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Zorn List Digest      Thursday, February 7 2002      Volume 03 : Number 756



In this issue:
-
       it's all just opinion, obviously. here's mine!
       Re: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????
       Odp: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????
       Re: Jazz Death?
       Re: Dick Hyman + Enoch Light (was RE: Independent Groups)
       Re: Jazz Death?
       Re: Odp: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????
       Re: Jazz Death?
       Jazz Death
       Jazz Death as health
       Zorn's influence on Frisell
       Cibo Matto
       Re: dick hyman
       Now vs.Then

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

Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 20:29:25 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: it's all just opinion, obviously. here's mine!

[e-mail] wrote re: Bobby Previte

>However I have strong doubts about his
>compositional competence.

Funny, I would have said the same thing about John Zorn.
For my money, Previte is one of *the* best composers to emerge from the
downtown scene & far surpasses JZ in that particular regard.

Steve

- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 17:37:00 -0800
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????

> From: "Marcin Gokieli" <[e-mail]>
> Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 02:38:36 +0100
> To: "Skip Heller" <[e-mail]>, "Alan Kayser"
> <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????
>
> Caine's mahler seems to be repeating what Mclaugling tried to do on 'Vision
> of the emerald beyond' - very explosive arrangements etc., but the whole
> thing gets boring ofter a few listens.

Dissing Uri with me in the area is really dangerous.

sh


- -

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

Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 02:58:34 +0100
From: "Marcin Gokieli" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Odp: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????

> > Caine's mahler seems to be repeating what Mclaugling tried to do on
'Vision
> > of the emerald beyond' - very explosive arrangements etc., but the whole
> > thing gets boring ofter a few listens.
>
> Dissing Uri with me in the area is really dangerous.

But don't you thinkj that there are some - not very direct - similiarities
between Caine's mahler studio album and this mahavishnu?


- -

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

Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 20:51:15 -0500
From: "Brian Olewnick" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Jazz Death?

Skip asked:

> Is innovation neccessary for the stuff to feel and sound good?

No, surely not. But just as surely, if there's no innovation, an art form
eventually dies. There's no great baroque music being composed these days,
if you notice.

> To me -- and I speak only for myself -- the object isn't to launch a major
> formal innovation.  It's for each player and listener to share some notion
> of discovery along the way.

Sure, but eventually it becomes apparent to any sensitive musician that he's
"discovering" nothing, but simply repeating things he's heard. As you
mentioned, there are musicians playing enjoyable ragtime, but there are no
composers (that I'm aware of) pursuing ragtime, writing startling and
evocative new ragtime compositions any longer.

> It depends who you ask and where their tastes lie.  Also, the term
> "reasonable listener" might get you an argument from someone like Dave
> Douglas, who thinks a reasonable listener is exactly liable to stretch the
> term jazz to include all sorts of things.

Douglas tries hard, I give him credit, but his recent work has bored me to
tears, including a performance of the Witness band at Victo last year. An
exception was "Charms of the Night Sky" (which I think you also mentioned as
enjoying), but that's one of his least "jazzy" efforts, no? Besides, most
anything with Klucevsek on it transcends boundries. At a recent Axel
Dorner/Andrea Neumann concert at Tonic, Douglas was in the crowd and picked
up the Dorner/Drumm Erstwhile disc, so maybe he's exploring more. But
Dorner/Drumm ain't jazz.
>
 > A lot of reasonable listeners would disagree with that assessment of
Zorn,
> though.  Also, I see some really incredible young players/thinkers who are
> building their own vocabulary in the music. Jim Black leaps to mind.

I like Black very much as a drummer. I don't (yet) hear him as a major
force.
>
> I don't think "beautiful" and "innovative" mean the same thing.  Hank
Jones
> may not be the most innovative pianist, but he's one of the most
beautiful.

He's also not 20 years old. I'd prefer to hear Randy Weston, Mal Waldron,
etc. to any dozen Matt Shipp's. They've carved out their own beautiful niche
_and_ were innovative themselves. I don't hear that in any younger jazz
pianist.

> Also, the downtown crowd is, as a school of thought, still relatively
young,
> but largely made up of players who came that way after developing
somewhere
> else, so they are not in the most advanced stages of their respective
> careers (if that makes any sense) even though they're often ten yrs older
> than the previous typical upstarts.

Well, I've seen Zorn play since 1977, and lots of these guys and gals are
into their 40's. Historically, most great art is made (or at least
conceptualized) by folk in their 20's. Zorn's done some monumental work (for
me: Spillane and Leng T'che, among others). I hear him treading mucho water
these last few years.

