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Zorn List Digest         Monday, May 14 2001         Volume 03 : Number 424



In this issue:
-
       Re: Fusion/Free Jazz
       burning cds/rec stores in berlin (non zorn )
       Re: more fag stuff
       RE: more fag stuff
       RE: more fag stuff
       Re: Zorn List Digest V3 #423
       Re: Fusion/Free Jazz

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

Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 23:01:52 -0400
From: "&c." <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Fusion/Free Jazz

I said I was sorry for the naivety of my question.

Zach

- -

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

Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 20:58:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: aaron chua <[e-mail]>
Subject: burning cds/rec stores in berlin (non zorn )

apologies fr off topic post
on a related note re Nero; can anyone give me any
clues as to why it is that a recent cd burnt using
nero resulted in total digital distortion (pretty much
white noise all the way thru..) never had such a
problem previously.

also i have a friend in berlin at the moment. i was
hoping to get me some cds over there esp the feldman
all piano set. any recommendations as to good cd
stores over there that might stock this and other
"out" music?

please reply off-list as appropriate.

apologies again/

rgrds,
aaron

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- -

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

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 22:10:13 -0700
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: more fag stuff

> I appreciate your point, and yes, of course, music (and all other art
> besides) does not exist in a vacuum.  It's great to discuss context.  But at
> a certain point, I think there's a danger when a
> writer/scholar/critic/whatever imposes his or her own "take" on the intended
> meaning of a work.  It's one thing to infer the hidden messages in
> Shostakovich as regards Stalinism or the secret agenda behind Berg's Lyric
> Suite, because we have plenty of contemporary historical insight into the
> contexts for those inferences.  We *know* that Shostakovich was operating in
> an oppressive atmosphere.  We *know* that Berg was coding an illicit and
> star-crossed love affair into his composition.
>
> But to take into consideration, once again, the Mingus/Dolphy example, there
> is absolutely no precedent or context, historical or otherwise, for making
> that leap.  We *do* know that in at least one example there is an almost
> explicitly vocalized duo passage between the two that "re-enacts" the moment
> that Dolphy told Mingus that he was leaving the band - that's part of the
> historical record, and it's easy to hear.  But what is the point of making
> the further leap that there was some kind of sublimated sexual content?
> What does it serve?  On what foundation is it based?  In that case, it's
> speculative and specious.  Much the same could be said of the whole "Miles
> as Pimp" essay in today's Times - holding the "pimp" up as an iconic part of
> American black experience, and then arguing that this was the exemplar of
> what Miles was trying to achieve.  It's degrading and ultimately worthless.
>
> It's vital to consider the authorial context in considering a work of art
> deeply.  But what's the point of inventing a context to suit an agenda?  Who
> benefits?  What do we learn by such suppositions and leaps of logic and
> fact?  We could sit here all day and make sweeping pronouncements about the
> quality of Zorn's character as reflected by the various unpleasant and
> unsavory aspects of his art and the way in which he packages it.  We could
> make claims that he's into bondage and pedophilia, and we could probably
> even support it with concrete musical examples with which we can seeimgly
> illustrate our every assertion.  But unless we have the facts to back up
> such suppositions, what point would it serve?
>
> Steve Smith
> [e-mail]
> NP - Peter Maxwell Davies, 'Time and the Raven,' Royal Phil/Maxwell Davies
> (Collins)
>
>
> -
>
There comes a point with this is nothing more than a hipster version of The
E! True Hollywood Story.

As for it being vital to take authorial context into account, I agree,
except for one thing -- that so many artists devise a context after the
music/art commodity has been made.  When you go back and read a lot of the
free jazz reportage fr the 60s, it's obvious that certain players were in
the position of having to say, "Gee, that was badly played, ill-conceived,
and sounds horrible.  I'd better devise an elaborate philosophical system to
explain. This way, I'll still look really bitchin.'"

Artists are not above creating these profiles for themselves.  Glenn Gould,
for instance, called Streisand the "greatest singing actress since
Schwartzkopf" (sp).  Years after GG's death, an interview was being
conducted with a friend of his, who said, "You're seriously interviewing me
about whether Glenn liked Barbra Streisand.  You're naive if you don't think
that was exactly the kind of question he engineered by coming out as a fan
of hers."

This is a great deal less fraudulent than a lot of what goes on in the free
jazz community, but it's the same thing -- self-profiling.  And,
unfortunately, it provides a smokescreen through which it is often really
difficult to clearly examine art and context in a sensible way.

skip h

np: woody shaw -- setting standards (actually, a really great album)


- -

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

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 05:21:10 -0000
From: "Bill Ashline" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: more fag stuff

