ftp.xmission.com/2014.06.ftp.xmission.com.tar/ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/zorn-list/old/DIGEST26

Text File | 1998-03-08 | 12KB | 240 lines

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ    OOOOOOOOOOO     RRRRRRRRRRRRR     NNN       NNN
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  ooooooooooooo    r           rr    nnnn       nnn
         zz o         o   r          rr   nnnnn       nnn
          zzz o          o  r            rr  nnnnnn      nnn
        zzz  o           o r            rr nnn nnn     nnn
      zzz    o           o r           rr  nnn  nnn    nnn
    zzz       o           o r           rr   nnn   nnn   nnn
      zzz      o          o  rrrrrrrrrrrrr     nnn    nnn  nnn
    zzz            o         o   rr          rr       nnn     nnn nnn
  zzz            ooooooooooooo    rr        rr      nnn      nnnnnn
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZ   OOOOOOOOOOO     rr         rr     nnn       nnnnn
 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ             rr           rr    nnn        nnnn
                     rr       rr   NNN       NNN
                     RR           RR

    (AND OTHER NYC DOWNTOWN MUSICIANS)

    DIGEST #26, 2-20-95
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From [e-mail]  Sat Feb 18 01:42:38 1995
Subject: L A Times article

I recently got on-line with the LA times and found this article.  I thought
it might be of interest to the list.

Copyright 1994/The Times Mirror Company
Los Angeles Times

                     August 15, 1994, Monday, Home Edition

SECTION: CALENDAR; PAGE: F-9

Zorn's 'Garden' Sprouts Discontent; Jazz: Asian American groups protest his
use of S&M images on his CD and accuse him of denigrating women.

BYLINE: DENISE HAMILTON; TIMES STAFF WRITER
    For avant-garde musician John Zorn, the naked Japanese women in S&M
bondage that adorn his "Torture Garden" CD are an aesthetic statement that
cannot be separated from the discordant jazz he creates.

    For many in the Asian American community, they are flat-out pornography.
Earlier this year, several national groups called on Zorn to withdraw two of
his CDs from distribution, condemning the covers for portraying Asian women
in a stereotypical and demeaning fashion.

    The controversy is gathering steam: Earlier this summer, Zorn lost a gig
in New York and a San Francisco radio station withdrew sponsorship of a Zorn
concert after Asian Americans complained.

    "If these are his personal proclivities, I have no objection to that,
but it becomes a public act when he disperses these images into the
marketplace and he's certainly accountable for them and for having them
critiqued," said Richard Oyama, a scholar and poet who is active in the San
Francisco-based artist group, Godzilla West.

    Asian Americans also object to a Zorn CD called "Naked City," which
includes images and text referring to a historic form of Chinese capital
punishment in which a living person's body is dismembered. A written
explanation in Japanese says the CD is dedicated to this theme.

    Zorn, 40, a New York-based saxophonist who has lived in Japan for much
of the past decade and speaks fluent Japanese, says he is shocked by the
vehemence of the attacks. He says the images were not chosen lightly but
reflect his own interest and explorations into the dark side of human
experience.

    "I'm not an insensitive person," Zorn said in a telephone interview. "I
understand the concerns of the Asian American community. I don't want to
make it more difficult for them."

    The artist says that after the complaints started, he asked his Japanese
record label to stop importing the CDs on a temporary basis. In the
meantime, he has offered to wrap the offending CDs in plain covers or add a
disclaimer explaining that the graphic images "have been used for their
transgressive quality, illustrative of those areas of human experience
hidden in the gaps between pain and pleasure, life and death, horror and
ecstasy. They are not and were never intended to denigrate or insult any
particular person or groups of persons."

    But Asian American groups say that's not enough.

    "It's not like we can just slap a Band-Aid on it and say, 'Fine,' " says
Sherwin Yoon, a spokesman for the New York-based Committee Against
Anti-Asian Violence. "We appreciate the steps he has taken, but we were
hoping to work closer with him to bring this greater issue to light. There
needs to be a lot more discussion about misrepresentation of Asians in the
media and the art world."

    An exasperated Zorn says he isn't willing to go any further.

    Quirky and esoteric, Zorn is a leading figure in New York's experimental
art scene, where he focuses on making music solo, with collaborators or with
his longtime band Naked City. Zorn is resolutely unconcerned about reaching
a mass market and has a small but influential following. Few of his 30 or so
recordings have sold more than 10,000 copies.

    Zorn says he draws inspiration from French writer Georges Battaille,
whose literature dealt with erotic and taboo themes, the macabre theater of
Grand Guignol and the often-shocking photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin--who
takes viewers into a nightmarish world of sexual deviance, cadavers and
circus freaks.

    *

    His tastes are omnivorous and eclectic. His recordings have included a
tribute to the music of film composer Ennio Morricone and avant-garde jazz
saxophonist Ornette Coleman. For his next Naked City project, Zorn is
putting a Coleman spin on traditional Jewish klezmer music, friends say.

    Zorn says he chooses the images on his CDs carefully to complement the
music. Sometimes the images even inspire the music. The controversial
covers--which Zorn says were released without problem in Japan--are designed
in collaboration with Tomoko Tanaka, a female graphic artist in Japan.
According to Zorn, both the music and art come out of deep personal
experience mixed with an outsider aesthetic.