> Think of how undisocvered those people (save for Mingus) were during the
> years you state, then ask this: How much amazing shit is going on that
> likely I'm not hearing yet?

As I alluded to, though possible, I think that's far more unlikely these
days than before when almost anyone can get 1000 Cd's printed and have it
reviewed in WIRE, played on KCR or FMU, etc and gerneally get the word out.

> Your words echo almost exactly those dixieland and swing guys who were
> lamenting the coming of a form they considered not jazz -- be-bop.  Jazz
is
> less a what than a how, so it will endure.

Well, we get into the thorny problem of defining terms here. You may
consider AMM jazz, for example; I don't.

> So's media attention.  You can bet your bottom $ that there are guys doing
> exactly what you crave, and probably lots of 'em, but that they're nowhere
> near an effective publicist.

See above. Getting the attention of the 2500 or so potential buyers of
adventurous jazz is not that hard. Most all interested buyers read the same
magazines, the same websites.
>
> > Of course, I'd love to be proven wrong on all this.
> You might be.  And you'll likely be relieved to be.

Wish you were right.

Brian Olewnick

NP - Incapacitants - Forest in Noise 20010721


- -

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

Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 02:23:59 +0000
From: "thomas chatterton" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Dick Hyman + Enoch Light (was RE: Independent Groups)

>From: Scott Handley <[e-mail]>

Is Enoch
>Light worth checking out?

Certainly, if you find the LPs for under $1 and you have a turntable; like
so much of that kitschy lounge and exotica stuff, it was fun finding it in
thrift stores, but now that it's collectible, I would have to say it's not
really worth seeking out and paying the current asking prices; it's fun to
hear a couple of times, but really how many times are you going to go back
to it? Unlike Les Baxter, Martin Denny or Yma Sumac...

np:Debussy String Quartet in G minor Quartetto Italiano
nr: Thomas Mann Doctor Faustus

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 18:43:23 -0800
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Jazz Death?

> From: "Brian Olewnick" <[e-mail]>
> Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 20:51:15 -0500
> To: "Skip Heller" <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>,
> "Chris Selvig" <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Re: Jazz Death?
>
> Skip asked:
>
>> Is innovation neccessary for the stuff to feel and sound good?
>
> No, surely not. But just as surely, if there's no innovation, an art form
> eventually dies. There's no great baroque music being composed these days,
> if you notice.
I've heard, in the last twenty years, music derived from barouqe techniques
that I found quite compelling (generally student works).

>> To me -- and I speak only for myself -- the object isn't to launch a major
>> formal innovation.  It's for each player and listener to share some notion
>> of discovery along the way.
>
> Sure, but eventually it becomes apparent to any sensitive musician that he's
> "discovering" nothing, but simply repeating things he's heard.
Or rediscovering things about them he never figured before.  Astor Piazolla
is a great example of this.  Also, I don't know how sensitive a musician you
are, but everybody has their good days and their bad.
There are musicians whose tastes lead them to an improvisory style that does
not hinge on mountain-moving, but that are fantastic improvisors.  Breaking
new ground does not figure into their equation, even though they are
improvisors, and that does not make them a desensitized musician, or a
repetitive one.  If you look at John Hartford's output in the last five
years of his life, you'll see exactly what I mean.  I would also put Andy
Statman in this category.

> As you
> mentioned, there are musicians playing enjoyable ragtime, but there are no
> composers (that I'm aware of) pursuing ragtime, writing startling and
> evocative new ragtime compositions any longer.
And fifteen years ago, you might have been right to say the same thing about
klezmer music, but that's definitely taken on a new life.


> Douglas tries hard, I give him credit, but his recent work has bored me to
> tears, including a performance of the Witness band at Victo last year. An
> exception was "Charms of the Night Sky" (which I think you also mentioned as
> enjoying), but that's one of his least "jazzy" efforts, no?
Well, they play herbie Hancock and Nat Adderley.  That seems jazzy to me.

> Besides, most
> anything with Klucevsek on it transcends boundries.
Sure does!


> I like Black very much as a drummer. I don't (yet) hear him as a major
> force.
I'm pretty sure he will be.  His growth rate is startling.  Joey baron
already is.  After he showed up, everyone was taping their ride cymbals!