I'm sympathetic to a great extent to academics attempting to do service to
gender politics.  I have no particular problem with a person who wants to
see sublimated sexuality in a horn solo.  Music is abstract enough to
perhaps speak to a listener on a number of levels.  That's fine.  No
problem.  But it doesn't always make for very interesting theory to project
one's own private desire on to another's practice when one is attempting to
write about someone else and not oneself.  Perhaps Dolphy and Mingus were
closeted even to themselves.  Perhaps not.  If the writer is writing about
his/her own private desire to locate sexuality in such a musical exchange,
that's fine (I don't find it particularly interesting, I'm afraid.  And I
don't find it very intellectual either--not that I'm trying to separate the
mind from the body once again).  Why not?  Because if one can find such
things in such a solo, then one can find pretty much anything there, even
confirmation of Levi-Strauss' discussion of table manners in various
cultures.  If one can find sublimated sexuality there, then one can find it
just about everywhere else since it will always be assumed it will be most
prevalent in the places where it's least likely to be apparent.  And if
sexuality and everything else is always and already everywhere, then in fact
it can be nowhere at all, for when we come to truly notice it somewhere in
particular (Bob Ostertag's or Terre Thaemlitz's discussions of their work
for example), then such a noticing will have no significance whatsoever.  I
don't like these theoretical "extravagances" not because they aren't "true"
but because they distract from the areas and ways in which theory can be
productively applied to art and music.  They make potentially sympathetic
"ears" unavailable to such productive applications, and they engender
oppositional "extravagances" of the worst sort, ones that become
anti-intellectual while starting out as anti-academic or some such thing.
So in the end, I think Steve is too formalistic in his argument, though I
agree with him completely about the cases he's cited.  I think Ben is more
right in saying that the network of relationships has to be expanded from
musicians simply playing and inventing with one another to other cultural
issues and developments.  I agree with Scott about the necessity of
speculation, as long as we limit some of its worst extravagances.  And I see
Thomas' point about the crude essentialism of one of his colleagues as an
example of the worst excesses of this sort.  There are smart theorists of
music out there, though not enough, and I'll maintain that music continues
to be worth talking and thinking about, even while I'll never agree that
it's a kind of "god" unto its own that is beyond the pall of language.  And
back to Jeton's original question.  Am I a homophobe?  Yes, of course.  I'm
also sexist, racist, classist, and other abominable things as well.  I'm
trying hard not to be, but not hard enough.  Unfortunately, it's probably
the best I can do.

And while I don't begrudge Mr. Zorn his right to express himself freely in
his work, and while I think that many criticisms of his self-expression are
overly one-dimensional and naive, I sometimes wish he'd give these fetishes
a rest and grow up a little to the realities of the world, particularly the
so-called "third world," where international trafficking of women and
children has become one of the consequences of "globalization."  It becomes
hard after awhile to disassociate these facts from these images.

B. Ashline

"Intellectual alienation is a creation of middle class society.  What I call
middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined
forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery.  I
call middle class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the
air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt....I am not a prisoner of
history.  I should not seek there for the meaning of my destiny. I should
constantly remind myself that the real "leap" consists of introducing
invention into existence.  In the world through which I travel, I am
endlessly creating myself."--Frantz Fanon


_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.


- -

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

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 05:21:10 -0000
From: "Bill Ashline" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: more fag stuff

I'm sympathetic to a great extent to academics attempting to do service to
gender politics.  I have no particular problem with a person who wants to
see sublimated sexuality in a horn solo.  Music is abstract enough to
perhaps speak to a listener on a number of levels.  That's fine.  No
problem.  But it doesn't always make for very interesting theory to project
one's own private desire on to another's practice when one is attempting to
write about someone else and not oneself.  Perhaps Dolphy and Mingus were
closeted even to themselves.  Perhaps not.  If the writer is writing about
his/her own private desire to locate sexuality in such a musical exchange,
that's fine (I don't find it particularly interesting, I'm afraid.  And I
don't find it very intellectual either--not that I'm trying to separate the
mind from the body once again).  Why not?  Because if one can find such
things in such a solo, then one can find pretty much anything there, even
confirmation of Levi-Strauss' discussion of table manners in various
cultures.  If one can find sublimated sexuality there, then one can find it
just about everywhere else since it will always be assumed it will be most
prevalent in the places where it's least likely to be apparent.  And if
sexuality and everything else is always and already everywhere, then in fact
it can be nowhere at all, for when we come to truly notice it somewhere in
particular (Bob Ostertag's or Terre Thaemlitz's discussions of their work
for example), then such a noticing will have no significance whatsoever.  I
don't like these theoretical "extravagances" not because they aren't "true"
but because they distract from the areas and ways in which theory can be
productively applied to art and music.  They make potentially sympathetic
"ears" unavailable to such productive applications, and they engender
oppositional "extravagances" of the worst sort, ones that become
anti-intellectual while starting out as anti-academic or some such thing.
So in the end, I think Steve is too formalistic in his argument, though I
agree with him completely about the cases he's cited.  I think Ben is more
right in saying that the network of relationships has to be expanded from
musicians simply playing and inventing with one another to other cultural
issues and developments.  I agree with Scott about the necessity of
speculation, as long as we limit some of its worst extravagances.  And I see
Thomas' point about the crude essentialism of one of his colleagues as an
example of the worst excesses of this sort.  There are smart theorists of
music out there, though not enough, and I'll maintain that music continues
to be worth talking and thinking about, even while I'll never agree that
it's a kind of "god" unto its own that is beyond the pall of language.  And
back to Jeton's original question.  Am I a homophobe?  Yes, of course.  I'm
also sexist, racist, classist, and other abominable things as well.  I'm
trying hard not to be, but not hard enough.  Unfortunately, it's probably
the best I can do.