    "When I lived in Japan, I got involved in the S&M torture scene," Zorn
says. "I lived those images. If someone criticizes me, they're not looking
at the scope of my work, as an artist who deals with these themes in a
consistent way. I've used Caucasians in violent situations too."

    Zorn's friends and supporters say the artist is a moral person who is
being used as a scapegoat to further a political agenda.

    "People are unfairly assuming that he's exploiting and taking advantage
of these photos . . . and that's not true," says Michael Dorf, owner of the
Knitting Factory, a New York-based performance space and record label that
specializes in avant-garde music.

    "John has artistic integrity. He's got a huge collection of art that has
to do with this theme. He's done research on it. He's immersed and obsessed
with Asian culture. He's not doing this without a consciousness about what
it means for women and Asian women and the history of the Japanese
exploiting other Asian countries."

    Battles over artistic freedom in music-related imagery are nothing new.
Past furors include a mid-1970s flap over an ad for the Rolling Stones'
"Black and Blue" album that featured a bruised, tied-up woman. Geffen
Records reissued a Guns N' Roses CD after complaints about the initial
"Appetite for Destruction" cover, which reproduced a Robert Williams
painting of a robot raping a woman. Last year, women's groups lodged
protests against rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, saying an eight-panel cartoon on
the "Doggystyle" CD degraded women.

    But the controversy defies easy solutions.

    "This raised a lot of questions for me," confesses Ginny Z. Berson,
program director at KPFA, Berkeley's Pacifica radio station whose phone
lines were flooded with angry callers, many of them Asian American, after
the station broadcast a Zorn concert in January.

    Following the uproar, KPFA withdrew sponsorship of a concert by Zorn
planned for San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. Berson also
instructed a DJ to discuss the controversy on the air before playing Zorn's
music and put together a talk show program on the issue.

    "Our mission is to promote understanding, the building of bridges
between people of different cultures and groups . . . and artwork that
depicts torture of Asian women does not promote that," Berson said.

    "But what does John Zorn playing his sax have to do with that?" she
added rhetorically. "And what about Miles Davis' misogyny? Does that mean we
have to discuss his attitudes toward women each time we play his music?"

    Zorn's invitation to play at the New York Museum of Natural History's
125th anniversary celebration in June was rescinded after Asian Americans
there complained, according to the artist and Dorf, who helped broker the
concert. A spokeswoman for the museum said a contract was never signed, but
conceded there had been discussions with Zorn and that he was dropped
because of complaints.

    Zorn says he's sorry about the lost gigs but that he's not about to
compromise.

    "As an artist you can't please everyone," Zorn says. "If I took all
their criticism to heart I'd never create anything. I don't want to make it
harder for Asians in this country; I'm on their side. But frankly, I don't
think my records are doing that."

GRAPHIC:
PHOTO: Besieged John Zorn: "As an artist you can't please everyone."

pHOTOGRAPHER: MICHAEL DELSOL



DESCRIPTORS:
ZORN, JOHN; AUDIO RECORDINGS; COMPACT DISCS; ASIAN AMERICANS; WOMEN; NUDITY;
PORNOGRAPHY


Copyright 1994/The Times Mirror Company

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From [e-mail]  Sat Feb 18 13:04:42 1995
Subject: Re: Prima Materia

Has anyone else heard this?
Personally, I don't really like Zorn's contributions.  This is a pretty
straightforward jazz disk--sounds more like dolphy than 'trane, but that's no
crime in my book--and the two tracks that feature JZ have him squawking away,
a really obvious misfit in this band.  It seems like it's an attempt to
completely announce his presence--Hello, I'm John Zorn the Avant-Guardist, and I
don't fit in here, no matter how hip my bandmates are.
The rest of the band--with the possible exception of Rasheid Ali--is excellent,
but I don't really understand Zorn's presence.  (Much less why it was filed
under Zorn in my local record store)  So, Two questions:
First, what do you think of this album?  Second, what do you
think of Zorn as a serious jazz musician?  Armstrong-Parker-Coltrane-Zorn?
I mean, Cecil Taylor can be as out there as anyone, but he'll also 'explore th
history of jazz with love' (title of a 1977? album, investigating various
historical jazz forms)  Frank Lowe, David S Ware, even Charles Gayle--They are
rooted in the Jazz tradition, and offer up some really serious music.  Is
Zorn in that mode, or is the New York improv scene (Not, as Orson Welles
suggestes, a Hollywood soundstage) the world's best electric train set?

Matt    Some drown their sorrows in booze. I go for the hard stuff--Jazz.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From [e-mail]  Mon Feb 20 09:10:56 1995
Subject:

i just subscribed to this deal, and i noticed that in the little
introduction schpeel there was no mention of masada.  i'm sure you guys
are discussing this, and personally i'd like some information on masada,
just because i haven't got the kind of cash to purchase those $25
japanese imports.  also, there exists a basic cd guide to ny art-noise past
and present called "state of the union," not the dischord thing but one
totally different, and that cd is amazing and has jeez, everyone besides
the big names (i.e. s.y., live skull, don't think the swans are on there
either).  but yeah, i guess i'll stick around and see what this list is
all about.
b. summerlin

this little rant was brought to you by the fine folks at [e-mail]
and/or at [e-mail] and nowhere else.

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