ftp.xmission.com/2014.06.ftp.xmission.com.tar/ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/zorn-list/archive/v03.n715

Internet Message Format | 2002-01-27 | 21KB

From: [e-mail] (Zorn List Digest)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Zorn List Digest V3 #715
Reply-To: zorn-list
Sender: [e-mail]
Errors-To: [e-mail]
Precedence: bulk


Zorn List Digest       Monday, January 28 2002       Volume 03 : Number 715



In this issue:
-
       Re: Fwd: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT
       Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT
       Chamber Pieces, etc. (was: RE: Kristallnacht)
       I have now filtered UFOrbk8 out of my mailbox
       Re: Neu and personal affronts.
       Re: Neu and personal affronts.
       Stand down, soljers...
       RE: efren VS. whom?... , avant-elitism the return, and some xenakis content.
       RE: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT
       -- Zorn Improv Night --
       lots of questions.
       RE: lots of questions. (typo)
       Re: breaking the silence.
       Re: Xenakis
       rush and synths.
       looking back on life in the age of zorn -- LONGISH
       Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:34:45 -0800
From: Tosh <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT

Martin Denny is surely under-rated.  There is a great collection of
his work that was put out in Japan about 8 or 9 years ago.  Really
fantastic music.  One can just forget the concept (exotica) and just
listen to the great arrangements.

- --
Tosh Berman
TamTam Books
http://www.tamtambooks.com

- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:50:13 -0800
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT

> From: Tosh <[e-mail]>
> Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 07:59:13 -0800
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT
>
> I don't have the package with the liner notes in front of me, but I
> think Zorn sort of meant it to be a version of Martin Denny
> recordings - so in a way it's supposed to take you on a romantic
> cruise of some sort.  I like this album.

I like it too.  But he's kept the textures a little more steady and the
harmony isn't too active, which is not always the case in exotica.
>
> And speaking of Martin Denny - anybody here here a fan of exotica?  I
> am sure it has been covered here on the list - but I have the habit
> of leaving and coming back to the list.
>
Yeah, I kinda know a little about it.

skip h


- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 19:15:55 +0100
From: patRice <[e-mail]>
Subject: Chamber Pieces, etc. (was: RE: Kristallnacht)

EfrΘn wrote:

>Two other basic compositions by Zorn are, for me, "Duras" and "Elegy",
as
Duras:Duchamp I would recommend, too. Very nice indeed!
Elegy is also great; love John Patton's contribution...

>opposed to "Redbird", which I didn't enjoy so much. However, I admit
that
>the minimalistic vein of the piece fits really well with Martin's work.

Thanks - hey, for once we agree! ;-)

>You see, another empty, pretentious, snob post from me.
Good heavens, no! ;-)

patRice

np: Underground Resistance 12"s
nr: invoices ;-)



- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 09:58:42 +0100
From: "Remco Takken" <[e-mail]>
Subject: I have now filtered UFOrbk8 out of my mailbox

OK, people, back to music. I won't unsubcribe for yet, but I feel it's time
for the other 675 Zornlisters to come up with some musical content.

I am up to the point where I look at the senders, before I read the subject
lines and delete. That is not good.

Life's too short to suffer fools.

Remco








- -

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

Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 17:01:12 -0800
From: "Rev. Floyd Errors" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Neu and personal affronts.

>>>I've decided to take this little incident as a sign that I
shouldn't be on
this list any longer, so I'm going to unsubscribe right after I
post this.
thanks to everyone for years of insightful discourse, and for all
your
support of Erstwhile.<<<

I can't believe such unentertaining and uncreative posters can
facilitate the exit of the great Jon Abbey. As my mother always
said, "What is this world coming to?"

Long live Erstwhile.






- -

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

Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 12:41:51 -0500
From: David Keffer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Neu and personal affronts.

From: [e-mail]
> I've decided to take this little incident as a sign that I shouldn't be on
> this list any longer, so I'm going to unsubscribe right after I post this.
> thanks to everyone for years of insightful discourse, and for all your
> support of Erstwhile.
>
> Jon
> www.erstwhilerecords.com

Well, this is a loss to the list.  While I didn't always agree with Jon on
topics of musical merit (I remember one or two tense posts on what it really
takes to qualify for the height of musical pretension),
I did find his posts honest and worthwhile over the course of the past five
or six or seven years.
He is a real mainstay of the Zorn list.  Too bad.