And while I don't begrudge Mr. Zorn his right to express himself freely in
his work, and while I think that many criticisms of his self-expression are
overly one-dimensional and naive, I sometimes wish he'd give these fetishes
a rest and grow up a little to the realities of the world, particularly the
so-called "third world," where international trafficking of women and
children has become one of the consequences of "globalization."  It becomes
hard after awhile to disassociate these facts from these images.

B. Ashline

"Intellectual alienation is a creation of middle class society.  What I call
middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined
forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery.  I
call middle class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the
air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt....I am not a prisoner of
history.  I should not seek there for the meaning of my destiny. I should
constantly remind myself that the real "leap" consists of introducing
invention into existence.  In the world through which I travel, I am
endlessly creating myself."--Frantz Fanon


_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.


- -

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

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 04:14:35 -0400
From: "Jeton Ademaj" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Zorn List Digest V3 #423

>People can make such pointless speculations all day long, for all I >care,
>but it doesn't tell us a damn thing about the music.  And the mixture of
>ignorance and arrogance with which many of these theories are posited is
>frankly embarassing, or should be, anyway.

>Enough outta me.  But Jeton, your allusions to homophobia in the >exchange
>between Bill and myself are off-base, and unwelcome.

Steve, I commented on what you chose to post. Your pomo Seinfeld reference
winks out "hey, ain't got nuttin against gays, but Dolphy n Mingus? C'mon,
enuff's enuff!" (some may remember it's context in that particular episode--
the unspoken rejoinder to "-not that there's anything wrong with that" was
an implicit ", AS LONG AS IT'S NOT ME!!!"). I don't think any pc-police will
be breaking down your door anytime soon, so you probably need not get bent
out of shape that I noticed your obviously freudian slip. and as for
hostility:

>But to take into consideration, once again, the Mingus/Dolphy example,
> >there
>is absolutely no precedent or context, historical or otherwise, for >making
>that leap.  We *do* know that in at least one example there is an almost
>explicitly vocalized duo passage between the two that "re-enacts" the
> >moment
>that Dolphy told Mingus that he was leaving the band - that's part of >the
>historical record, and it's easy to hear.  But what is the point of >making
>the further leap that there was some kind of sublimated sexual content?
>What does it serve?  On what foundation is it based?  In that case, it's
>speculative and specious.  Much the same could be said of the >whole "Miles
>as Pimp" essay in today's Times - holding the "pimp" up as an iconic >part
>of
>American black experience, and then arguing that this was the exemplar >of
>what Miles was trying to achieve.  It's degrading and ultimately
> >worthless.

>It's vital to consider the authorial context in considering a work of >art
>deeply.  But what's the point of inventing a context to suit an >agenda?
>Who
>benefits?  What do we learn by such suppositions and leaps of logic and
>fact?  We could sit here all day and make sweeping pronouncements about
> >the
>quality of Zorn's character as reflected by the various unpleasant and
>unsavory aspects of his art and the way in which he packages it.  We >could
>make claims that he's into bondage and pedophilia, and we could probably
>even support it with concrete musical examples with which we can >seeimgly
>illustrate our every assertion.  But unless we have the facts to back up
>such suppositions, what point would it serve?

>Steve Smith
>[e-mail]

So basically most people's answer has been "it's not about the sex, mannn"
and/or "whatever it was *really* about is subjective and/or unknowable". I
find both positions about one-quarter correct because sex is to a lesser or
greater extant a plainly universal concern, moreso than race/gender/class,
and because the all growth of knowledge is based on the implicit or explicit
faith that reality is to some extant knowable. That still doesn't answer the
question of hostility- who cares if someone speculates about Dolphy n Mingus
being hot for each other? History benefits from truth and truth benefits
from inquiry, so the better question is, who loses when truth gets out? Or
even when it gets mucked(?) with in some tiny context in some ivory tower
somewhere? Who's afraid of the bigbadpomofemgay"'"'"'jazz'"'"'" scholar?

_________________________________________________________________
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- -

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

Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 10:44:04 +0200
From: Jeroen de Boer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Fusion/Free Jazz

>
>
>>> I heard a band on the radio the other day that had a free jazz vibe and a
>>> fusion rhythm thing going on under it.  It wasn't very good, but it got me
>>> thinking.  Are there recordings and/or groups that effectively do this?

Allan Holdsworth soloing?

- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeroen de Boer
content director Cyberslag Content Providing
Damsterdiep 15  9711SG Groningen    The Netherlands

t   [phone]
m   [phone]
f   [phone]
[e-mail]

www.cyberslag.nl
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #424
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