From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V2 #561 Reply-To: zorn-list Sender: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Zorn List Digest Saturday, December 19 1998 Volume 02 : Number 561 In this issue: - not list related again Criticism/Reviews Stuff and nonsense, etc. Re: Improv/Penguin Re: Wadada Leo Smith's Tao N'jia on Tzadik Re: Recent Goodies Re: Recent Goodies Richard Youngs Re: Richard Youngs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 20:36:09 +0100 (MET) From: BJOERN Subject: not list related again thanks to all the people giving me hints on ralph steadman books. this list is really one of the best sources for all kinds of info... ok.... anyone who has any idea what i am talkin about please answer privately: i am looking for a song by someone called WARREN MARLEY that says something about Los Angeles in the lyrics. it must be from around 1970... BJOERN www.cityinfonetz.de/uni/homepage/bjoern.eichstaedt - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 16:35:35 -0500 (EST) From: Jason Caulfield Bivins Subject: Criticism/Reviews Well, since I've been solicited I'll pipe in a bit. I must say though that Eric "Chopped Liver" Saidel (sorry Eric, I couldn't resist) has been customarily eloquent and I share a lot of his motivations about criticism and reviewing. I'll see that Tony Reif's ruminations yesterday were much closer to what I think of as "music criticism" (and fine criticism, at that) as opposed to what Eric and I do for Cadence, which involves all-too-rapid (and sometimes not-rapid-enough) appraisals of promo discs for readers. I do think there's a dignity and a purpose to this, but it's probably different from what most of us think of as criticism. As a reviewer, I feel like I face to conceptual stumbling-blocks. The first is that I play this music, and that sometimes makes it difficult for me to encounter certain review pieces. On the one hand, I might open up the ol' UPS box to discover a slew of still more 60s Blue Note hard bop copies, my general response to which "Fuck, not again." But on the other hand, as Eric so rightly put it, it's important to employ a tad of phenomenological method here and try to assess what the musicians' goals were and what they're trying to convey to the audience. The second stumbling-block concerns how much I see myself as making recommendations for purchase. Here I'm in total agreement with Saidel, Smith, and others. I do respect and follow the writings of some critics (I dig Eric's writing, and Walter Horn's too; and I really like Downbeat rogue John Corbett, both as writer and person). That having been said, it's much more important to me to get a recommendation from someone personally than through print. That's not to say I don't crib from print reviews, but these things are expensive so I'd rather be sure; and the personal interaction is more pleasing anyway. I'd say I write my reviews to give an accurate representation of what's going on, where the artist in question is found in the music in general, and to be entertaining if possible, understanding that most folks read for the info and not as part of a shopping list. So, without further ado, can anybody clue me in on where to start with Gianni Gebbia and Georgio Gaslini?? This has been a really stimulating and collegial week for the Zorn list, by the way. JB - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 13:04:36 -0500 From: Taylor McLaren Subject: Stuff and nonsense, etc. I'm starting to realize just how frustrating it must be to be signed up to this list in digest form; I've been watching this improv/education/criticism discussion develop for a couple of days now, and exams have kept me from writing the damnedest thing in response to any of it. Now that I'm finished, I'm not quite sure where to start, so please bear with me for a second while I stumble about and show off just how new I am to all of this: WYNTON MARSALIS AND EDUCATION: Just in case the e-mail address didn't give it away, I'm Canadian, and like one other contributor so far, I'd consider my grade- and high school music education to have been fantastic, though I understand that this both was and still is the exception as far as most schools go. In the sixth grade, our music teacher made us all bring in a tape of some sort along with a "call chart", or list of twenty prepared questions for the class to answer at predetermined points during the piece that we were listening to... the questions could ask about the lyrics at a particular spot in a song, or have somebody identify a particular solo instrument, or whatever. Given that most of us had never been anywhere near an instrument of any sort, it was a pretty terrific taking-off point for high school. Much as I came to dislike the politicking that went on in and around the music department in my high school, I'm not for a second going to try to deny that the six years that I spent being subjected to the worst that Miss Barber and Co. could throw at me has done a *lot* for my appreciation of music in general. Between the start of the seventh grade and my eventual graduation, I played three different clarinets, the trombone, and crash cymbals; in the eighth grade, our class looked at the hows and whys of program music, and did small-group presentations on specific pieces; in the tenth grade, we were made to look at specific examples of late Classical material and discuss how the arrangements fit together; in the eleventh, things got really messy when we tried to do the same thing with Baroque compositions. Hell, in the twelfth grade, they had us try our hands at arranging something for a quartet of our choice, which probably isn't something that any kid of mine (assuming that my girlfriend and I don't just end up raising puppies) will ever experience outside of a private school at the rate that things are going right now. ...which is where I think Wynton Marsalis and all of the less-than-innovative stuff that he does should come into the discussion. Sure, he was hailed all over the place (and still is if you live and die by PBS) as the saviour of the arts and blah-blah-blah. From a Zorn-list perspective, what he's doing doesn't seem to strike an awful lot of people as being terribly important. But (and this is where