I think you ought to reconsider abandoning the list, Jon.
Otherwise, adios.

David K.





- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:15:45 -0500
From: "Steve Smith" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Stand down, soljers...

Okay, after a clutch of deeply appreciated personal messages, Skip's truly
insightful analysis, Bill's misplaced contrition and Tom's threats - as well
as a useful and productive offlist conversation with Kate, who hadn't been
the problem in the first place - I can come down off of my high horse and
dig into the daily delights that the Zornlist faithfully brings to my
mailbox. Sorry to have caused a disruption. You folks should know that
you've been a major part of my life for some seven years now - one I was
deeply loathe to give up, agita or no. The personal messages I received
merely confirmed that. I love you all, truly madly deeply. Now let's all
just try to get along - the discourse is always more valuable than the
distress. I'll behave, too.

Oh, and one more thing, Kate. Since we touched on sexist jargon, the
commonly accepted term now in vogue for a tetchy primo uomo is "divo"... ;-)

Steve Smith
[e-mail]
NP - Skip Heller, "Take Off Your Clothes When You Dance," 'Couch, Los
Angeles' (Modern Mouthpiece)



- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:19:15 -0500
From: "Steve Smith" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: efren VS. whom?... , avant-elitism the return, and some xenakis content.

Gee, I sure hated Rush when they added synthsizers and got popular. ;-)

Steve Smith
[e-mail]


- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:24:05 -0500
From: "Steve Smith" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT

Skip's own 'Couch, Los Angeles,' for those who don't know, is a delight... a
demented blend of loungey langeur and rollicking NRBQ-style hijinks. He
covers Zappa, Mahler and other standards, and also includes some first-rate
homages. It's one of the few guaranteed pick-me-ups in my collection.

Steve Smith
[e-mail]
NP - Skip Heller, secret hidden track, 'Couch, Los Angeles'
(Ultramodern/Mouthpiece)
... think I got the label ref correct this time...

- -----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Skip Heller
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 12:50 PM
To: Tosh; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT




> From: Tosh <[e-mail]>
> Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 07:59:13 -0800
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT
>
> I don't have the package with the liner notes in front of me, but I
> think Zorn sort of meant it to be a version of Martin Denny
> recordings - so in a way it's supposed to take you on a romantic
> cruise of some sort.  I like this album.

I like it too.  But he's kept the textures a little more steady and the
harmony isn't too active, which is not always the case in exotica.
>
> And speaking of Martin Denny - anybody here here a fan of exotica?  I
> am sure it has been covered here on the list - but I have the habit
> of leaving and coming back to the list.
>
Yeah, I kinda know a little about it.

skip h


- -


- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:28:25 -0500
From: "Kim, Pei-Yi" <[e-mail]>
Subject: -- Zorn Improv Night --

Hi Everyone,

     Thursday, February 7th, there will be another John Zorn Improv night
(members TBA) at Tonic (in NYC) for 8pm & 10pm. www.tonicnyc.com

      Grace,
      Pei-Yi



- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:42:54 -0700
From: "Matthew W Wirzbicki  (S)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: lots of questions.

hi,

I picked up an issue of the wire and read every word of it (and more than a
couple of words twice) on a twenty hour train ride from Worchester MA to
Chicago.

here are a few things which I'd love to hear more about from the many people
here who know more/have listened to more than yours truely.

1) "spectral Music" - Tristan Murail, Gerard Grisey, Radulescu - I usually
suspect concepts behind pieces/artworks and recently felt one of the
suspicion fully justified reading the liner notes which Crumb wrote on the
nonesuch release of Makrokosmos I, but I'm interested by the talk behind
this one and Radulescu is the only composer I've heard of.

2) Nuno Canavarro - the issue was the Jim O'Rourke cover and he mentioned
this album and the magazine chimed in to label it portugese
proto-electronica.

3) Susumu Yokota "Magic Thread".....anyone heard this?

4) Soul jazz record label (pictured on back) ... voodoo drumming, santeria,
capoeira, along with New Orleans funk, their Dynamite series etc....any good
starting points/things to avoid/jems?

i guess this is all potentially off topic but...

thanks in advance for any help.

Matt (looking forward to Mueller/Sugimoto this thursday and Keith Rowe next
tuesday)




- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:52:49 -0700
From: "Matthew W Wirzbicki  (S)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: lots of questions. (typo)



>one of the
>suspicion fully justified

should read "one of the(SE) suspicion(S)...sorry

Matt

- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 10:58:52 -0800
From: "carlos torres" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: breaking the silence.