> I'd prefer to hear Randy Weston, Mal Waldron,
> etc. to any dozen Matt Shipp's. They've carved out their own beautiful niche
> _and_ were innovative themselves. I don't hear that in any younger jazz
> pianist.
I almost agree, except that I think something beautiful always carves its
own place in the world, because beauty is so damn needed.  I don't really
think of Mal Waldron as an innovator, although I think he's a wonderful
musician.  I think of Bill Evans as the kind of innovator I take you to
mean.


> Well, I've seen Zorn play since 1977, and lots of these guys and gals are
> into their 40's. Historically, most great art is made (or at least
> conceptualized) by folk in their 20's. Zorn's done some monumental work (for
> me: Spillane and Leng T'che, among others). I hear him treading mucho water
> these last few years.
I don't.  I hear him as less mercurial.  THE GIFT is really nice music, and
largely new territory for him.

> As I alluded to, though possible, I think that's far more unlikely these
> days than before when almost anyone can get 1000 Cd's printed and have it
> reviewed in WIRE, played on KCR or FMU, etc and gerneally get the word out.
It's not as easy as you think.  There are just so many records of that type
being pressed up in small numbers.  It's impossible to ever know how many.

>> Your words echo almost exactly those dixieland and swing guys who were
>> lamenting the coming of a form they considered not jazz -- be-bop.  Jazz
> is
>> less a what than a how, so it will endure.
>
> Well, we get into the thorny problem of defining terms here. You may
> consider AMM jazz, for example; I don't.
Do the guys in AMM consider themselves jazz guys? Does their audience?
I'm not defining anything for anyone.  But the player makes his own
decisions, then the consumer makes his own decisions.

skip h


- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 18:44:06 -0800
From: Skip Heller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Odp: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????

> From: "Marcin Gokieli" <[e-mail]>
> Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 02:58:34 +0100
> To: "Skip Heller" <[e-mail]>, "Alan Kayser"
> <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Odp: Odp: Odp: Zorn as Miles????????
>
> But don't you thinkj that there are some - not very direct - similiarities
> between Caine's mahler studio album and this mahavishnu?
 On the surface, yes.  But they're on two different paths in how they handle
the source material.

sh


- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 19:46:06 -0800
From: Chris Selvig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Jazz Death?

AMM have specifically denied being jazz, in the liner notes for "To Hear
and Back Again."  I love AMM (and Drumm and Dorner, for that matter), but I
don't consider them jazz.  And I'm sorry if this was unclear, but I was not
positing James Carter and Joshua Redman as the state of the jazz art, or
even as major current figures.
    And yes, I realize the value and long gestation time of musical
hindsight, especially in defining important formal innovations, but can
anyone out there tell me they're hearing the equivalent of Coltrane, or
Parker, or Ellington, out there?
      Zach mentioned the problem of fragmentation of the audience, eg a
great straight player might be too tame for the free music audience, and
the Ken Burns crowd doesn't want to hear Mats Gustafsson, and maybe he's
right, though there's always David Murray's shotgun approach to counter that.
   Maybe this boils down to not wanting to kick myself for passing up some
genius when they pass through San Francisco and play for 30 people in a
living room.

Chris Selvig


- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 20:27:53 -0800
From: Chris Selvig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Jazz Death

"Is innovation necessary for the stuff to feel and sound good?" - sometimes
yes, sometimes no, but that's what I meant when I asked if jazz is a dead
language - if even the best players are reproducing what has gone before,
they play jazz in the way that I write Homeric Greek.  (O.K., FAR better
than I write Homeric Greek, but you get my point).  Maybe there is less
difference between "Salt Peanuts" and Bach's Solo Cello Suites than I
think, and a good jazz performance is much the same as a good classical
performance, except the player has more variables to play with.  And yes, I
know there is contempo classical music with non-fixed elements, Mozart game
pieces, Renaissance organ music with improvisation, etc, but I'm speaking
of works with very specific instructions.
   My early education in jazz came from hanging around my high school's
jazz combo, who worked with a repertoire of pieces already 40-50 years old,
and listening to a scant few jazz records a mere 25-30 years old at the
time ("Kind of Blue," "Birth of the Cool," "Blue Train," and Mingus' "Live
at Antibes.")  And I love crude rock'n'roll like the Seeds, so I know
there's some indefinable element of Feel that keeps things interesting once
the form moves out of being innovative, but I'm still very much in love
with that moment where music just goes off the rails and the players are
lost and thrilled.  Or I'm lost and thrilled, as is the case when I see
Cecil Taylor live.  Unless he's doing poetry, in which case I'm just impatient.