I come off looking like a total geek), check out what he had to say in an interview from the _Utne Reader_ back in early '96... the fact that it was reprinted from a late '95 issue of _American Heritage_ might tell you what to expect: "The principle of American democracy is that you have freedom. The question is `How will you use it?' which is also the central question in jazz. In democracy, as in jazz, you have freedom with restraint. It's not absolute freedom, it's freedom within a structure. "The connection between jazz and the American experience is profound. Believe me, that's the heart and soul of what jazz is. That's why jazz is so important. And that's why the fact that it has not been addressed has resulted in our losing a large portion of our identity as Americans. Because the art form that really gives us a mythic representation of our society has not been taught to the public." And earlier, in response to the question, "You have been criticized for being deaf to a lot of interesting music since the era of Coltrane and Coleman": "I've listened to it. I've played with the musicians.... If I've rejected it's not out of ignorance of it. I don't know any people who like it. It doesn't resonate with anything I've experienced in the world.... I don't even like Coltrane's later stuff, to be honest. I don't listen to it like a do to _A Love Supreme_. It was with the type of things that late-period Coltrane did that jazz destroyed its relationship with the public." This probably won't really surprise anybody, at least not if they're at all familiar with the sorts of people and organizations who boost his career the most, but I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that it might not be entirely fair, accurate, or whatever, to be gunning for Marsalis because his approach to jazz differs from that of the free-improv types, and that's because he's trying to accomplish something entirely different. Granted, it's a bit too Boy Scout-ish for my tastes, but as an English student myself, it's not as though I'm unfamiliar with the urge of particular artists of any sort to create, refine, or entire redefine a national (or group) identity in the face of current obstacles. And *this*, (un?)fortunately, is where I have to start relying on the rest of the list. My own knowledge of jazz in any period is pathetic... I'm just starting to listen to any of it, and have really only been profoundly blown away by Charles Mingus so far; the Zorn thing hasn't really been a jazz issue for me yet because I came at it from the industrial-isolationist thing through Mick Harris and Bill Laswell and the Golden Palominos, and I've heard very little of what most people would consider to be Zorn's "jazz" material. What I am going to try to do, though, is make a couple of tentative links between recent moments in this discussion and see if anybody can run with them for a bit: 1) WASPish guilt and geography. Since a lot of the Marsalis interview that I've just quoted refers to jazz as having been specifically refined by Afro-Americans in a distinctively American fashion (there's a passage in Tony Scherman's introduction to the interview that says something along the lines of "Americans are cultural mulattoes"), I'm wondering if a lot of what has been said about faux spirituality and indie kids and all of that might be tied into the same lack of a (white?) American national identity, or even if people think that the sudden lack of a specific national focus might be a part of why jazz at large is largely considered to be floundering these days. 2) Goals. What *are* the free-improv types trying to accomplish? If Marsalis' vision of jazz and music education is all about maintaining a musical tradition in order to shore up what he sees as a crumbling national tradition, what are other jazz musicians who work under a different set of rules trying to do thirty years after the foundations were laid for their current work? 3.) Critics. I was originally going to write an entirely separate message about how I get along with music critics, but since it's almost 1:00 and I still haven't had a shower (and because I'm sure that you've all had enough of me for one day), I'm going to spare you that one for now. Still, I can't help but wonder if maybe the fact that we're all involved in some aspect of music criticism simply through our buying and listening habits might not blind us to certain other aspects of what musicans are trying to accomlish. I personally don't listen to jazz because I want to know what it's like to be American; I'm Canadian, fergawdsakes. Maybe this is too inclusive and touchy-feely a perspective to be advancing here, but doesn't it seem possible that a lot of the dismissals, or even negative reviews, that we've seen lately might come out of something other than simply having heard the cliches before? Actually, this probably ties back to my second question-point-thing above, so maybe I'm just wasting your time now. I'm going to head off and have a shower now, but I wanted to thank everybody on this list for giving me an awful lot to read and think about during the past couple of days. You've been an exceptionally welcome distraction from my exams, and the tone of discussion has been more civilized than anything that I've seen on any other Internet forum in years... it's almost inspiring. - -me - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 17:56:33 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Waxman Subject: Re: Improv/Penguin I think semi-institutionalized racism and hymning of monopoly capitalism on one side of the ocean verses such things as government arts subsidies and universal health care may answer your question. Ken Waxman cj649@torfree.net On Mon, 14 Dec 1998, Tom Pratt wrote: > Why is it that many of the European free improvisors that pioneered the idiom > are still around and playing while the Americans from that period seemed to > have disappeared? > > -Tom Pratt > > > - > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 18:04:45 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Waxman Subject: Re: Wadada Leo Smith's Tao N'jia on Tzadik Is this a reissue of the NJAQ's ESP-DIsk or the later one on Fontana? Ken Waxman cj649@torfree.net