudgeon before it even starts.  But at least, unlike last week's solo set
by Bailey, tonight I can actually see the stage.

A portly gentleman, looking rumpled like Edward R. Murrow, with a beard sans
mustache, gets up to speak.  Before he says anything, I can tell he's
British.  No one wears a beard without a mustache except hippies and Brits,
and the portly, rumpled gentleman is too old to be a hippy.  When he opens
his mouth, I'm proven correct in my assumption.  His name is Roger Parry,
and he's here to be master of ceremonies.  He carries a small bag over his
shoulder, the airline tags still attached.

The first ensemble, Roger Parry tells us, is "Simon's Group," and he
introduces the players.  Simon Fell takes the stage, accompanied by Min
Xiao-Fen, Annie Gosfield and Joey Baron.  Min and Fell begin to flutter
across the necks of pipa and bass respectively.  They play a lot of notes.
Their techniques are awesome.  Min, however, seems somewhat mannered.  What
she is playing doesn't really connect with Fell's broad strokes and
skittering lines.  Baron accompanies with slow rubs across his drumheads;
Fell responds with glissandoes while Min continues to scrabble up and down
her fretboard, scraping her frets like a guiro.  Gosfield stares at her
equipment.  She stares at the soundperson.  She stares at the equipment,
then the soundperson.  No sound comes forth.  By the time Fell, Min and
Baron finally lock together, Gosfield is producing the sound of bowed metal.
Then the piece ends.  Roger Parry stands up and introduces the players again
as they leave.

Next, Roger Parry introduces "Zorn's Group."  Zorn comes up with Derek
Bailey, Mark Wastell and Jennifer Choi.  Zorn has a few muted words with
Roger as he takes his stool, then announces to no one in particular, "John
Zorn with strings."  He clicks, pops, burbles and squeals.  Bailey joins in,
playing Derek Bailey music.  Wastell proves quickly that he may possibly be
one of the most technically proficient and daring cellists on the planet.
(Jon and Brian have told you that already.)  Choi enters with a gigantic
chord that sounds like the opening of a Bach unaccompanied partita.  Her
fingers fly up and down the neck of her violin.  Her bowing technique is
immaculate.  No one is speaks the same language for a time, but it's an
agreeable racket anyway.

Roger Parry gets up and announces who we have just heard.  Then he ushers
onto the stage the entirety of the ensemble: "Will's group."  He announces
the players as they come to the stage, one by one.  Will Gaines is the last
to come onstage.  He surveys the crowd.  "I left more people home in bed,"
he tells us.  Bailey kicks off the performance by simply starting to play.
The others enter, and Gaines begins to dance his impressions of the music.
Zorn can barely contain himself.  He mugs and laughs.  Baron, too, is
visibly beside himself.  They are riveted with amusement as Gaines tries to
conduct the ensemble, not unlike Butch Morris, except Butch Morris seldom
tap dances.

Gaines jumps, points, shouts, gestures, tries to shape the chaos unfolding
onstage.  He largely suceeds, with a few exceptions.  Bailey doesn't see
him, because Bailey never looks up.  Zorn has decided quickly that he is
going to mess around with Gaines.  Gaines holds his hands high above his
head, then brings them down to silence the ensemble.  Almost everything is
quiet, except Bailey keeps on playing.  Zorn blows a bark at Gaines.

"I liked that last note," Gaines says.

Gaines indicates that he wants Rhodri Davies, Min and Bailey to play
together.  Bailey obliges, never looking up.  The sounds of the guitar, harp
and pipa sound an agreeable accord.  It's the first time anyone can hear the
harp.  After a moment, Baron bursts in with an eruption of flying limbs.
Bailey lets a note hang in the air, transforming itself into ringing
feedback.  Zorn matches the feedback with his sax.  Gaines looks on in
appreciation, then jumps and waves as the entire ensemble comes crashing
back in.  It is a huge wall of noise with funny contours and edges, and it
is beautiful.

Annie Gosfield is apparently playing something.  Her hands are moving.  So
is her hair, which is large.

Gaines waves the ensemble out.  Bailey obliges, not looking up.  Gaines
performs an animated duet with Min, who is clearly enjoying it.  Zorn and
Baron misbehave from the opposite end of the stage, shooting spitwads of
sound in their direction.  Gaines waves reproachfully, but the bad boys will
not be scolded.  Gaines finally remembers the old maxim: if you can't beat
them, join them.  He engages Baron in a drum battle.  Of course, Gaines,
like the fat, bald American wrestler Butterbean, isn't here to win any
battles.  He's only here to entertain the fans.  Baron wins in the first
round.

Gaines tries to play with Zorn as well.  Zorn pulls his mouthpiece off of
his horn, and blows raspberries back at Gaines.  Is this how we show respect
for our elders?  Bailey, without looking up, has heard enough.  Like a stern
schoolmaster, he scolds the two with a resounding chord.  Zorn blows
raspberries back at Bailey.  Everyone starts to play again, trying to look
in the other direction.

