From: John Zorn List Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 1997 9:30 PM To: zorn-list-digest@xmission.com Subject: John Zorn List V2 #141 John Zorn List Tuesday, November 4 1997 Volume 02 : Number 141 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 16:39:20 -0800 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: all talk, no info here On Tue, 04 Nov 1997 18:43:46 -0500 Steve Smith wrote: > > y9d62@ttacs1.ttu.edu wrote: > > > A main concern with some of the musicians I heard from was that Zorn > > was > > playing so much, it seemed like he wasn't giving anybody else a > > chance. > > I don't think Zorn is responsible for that phenomenon, if you follow my > meaning. If you could get a few hundred people to turn up for Zorn or > 50-60 to show up for (fill-in-the-blank), who would you be more likely > to book? It ain't necessarily right, but it's the truth. > > I'm still amazed to have seen a standing room only crowd for Derek > Bailey last Monday night. Much bigger crowd than Tuesday or Thursday. > Do you think it had something to do with the fact that Monday was the > only night Zorn played practically all night, whereas he played somewhat > less on Tuesday, not at all on Thursday? Bailey was mentioned today in > the NYTimes (in a nice review of his and John Fahey's recent shows here > in NY) as playing tonight with Andy Statman, Tony Tritchka and Gregg > Bendian. He's not, in point of fact, but despite the provocative lineup > I don't imagine that there would have been a standing room only crowd at > that one, either. > > Zorn's cult of personality does lead to more bookings, no doubt about > it. He's back this Saturday with Medeski and Ribot, and shows up many > times in the new Knit calendar, including another two night Bacharach > festival in late December. But to think that he's deliberately trying > to crowd out other worthy musicians would seem to be antithetical to his > having established two separate recording labels to promote same. And I > do think most artists know where responsibility actually lies - at the > clubs doing the bookings. I think that if the problem was only coming from the clubs, life would be wonderful. I am afraid that there is a more serious reason: saturation of a genre that is already only attracting a minority. There is no large audience for most of the music we are talking about. And the ones that are really interested by this music have a hard time to keep up. Get ten Knitting Factory in NYC, and I am pretty sure that they will give up after few months (or will target more commercial kind of music, in order to survive). I remember going to the KF (many years ago) to see Tim Berne and arriving one hour before the show because I was affraid it would be sold out... And we ended up to be just 30 in the audience. More recently, I experienced the same with other downtowners (10-15 persons at the AlterKnit). Even the KF seems to have a hard time to fill the place with the less known downtowners... You imagine with more clubs promoting this music? My feeling? The amount of music put out in this genre is growing much faster than its audience. The audience was always limited; it is still. Hard to get people listening to non-mainstream music (and I am even questioning why we should even try to convince them to do so). Patrice. - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Nov 1997 11:51:56 -0600 (CST) From: y9d62@TTACS.TTU.EDU Subject: Re: all talk, no info here A main concern with some of the musicians I heard from was that Zorn was playing so much, it seemed like he wasn't giving anybody else a chance. That seems kind of exaggerated to me, but I wonder if Zorn at the KF several times a month is better than several artists in his place once a month each. I can't believe I missed the 'last' Masada shows, but my friend bootlegged a Liebman show (he's taking lessons, don't worry about the moral conflict) that was amazing; I'll take what I can get either way, I suppose. On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Christopher Hamilton wrote: > > > On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, James Douglas Knox wrote: > > > Err, well; methinks its healthy there's some discussion of this > > subject. Hearing the re-issue of the Cynical Hysterie Hour - the real > > revelation was not how great this disc sounds, but how slight so much of > > Zorn's most recent work sounds in comparison. I mean; he's releasing so > > much stuff onto the market, and a lot of it is (for me, personally) > > totally redundant. I certainly didn't used to feel this way about his > > work. > > I'm not sure which records you think are redundant. If you're talking > about Masada 1-256 (or whatever they're up to this week), I've defended > the volume of this stuff before, so I won't repeat myself. > > In any case, I doubt that the dropoff in quality you're talking about > has much to do with Zorn's overproduction. So far as I can tell, the > difference in Zorn's output now and his output in the 80's is that a > larger percentage of it's documented now. Check liner notes and you'll > find references to a number of Zorn compositions that went totally > unrecorded in the 80's. So far as I can tell, he's not actually more > prolific than he used to be. > > That being said, I do think _Kristallnacht_ is the most > recent album he's put out that stands with his very best work. But I also > think his recorded output in the last few years has been, on average, > stronger than his early 90's work. > > This kind of pattern seems fairly common among avant-gardists who > reach a degree of fame. Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, and Paul Bley leap > to mind as similarly prolific musicians. I suspect one reason for this is > that individual records by these artists don't sell in the quantities that > more mainstream records do. Selling a lot of records to a few people > helps make up the difference in income. > > Another reason, of course, is the understandable desire of artists to > document their work. (Heck, my improv group religiously archives every > rehearsal tape, and we have fewer fans than band members!) How much of > that work is worth preserving for posterity is another question. It's too > early for me to get the critical distance to decide whether Zorn is Duke > Ellington, Chet Baker, or Stan Kenton in this sense. > > I understand Braxton has spoken disparagingly of "the fallacy of the > good night". If I understand the phrase correctly, his point is that > musicians don't really work by producing single masterworks/performances, > but by a sort of continuous artistic development; it's a fallacy to try to > understand an artist's work in terms of the former. While it would be > crazy to try to listen to many musicians this way, I think this is how I > approach many of my favorite musicians (Zorn, Miles, Ornette, Eno). > Although masterworks are welcome, I'm not especially looking for them. > I'm just fascinated watching a talented musician develop over time. > Perhaps this is why I'm not bothered by possible overproduction. > > Sorry, That rant lasted much longer than I'd meant it to. > > Chris Hamilton > > > - > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 22:55:44 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Hamilton Subject: Re: all talk, no info here On Tue, 4 Nov 1997 y9d62@ttacs1.ttu.edu wrote: > A main concern with some of the musicians I heard from was that Zorn was > playing so much, it seemed like he wasn't giving anybody else a chance. Ah, sorry. I misunderstood your point. I think this cuts a couple of ways. On the one hand, any money and time we spend on Zorn, we can't spend on another deserving avant-improv-whatever musician. This seems like a legitimate concern. God knows there's too much interesting music around for me to pick up even most of the records that catch my eye. (Competition for live gigs is rarely a problem here in Pittsburgh, unfortunately.) On the other hand . . . Zorn's relative popularity does bring in more interest for this kind of stuff generally. And, of course, specific artists benefit from his imprimatur as label head, and as attention-drawing guest star. So the overexposure has an upside for other musicians as well. Whether there's a net benefit or loss, I couldn't say. Chris Hamilton - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 20:23:49 -0800 From: "Schwitterz" Subject: Re: all talk, no info here: AMBIENT PISS DUB Chris or somebody on this thread wrote: I think this is how I approach many of my favorite musicians (Zorn, Miles, Ornette, Eno). Although masterworks are welcome, I'm not especially looking for them. I'm just fascinated watching a talented musician develop over time. Perhaps this is why I'm not bothered by possible overproduction. sZ asks: I've lost track of Eno. Is he continuing to develop? The last time I encountered him he was in a live interview with the co-director of Twin Peaks (not David Lynch) at the Wiltern Theatre in LA. The evening was coming to an end, but he agreed to stay and talk a little longer if he could stop and use the restroom. They did a slide show-music thing while he was gone. A few minutes into it there was the very loud sound of Eno pissing. He had forgotten to remove or turn off his remote microphone. A classic moment. - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 16:27:21 +1100 (EST) From: James Douglas Knox Subject: Re: Going thru the motions, or invention? (more hot air) I dunno, I just don't know... On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Dgasque wrote: > In a message dated 97-11-03 02:40:25 EST, you write: > > << A friend of mine recently visited the Knitting Factory for a show. He was > lucky enought to talk to the musicians before and after the performance, > and wrote me via email of his adventures. Funny thing, he mentioned that > many people he talked to thought that Zorn was overexposing himself. > Despite being a great musician, and always surrounding himself with great > musicians, is there such a thing as too much Zorn? >> > > Zorn overexposing himself? Hmmmm. Well, if one were to think about the > voluminous output of Zappa, Sun Ra, Coltrane, Miles, Ellington, etc., and the > number of concerts that all of these artists performed, and the number of > great musicians that surrounded them, I would think that Zorn's just getting > started... Fer sure; but you haven't addressed the second part of the original query (what is the likely legacy of Zorn's work). And the inclusion of Zappa in the above list is pretty telling. I'm not alone in being totally bewildered by the esteem some people hold this guy in. For me, he's just a mediocre white guy playing tricked-up r'n'r. My personal opinion is that Zappa's stuff hasn't aged very well - it was kind of goofy and whacky at the time, but at a distance its increasingly hard to see what the fuss was about. As for invoking names like Sun Ra, Ellington, etc (someone else has brought up the Western classical canon as well) - sure; but just how much new and original composition is Zorn actually doing, as opposed to recapitulating his own work or that of other composers. And sure - culture is a continuity. but if you listen to the original of Morricone's Peur Sur La Ville its a pretty hot S/T. Much as I like The Big Gundown, I wonder if its really up to speed. Listen to the edits in the jazz sequences of the S/T of The Man With The Golden Arm (from 1956?) - in comparison, Spillane is really not such a break thru' in some regards. Don't get me wrong - I love Zorn's work. I just wish he'd push himself a bit more. From my remote vantage down here in Aus, it just seems like he's exploiting an audience that's all too ready to buy whatever he releases to the market, without any regard for whether its actually any good. Lucky for him I guess; but sometimes I feel like right now he's in retreat from the bolder, consistent, conceptual advances of previous years. Y'know; in his Op interview (from '84 or something) he's talking about he wants to dedicate some time and energy to a really intensive manipulation of his saxophone playing, concrete style. V probably a fantastic sounding thing, but it'd mean him sitting in a studio for an extended period of time, working out some radically new approaches to his music. And we're still waiting. I think its also a problem - in fact, its the essence of one particular kind of problem - to defend Zorn by a comparison with Bach, Beethoven, et al. I'm not too sure how Zorn himself would feel about this. Anyways, cheers, Jim - - ------------------------------ End of John Zorn List V2 #141 *****************************