On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, leon lee wrote: > "Tao N'Jia" on Tzadik is an absolutely beautiful disc. > Highly recommended. Tones and silences, ethereal and poignant. This is > my most listened to Leo Smith album and it's been passed on to others as a > favorite as well. > > Just bought the New York Art Quartet reissue on Get Back. I was expecting > liner notes and there isn't any. Anyone interested in photocopying it for > me? Please mail me... thanks. > > Be well > Leon Lee > > We sit together, the mountain and me, > until only the mountain remains. > -- Li Po > "If I'm going to get shot, I want to see who is doing the shooting." > -- 'Sista' Marie Lee 12/9/98 @ Taqueria Can-cun > > > - > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 03:13:04 -0500 From: Tom Pratt Subject: Re: Recent Goodies > James Tenney Bridge + Flocking hat [now] > > On a more sober note, these are two pieces, for piano quartet and > piano duo, that feature Tenney's unusual tuning system, > Partch-inspired, though not the same as Partch's. On first listen, I > had the impression more of a demo for the tunings than of any > particular musical statement. On re-listen, the generally quiet and > single note lines showed subtle ebb and flow patterns, a hard to > describe kind of internal logic seemed to be asserting itself. A tough > nut, for me, to crack but it's proving rewarding. This was my first > exposure to Tenney's music and other's comments would be welcome. There is a disc of his electronic works I liked. The reason I mention it is that one of the pieces was *very* Oswald/plunderhonic type piece using Elvis Presleys's "Blue Suede Shoes" as source material. And I believe it long predated Oswald so I thought it might be of interest... I can't remember the label and the title was a span of years (I'm not very useful here! Can anyone help?). -Tom Pratt - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 04:44:17 -0800 From: cd Subject: Re: Recent Goodies Tom Pratt wrote: > > This was my first > > exposure to Tenney's music and other's comments would be welcome. > > There is a disc of his electronic works I liked. The reason I mention it is > that one of the pieces was *very* Oswald/plunderhonic type piece using Elvis > Presleys's "Blue Suede Shoes" as source material. And I believe it long > predated Oswald so I thought it might be of interest... I can't remember the > label and the title was a span of years (I'm not very useful here! Can anyone > help?). Perhaps: Tenney, James - Selected works, 1961-1969: Collage, no. 1. Noise study. Dialogue. Phases. Music for player piano. Ergodos, no. 2. Fabric for Che. For Ann (rising) Sorry, don't know the label. "It wasn't until 1961 that an unequivocal exposition of plunderphonic techniques arrived in James Tenney's celebrated Collage No. 1 (Blue Suede), a manipulation of Elvis Presley's hit song "Blue Suede Shoes". The gauntlet was down; Tenney had picked up a "non-art", low-brow work and turned it into "art"; not, as with scored music, by writing variations on a popular air, but simply by subjecting a gramaphone record to various physical and electrical procedures." -from Chris Cutler, "plunderphonia" (1994) 60 Musicworks 6. Oswald himself refers to Collage No. 1 in his paper "Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative" (1985) reproduced in 43 Musicworks (?), 57 Whole Earth Review (?), and Negativland, "Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2" (Concord, CA: Seeland, 1995) 213 at 216. Note that "Blue Suede Shoes" was, as I recall, composed and originally recorded by Carl Perkins. - -cd - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 10:22:29 -0500 From: Tom Pratt Subject: Richard Youngs Is anyone here familiar with the music of Richard Youngs and specifically the recording 'Sapphie'? I just heard of him for the first time in the new releases at Forced Exposure and it looked very interesting... Could someone describe him for me? Here's what Forced Exposure had to say: "Unique to the already unique Youngs' oeuvre, Sapphie is Youngs' first album with just two instruments -- classical guitar and voice. With only three tracks making up this full length, we still get Youngs' signature trait of composing with breadth, but never have we heard so much breath. Not just the words themselves, but the way they are sung conveys the sustained, yearnful feeling familiar throughout Youngs' almost ten-year career in the underground. A step back to his earlier minimal musings, Sapphie also steps forward as his first 'vocal' album." The most pristine and elegantly recorded Youngs album and a devastating listen. listening to: Joelle Leandre & Tetsu Saitoh: Joelle et Tetsu (Omba) - great bass duets! -Tom Pratt - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 11:42:17 EST From: JonAbbey2@aol.com Subject: Re: Richard Youngs In a message dated 12/19/98 10:37:50 AM, tpratt@ctech.smtc.net wrote: <> I have most of his records. no two are the same, although most of them aren't that good. what Forced Exposure doesn't mention in this capsule review is his tendency towards bombastic cheesiness, seemingly Prog-influenced. exceptions: the recently released House Music (Meme) is a surprisingly good record created from processed household sounds. Advent (Table Of The Elements) is a reissue of his acclaimed first, lo-fi, minimalist record, although I think it's kind of overrated. Festival (also Table Of The Elements) is maybe the best thing I've heard by him. he works a lot with fellow Brit Simon Wickham-Smith. some of their records are flat-out bad (I'm thinking mostly of Red and Black Bear, which is a children's opera). Youngs also has done 5 CDs so far in his Radios series, which you can find under the name Brian Lavelle. these range from interesting to good. I haven't heard Sapphie, since I've cut down on my Youngs CD buying, but the description scares me. search the FE catalog for Youngs, and you'll find better records to start with, I think. Jon - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V2 #561 ******************************* To unsubscribe from zorn-list-digest, send an email to "majordomo@lists.xmission.com" 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. 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