Chris Selvig


- -

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

Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2002 20:58:39 -0800
From: Chris Selvig <[e-mail]>
Subject: Jazz Death as health

 From my buddy, Marty Linville: "lots of bad ideas remain utterly original
because nobody's dumb enough to do them."


Chris Selvig


- -

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

Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 05:06:40
From: "William York" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Zorn's influence on Frisell

This subject was mentioned in a recent digest. So, here is a Frisell quote
from the Godard/Spillane CD liner notes:

"John was looking at music froma completely different angle. I'd never heard
anything like it. These early experiences and especially these first
recordings with John changed the way I play/think/hear music."



_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


- -

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

Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 01:42:40 -0500
From: "Andrew" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Cibo Matto

Cibo Matto only have two records out: "Viva La Woman!" (more hip hop/sample
based) and "Stereotype A" (more funky/uptempo, live instrumentation). I
think they're both great records, and highly suggest both.

andrew


- -

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

Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 08:31:33 +0100
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: dick hyman

> i have a couple of enoch light albums i enjoy more for the album art than
> the music.  my only hyman album is 'Moog: The Electric Eclectics of Dick
> Hyman', on Command records (same as enoch light).  It features such
> kwality klassiks as 'Tap Dance in the Memory Banks', 'Topless Dancers of
> Corfu', and my personal favorite (title, that is), 'The Legend of Johnny
> Pot'.  The album liner notes trumpet, "The Startling Sounds of the Brave
> New Music World!...singular, synthesized composition that heralds the
> future art of Sound-Expansion!"  I can't find a date on it anywhere, so i
> have no idea what year it heralds from. In the end, the music is not as
> good as, say, Perry and Kingsley's moog work (if 'good' is an adjective
> that can be used here).  And that's all I know about Dick Hyman.

Titles like that are fairly standard in the cross-over music of the late 50s
and early 60s. Dick Hyman released another album on Command Records called
"Fabulous: Dick Hyman at the Lowry Organ" that is pretty good. Dick Hyman,
as well as other organ fetishists of the era, has been a profound influence on
Mr.Bungle, especially in their transition from the debut album to the "Disco
Volante" era.

You should hear some of Anton LaVey's organ stuff...

Frankco



- -

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

Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1904 02:16:36 +0100
From: duncan youngerman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Now vs.Then

IMHO, The problem lies in great part in the simple statistical fact that
most of the viable potential artistic terrain was preempted, roughly
between 1950 and 1980, by the post-war generation(s), in keeping with
the new tools and freedoms offered to them by technology and society.

There are plenty, perhaps many more incredibly creative musicians right
now then there were in those times, but they were preceded in the
pathways of creation  now looking more like jammed highways of creation.

It's easier now in some ways because everything's readily available
(improvisation schools, video methods, recordings, internet, etc.) but
much harder in another way because the territory's been covered and one
can only be at best "the new so and so" or a respectable upholder of a
now venerable tradition (bop, free, r 'n b, punk, etc.)

This axiom is as true for rock as for jazz: nobody now can possibly have
the impact and novelty the Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, James Brown, etc.
had in the 60's. All there seems to be is rehashing, with once in a
while an ephemerous"new so and so"(Prince, Beck, Oasis, etc.).

Ditto for contemporary classical: Cage, Feldman, Scelci, Ligeti,
Xenakis, Reich, Glass have each produced schoolfuls of bright
students/imitators condemned to live in the shadow of "the great
original".

Painting and film don't seem different in that respect: Talented
regurgitations of Duchamp, Pollock, Stella, Lichtenstein, or Welles,
Godard, Fellini seem to be the best we can hope for.

Zorn's great insight is that from his generation's historical position
there was no alternative but to be derivative, so let's dance with it!
Let that be the new paradigm of originality: there ain't none, and what
about it? (Strawinsky in his own way blew away the myth of originality
for his contemporaries as well). And may the influences be as diverse,
obscure or unexpected as possible (Stalling, Japan, Gainsbourg, Torah,
etc.) but always explicit: so that it be clear that we are not of the
old "original" mold, and even less a good little "wannabe".

What can come after that? No, I'm not a pessimist, nor a conveniantly
incurable nostalgic of some golden age. Great stuff will inevitably come
up, such is life, but probably not from the place we expect it to, such
is life.

DY.






- -

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

End of Zorn List Digest V3 #756
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