But Bailey's guitar begins to feed back again.  The ringing gets louder and
louder, and the other instruments fight to be heard.  (Davies and Gosfield
appear to be fighting to be heard.)  Gaines gestures for the noise to build
and build, until finally jumping up in the air to bring it all to a halt.
Zorn plays a rude note, and Gaines shoots him a smile.  Zorn plays another
rude note, and Gaines shoots him another smile.  Zorn plays another rude
note, and Gaines shoots him a smile.

Roger Parry stands up and introduces everyone.  Everyone leaves the stage,
except for Min, Wastell and Davies, and Gaines.  Bailey, from the audience,
has to talk Gaines off the stage.  It doesn't happen quickly.  Then Roger
tells us who is going to play next: Min, Wastell and Davies.  Gaines leaves
the stage.

Min, Wastell and Davies play a trio of delicate and indelicate string
sounds.  The music teams with life, like a drop of pond water on a
microscope slide.  Min is playing a smaller pipa than the one she has used
previously.  It sounds dryer, lighter, and mixes well with Wastell, who bows
a little brass bell stuck between the strings of his cello.  Davies makes
sounds with his hapr that sound utterly alien to the instrument.  It is
delicate and beautiful.  It is also hopelessly marred by some piece of
electrical equipment onstage that has decided to buzz loudly throughout.
Someone from the audience who I'll bet money to be Ben Watson jumps up
onstage and fiddles in vain with Bailey's amp.  He does it again a bit
later.  The musicians play on, unperturbed.

(Roger Parry seems to have forgotten to tell us whose group this was, but
through reductive reasoning, it must be Mark's.  "Min's group" and "Rhodri's
group" will happen later.)

Next up, Roger tells us (after telling us who we just heard), is "Annie's
group."  Gosfield takes the stage with Zorn, Baron and Choi.  It's the first
all-American group of the night, and they seem to speak the language a bit
more intuitively.  But they've got an accent.  Gosfield's sampler makes a
pulsating bed of squizzy machine noises.  Choi plays demonic music
elegantly, flying up and down the neck of her instrument.  Zorn and Baron
make Zorn and Baron noises in reponse.  Eventually, they fall into a romping
funk pattern.  Then they stop, and make more Zorn and Baron noises, which
somehow fit together nicely with the machine sounds and the demon fiddler.

Roger Parry tells us who we've just heard.  Then he tells us who we are
about to hear.  This group is made up of Bailey, Choi and Fell.  Maybe it's
"Jennifer's group," but Roger forgets to tell us again.  Violin, guitar and
bass intertwine into a lovely mesh of strings, slow, placid, maybe even
bucolic.  Of course, it can't last.  Bailey puts an end to "placid,"
interjecting dissonant chords.  Fell then ends the "slow," taking off like a
racer across the neck of his bass.  His fingers scamper up and down the
length of the instrument, not just its neck.  His technique is not
conservatory-precise like Choi's, but it gets the job done.  Choi takes the
hint and starts flying herself.  When the CDs are released in a year or two,
this will be a highlight.  It ends too soon.  Roger Parry tells us who we've
been listening to, and announces an intermission.

I want to go out to the lobby, but I'm too afraid of losing my prime,
unobstructed view standing at the end of the bar.  So I continue to stand
there.

But by now, you're probably not as interested in the second half of the
concert so much as you're wondering whether I will continue this inane
imitation of the prose style employed by Dave Eggers in his much-hyped,
bestselling memoir, 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.'  As if
someone who's only 20-something should be writing a memoir anyway, no matter
how privileged by the right or obliged by the duty of the tragic
circumstances of his life may have made him feel.  The answer is, no, I will
not.  I am far too tired from staying up too late Wednesday night even after
coming home from the first Company night (the one you're reading about),
getting up too early on Thursday morning to see my girlfriend off on a trip,
and attending the second night of Company Thursday night, which, I promise
in advance, I won't review in this particular manner.  Anyway, we're talking
four hours of sleep, tops.  And now it's after two o'clock in the morning
here in New York, and I'm beginning to see little spots dancing before my
eyes.  So I can't imagine that I'll be able to type much longer, and of
course, I'm also worrying all the while that you will all hate this essay
and will rise up together and will banish me from the Zornlist completely as
a result, which would mean that I would never get to tell you about the
second night of Company in New York, not to mention the third night or even
the cool upcoming releases announced in the new Tzadik catalogs that were
laying around at Tonic tonight.  And of course, were I less sleep-deprived,
I'm pretty sure that writing a concert review in the style of a trendy (but
still very worthwhile) book would not have seemed like a good idea.  In
fact, it already doesn't seem like a good idea, but since I've written this
far, I feel sort of committed to see it through, though I do plan to use
some sort of shortcut very soon so I can go to bed.  Otherwise, you might
never get my review of the second night.  Or the third night!  The third
night is tomorrow night.  Tonight!  It's already after 2 a.m., like I said
before.  Still, in a sense, you're getting two reviews for the price of one
here, since what I am really doing in this essay is telling you about the
first night of Company in New York, but I'm telling it in the style of a
book that many of you might have considered reading  (and in fact one
Zornlist member even wrote me personally to ask about the book when I
mentioned it as a "NR" the other day, but that doesn't mean that that
particular person - let's call him "Xerxes" - anyway, Xerxes, you needn't
feel that you and you alone were the cause of this post, and that after I
myself am banished from the Zornlist, they'll be coming for you next) .
When I'm finished with the essay, then, you'll know what the concert was
like, really like (and here I'm wishing that the use of rich text was
condoned on the Zornlist, so that I could have italicized the word "really"
just before the parenthesis), and you might also have some idea whether you
might want to read the book, as well, as I myself am doing.  I'm enjoying
the book despite its obvious 20-something postmodern snarkiness, not to
mention its whiny defense of same, both of which would render the writer
completely obnoxious were he less talented than he is.  And I hope it is
clear that I enjoyed the concert I as well.