K8 WROTE:
 >i stress FEMALE
 >because in academia the men are viewed as equals and we either have to
 >disappear into nothingness or be feminazi and nothing in-between),     i
remain
 >interested, entertained, and somewhat amused that something this trite has
 >been deemed serious enough for "old-timers" to dump their subscriptions.

This has gone on long enough, from all sides...but to try to drive this
through as a "female composer" deal is just adding too much fuel to the
flame.  By the way K8...you had posted that the term "free jazz" was just an
uppity term to be used by college kids who wanted to give meaning to their
pointless noise creations...hmm...can the same be said about "performance
art" on a....list of all places??  This list has provided me with so much
information, so many great people willing to share their years of
knowledge....lets all just crank up the music and discuss what we know best.


_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com


- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 19:26:05 +0000 (WET)
From: Ricardo Reis <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Xenakis

> with regards to xenakis - i'm not familiar with that recording.  [runs in=20
> fear for not knowing something, admitting it publicly, and being off topic=20
> all at once.]  however, i would strongly reccomend the percussion pieces -=20
> all of them - because they rock.  xenakis' stochastic math principles are=20
> rather skewed in the view of principia mathematica, and he's kind of a=20
> math-joke in real-math circles (equally elitist and unwilling to be=20
> corrupted, amusing, no?  poor godel...), but to listen to them is truly an=20
> experience.  especially if you've got some hot studio monitors and you can=20
> pump it up loud, loud, loud.  and i don't even listen to loud music.  really=

    the disc i've heard is subtitled "Les Percussions de Strasbourg"
and so fits the category you speak of. quite amazing... where do you know
Godel from? my brother is a mathematician (well, still studying to end
graduation) and was the one who first spoke of him to me. very interesting
u speak of him :).

            greets,
                 Ricardo Reis

                "Non Serviam"


- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 14:49:01 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: rush and synths.

In a message dated 01.28.02 13:21:27, [e-mail] writes:

>Gee, I sure hated Rush when they added synthsizers and got popular. ;-)

ezra buchla was a friend of mine at oberlin.  i once asked him what the worst
part about his dad having invented the buchla synth was and he replied,

"i can never listen to Yes again."




- -----
[ .n o t h i n g  i s  w h a t  i s  s a i d. ]

.k a t e  p e t e r s o n.
.c o m p o s e r / p e r f o r m e r.
<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/uforbk8/kate.html">
http://www.geocities.com/uforbk8/kate.html</A>
<A HREF="http://www.icefoundation.org">http://www.icefoundation.org</A>
(roundtable)

- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:53:41 -0800
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: looking back on life in the age of zorn -- LONGISH

The talk of Zorn's chamber pieces has been making me think about Zorn's
career all over again.  The first time I ever heard him was on a Violent
Femmes album, then Uri Caine mentioned him and played me what he had out in
about 1984-5 (must've been 85, cuz it was during the summer Uri moved to
NYC), including a cut where Zorn played on the Rochester/Veasley Band LP ONE
MINUTE OF LOVE.

I was intrigued, but not quite floored.  THE BIG GUNDOWN didn't grab me.
But SPILLANE rocked my world, espec since I had spent so much of my high
school time reading the Mick and other guys like him.  Also, much of my
early exposure to jazz came through Henry Mancini's film music.  I felt like
SPILLANE was written for me specifically.

Through Zorn, I really saw a guy doing to the conventions of the avant-garde
what punk rock had tried to do to the conventions of pop music (and
unfortunately largely failed).  I had gotten pretty tired of the general
free jazz practices quickly, because I heard so much of it as being as
formulaic as be-bop.  But Zorn -- and to an extent, Tim Berne -- came up
with new structural materials, which redefined the playing field.  And
largely Zorn did it by imposing new rules from old places, and hearing these
new formulas come to life was really exciting, especially when you're about
twenty years old and looking for stuff to react to in an extreme way.  For
all those guys who were then about the age I am now, Zorn was largely an
affront.  But, especially after SPILLANE, nobody could doubt his skill.
They accused him of being overly-cerebral, but, between that record and
VOODOO, they didn't dismiss his playing.  And they all started buying Sonny
Clark records soon after.  And you'll also notice that, after that, it
became far more common for jazz guys to have more than one group.  That
might have been Zorn's most influential contribution to the practices of
jazz, and I think -- in his heart of hearts -- Zorn is really a jazz player.