Now.  After intermission, Roger Parry got up again, and told us that we were
about to hear "Min's group."  The group was supposed to consist of Min (and
it's odd, perhaps, that Roger called it "Min's group," since 'Min' is, as I
understand it, Min Xiao-Fen's family name, since her famous pipa-playing
father's name is Min Ji-Qian, and everyone else's group was referred to by
their proper name, like "Annie's group" and "Simon's group," so shouldn't
the next group actually be "Xiao-Fen's group"?  Just wondering.), Bailey,
Fell and Davies.  However, Davies, for some reason, never came to the stage.
So "Min's group," or "Xiao-Fen's group," if you prefer, consisted of Min,
Bailey and Fell.  And the music they played was another highlight of the
evening, with Min's skittering fingers and Fell's alligator-clipped strings
proved nearly as otherworldly as Bailey's typical Baileyness.

Roger, in case you wondered, told us who we had just heard and who we were
about to hear between each of the following combinations, and most of the
time he remembered to tell us whose group it was as well.  But not always.
Anyway, these were the remaining combinations for the evening:

    JOEY'S GROUP - Baron, Zorn, Gosfield and Bailey.  Their interplay was
reasonably interesting, including a funky chase to the end by Zorn and
Baron.  But Bailey must have heard some potential in it, because he
compelled the group to remain onstage for a second blow (Zorn called for a
vote of the audience), which was far more interesting, and contained
Gosfield's first really integrated playing of the evening.  Her hardware
knocked like a bad engine and clanked like a foundry.

    WILL - Gaines took the stage for a bit of old-style hoofing.  After an
impressive display of tap technique, he sat on a piano bench and proceeded
to talk to the audience for a while longer about his storied past,
performing with the likes of Ray Charles and Big Maybelle.  He said that
playing with Company was the biggest challenge, but that the challenge was
for Bailey to keep him in line.  Gaines kept tapping his feet throughout his
little monologue, and it was impossible not to be moved by it.

    JENNIFER CHOI & MARK WASTELL - An incredible duo of staggering technical
acumen.  Choi's style is picture-perfect, Wastell's catch-as-catch-can, but
the two meet in the middle for chamber music of which anyone from Webern to
Lachenmann to, dare I say, Zorn would have been proud.

    CHOI, WASTELL & GOSFIELD - As above, but with a washing machine churning in
the background.  Wastell further distinguishes himself in my eyes by being
the first cellist I've ever seen bowing the endpin of his instrument.

    RHODRI'S GROUP - The finale for the evening, consisting of Davies, Bailey,
Baron, Fell and Zorn.  The barrage you might expect, for the most part.
Zorn, seemingly out of patience, blew smoky, 'Spillane' style sax.  Davies
abused his harp with a tamborine and a little dumbek.  The grouping rocked
out at the end.  As Zorn packed his stuff, Bailey said, "John wants to do
another one."  Zorn replied, "I didn't say nothin,'" but he gamely pulls out
his toys.  The second blow by this group was as good as the first, and in
some ways even more distinctive.  Baron played a fractured, Beefheartean
rhythm over which the rest of the group was content to play without falling
in sync.  When Baron exploded into a barrage of noise, only Bailey followed.
The climax was a trio of Bailey, Fell and Baron, the last beating his drums
with towels thrown over the heads.

And then, of course, Roger Parry told us who we had just heard, and invited
us back tomorrow, which is, of course, last night as I type this.  But
that's another story.

Don't hate me.  I couldn't help myself.

Steve Smith
[e-mail]
NP - Brahms, Ein Deutsches Requiem-mvt 7, Philharmonia/Klemperer (EMI)










- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #414
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