I think it was NAKED CITY more than any other record that stated, "Okay,
people, this is a new avant-garde.  Instead of Cecil-isms, Trane-isms,
Ornette-isms, and whatever else you've come to expect, this is the new
avenue.   NC were not just using styles within a genre.  It was like "We're
using whole f**king genres as modes for improvisiation now, and we're not
even gonna improvise all the time anymore."  As much as I didn't like the
vocal hardcore portions (I think Zorn was really looking for the most
extreme tool he could find), that record rocked my world to its core, and it
really had me wondering where he was going to go next.  I didn't realize he
was going to release more music than Frank Zappa in roughly a third of the
time it took FZ.

But I think, in a way, that Masada has been the most revealing of his
projects.  It's definitely his comfort-food ensemble, and -- whoa! -- it's a
pretty straight-ahead jazz group.  And one that's made more interesting
records than most others.

Listening to THE GIFT had me pulling Zorn records off the shelf for the
first time in a few years, and I realize now he's a saxophone player who is
also a composer, and not vice-versa, because, when all is said and done, he
really seems most at home with a horn in his mouth.

But the other thing that strikes me is that, after his initial
earth-shattering period (roughly the Nonesuch years), he has done the
unthinkable and freed himself up to create whatever he damn well pleases.
His chamber music is not as surprising to me, much as I like it, as SPILLANE
was.  In fact, the bulk of his chamber music would sound comfortable on a
program with Ives, Webern etc and a lot of other music written before 1950.
I don't find fault with that.  I'm relieved that he's not chasing
contempranaeity (sp?) for it's own sake.

Now that he has become The Establishment, in certain quarters anyway, it's
kind of interesting to look over and see what he and his music have
ultimately meant to and in the music-making community.  Ultimately, I think
he will be regarded as one of the unavoidable influences, along with Miles,
James Brown, and the Beatles (the only figures I can think of whose
respective influences seem truly unavaoidable).  But I don't think people
will agree on what or who he influenced, or how that influence was felt in
the musical community.

Now that the record business is imploding around itself, it will be
interesting to see how he governs his release schedule, both as artist and
label-manager.  It will also be interesting to see if he comes up with more
stuff that has such a huge effect on the very shape of the comunity as aked
City et al did.  A friend of mine says, no, he's made his statement and it's
unlikely that someone established gets to throw the switch the way someone
relatively unknown gets to.  I don't know that I agree with that --
improvised music often defies the F Scott Fitzgerald law of "no second acts
in American lives" (re: Miles, Trane, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson).  But
his theory was that the most extreme statements that become influences -- he
pointed to Cecil, Ornette, and  Don Byron -- depend so totally on the
element of surprise.  His thesis was that Zorn is, in a way, closer to Miles
than to the avant-garde because his output is based on linear motion, rather
than isolated bursts of activity.  I see the point but have not decided
whether I agree or not.

In the nearly 20 years since I first heard John Zorn skronking over the
Femmes' "Black Girls", I can only say that he is the 3000 lb gorilla,
allowed to sit wherever he wants -- or can fit.

skip h


- -

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

Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 11:56:23 -0800
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT

> From: "Steve Smith" <[e-mail]>
> Reply-To: <[e-mail]>
> Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 13:24:05 -0500
> To: "'Skip Heller'" <[e-mail]>, "'Tosh'" <[e-mail]>,
> <[e-mail]>
> Subject: RE: the gift --ACTUAL ZORN CONTENT
>
> Skip's own 'Couch, Los Angeles,' for those who don't know, is a delight... a
> demented blend of loungey langeur and rollicking NRBQ-style hijinks. He
> covers Zappa, Mahler and other standards, and also includes some first-rate
> homages. It's one of the few guaranteed pick-me-ups in my collection.
>
> Steve Smith

Thanks for the PSA, Steve.

sh


- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #715
*******************************


 To unsubscribe from zorn-list-digest, send an email to
       "[e-mail]"
 with
       "unsubscribe zorn-list-digest"
 in the body of the message.

 For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
 "help" to the same address.  Do not use quotes in your message.

 A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to
 subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "zorn-list-digest"
 in the commands above with "zorn-list".

 Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from ftp.xmission.com, in
 pub/lists/zorn-list/archive.  These are organized by date.

 Problems? Email the list owner at [e-mail]