From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V3 #692 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 Monday, January 21 2002 Volume 03 : Number 692 In this issue: - fine bootlegs (was RE: Zorn List Change) Re: Fwd: Ornette Ornette wrong title Re: Ornette re:ornette Re: Ornette wrong title RE: Fwd: Ornette RE: Ornette etc. who understands harmolodics? RE: RE: Zorn List Change? (PLEASE READ) RE: who understands harmolodics? Re: Zorn List Change? (PLEASE READ) RE: who understands harmolodics? Re: who understands harmolodics? Re: Odp: Odp: Ornette Coleman Is God Re: Ornette Re: who understands harmolodics? Re: free jazz (was spontaneous performance/composition) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 08:39:39 -0800 (PST) From: Scott Handley Subject: fine bootlegs (was RE: Zorn List Change) > JMY is (or was, it seems) Jazz Music Yesterday, a > European quasi-bootleg > label....3) Miles Davis - No > Blues. Neither here nor there, but I distinctly remember Dave DOuglas making much ado about this very bootleg (IIRC)in some interview or some such feature. He referred to it as being full of eight-minute Wayne Shorter solos that made avalanches of sense. A tidbit, from caffeine-soaked memory, - -----s __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 16:38:37 +0000 From: "thomas chatterton" Subject: Re: Fwd: Ornette >From: Efrén del Valle > > >I've always thought that Taylor is precisely all soul >and I find his playing absolutely "dirty"... Ha! Must be all that time he spent with James Brown... _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 07:52:25 -0800 From: Tosh Subject: Ornette wrong title Ooops, It's 'Lonely Woman' not 'Lonely Lady.' Sorry! - -- Tosh Berman TamTam Books http://www.tamtambooks.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 08:46:54 -0800 (PST) From: Scott Handley Subject: Re: Ornette - --- William York wrote: >[speaking of the Ornette box BEAUTY IS A RARE THING] That said, my favorite quote in there > is from Monk: "Man, that > cat is nuts!" The photo accompanying this quote is so absolutely perfect, it nearly warrants purchase of the boxset alone. I fully intend to make an iron-on transfer T-shirt, right after I complete my starf**king "Keith Rowe is fly t-shirt. Hell yes I will. - -----s, too much time on hands __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1904 15:23:50 +0100 From: duncan youngerman Subject: re:ornette What about Ornette's "Skies of America" for string orchestra? I remember enjoying that or at least feeling it to be 1at least 100 times more authentic and inspiring than anything Grover Washington could ever come up with. I'd have to hear it again after all these years. But there's a kind of mad reason, or intuitive intellectualism in O.C.s music (early at least) which I found and still find stimulating, and which I feel deserves more respect than it's been getting from some here. DY. - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 10:12:59 -0800 From: "Rev. Floyd Errors" Subject: Re: Ornette wrong title >>>Ooops, It's 'Lonely Woman' not 'Lonely Lady.' Sorry!<<< Not to worry. It's easy to get Sinatra and Coleman mixed up. - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 13:53:51 -0500 From: "Steve Smith" Subject: RE: Fwd: Ornette Spencer A. Richards: A couple of years ago you were rehearsing with Ornette, how was that for you as an experience, learning to play someone else's music? Cecil Taylor: It was an interesting experience, interesting in that Ornette arranged for me to have a Bosendorfer and I worked on the music for about three days. And just before he came in, the thought entered my mind, that "Ornette might not be happy with what you've done with that." So he heard me play and he said, "Oh, no, no, I want more triads." So that necessitated me reworking the piece; so he was rather patient and after about an hour and a half, he played this music and my respect for him became even more profound, when I saw all the music he had made on these triads. So then an hour later I was ready to proceed. My interest in playing with him was really to see if I could confound that rhythm section of his. And using the information that is gleaned from Marvin Gaye I started, and Ornette said to me, "There's too much activity in your left hand." Well! It was over. May 1988, from liner notes to 'Live in Vienna' (Leo) - -----Original Message----- From: owner-zorn-list@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-zorn-list@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of thomas chatterton >From: Efrén del Valle > > >I've always thought that Taylor is precisely all soul >and I find his playing absolutely "dirty"... Ha! Must be all that time he spent with James Brown... - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:22:16 -0500 From: "josephneff" Subject: RE: Ornette etc. Hello, ...this has been an interesting exchange, and I'll chime in w/ the opinion that Ornette's music never seemed particularly "out-there" or odd to me. I'd heard both Cecil's "Winged Serpent" on Soul Note and Ayler's "Love Cry" previous to encountering Coleman. When I bought "Free Jazz", I recognized that it was unique from nearly all the jazz that had came before, but I still heard overt connections to tradition, or it still sounded "jazzy". Taylor's "Winged Serpent", which I plucked from a local cut-out bin when I was about a year out of high school, sounded unlike anything I'd ever heard before, and while I knew from reading that it WAS jazz, I found the only way I could connect it to jazz was through the instruments being used. My reaction wasn't negative, and I kept listening and broadening the amount of jazz in my collection, and playing it for other people. After a while, I tended to get the feeling that trained musicians tended to dislike Coleman more than Taylor, and that casual music fans (or people who don't actively collect music) could warm to Ornette, while Taylor was almost always a source of irritation ("Can we listen to something else?" "This sounds like a band warming up!") Me, I'll agree that Taylor's lifetime (as another lister put it) is one of the high points of 20th century music, and that Coleman's Atlantic period is quite astounding (yeah, "Lonely Woman" conjures an ache that I've never felt from another jazz tune. For a long time, that was the cut that I'd use to introduce the curious to Ornette's work). I also like "Town Hall 1962" on ESP, "New York Is Now!" on Blue Note, the Columbia reissues "Skies of America" and "The Complete Science Fiction Sessions" and the A&M/Verve "Dancing In Your Head". I've heard some circa 1980's material that did very little for me. After trying to decide who I value more, Archie Shepp or The Howlin' Wolf, I've concluded that I wouldn't want to be w/out either of them, particularly Impulse/BYG Shepp, or The Wolf that dropped bombs like "Moanin' at Midnight" or "Cadillac Daddy". I remain.... Joseph NP: Jon Raskin Quartet- "The Bass & The Bird Pond" CD NR: William Gaddis- "Carpenter's Gothic" - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 13:10:27 -0600 From: "Samuel Quentin" Subject: who understands harmolodics? But I'm left concluding from this exchange that you understand very little about harmolodics. do you understand harmolodics? (bill or anyone) and if so could someone direct me to a source that would be good for understanding it... or at least explain it to me. all the interviews and books where it's been mentioned are so vague that it seemed a little bullshitty to me. but this is only an impression. i am open and willing to change my mind on this. i just had the impression from Ornette interviews that it was just this vague b.s. idea given a fancy name to draw attention. so somebody prove this wrong. thanks, -samuel - - _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:12:15 -0500 From: "Steve Smith" Subject: RE: RE: Zorn List Change? (PLEASE READ) Your point, Bill, is cogent and well-stated, as always. I guess I'm just particularly sensitive to the issue because I write for a living, and every journalist can tell you about instances in which an idea floated out there "privately" ended up in print with someone else's byline attached. (There have been a few particularly egregious examples at Times - none of which, I might add, were instigated by any staff writer.) But I suppose the notion that a mailing list is in any way a "private" conversation (even among the 700 of us here!) is foolish - an "illusion of safety," as it were. I hereby withdraw my request regarding the archives. If someone were to discover them and join us, that would be great. And while I would not want my ideas and rhetoric "stolen" outright, if someone were to discover them and use them in that way, it would serve me right for not pushing the idea out there into print myself. And if, as you say, someone discovers an idea that makes them write something I/we didn't consider, then that would indeed be a fine thing. The possibilities for positive effect had escaped me momentarily - thanks for quashing my paranoia! Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com NP - Mahler, Symphony No. 7 - San Francisco Sym/Tilson Thomas (SFS Media) - -----Original Message----- From: owner-zorn-list@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-zorn-list@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Bill Ashline I don't know, Steve. Do you really think that a mailing list houses intellectual property? There are actually procedures in which information from such a list must be documented in formal papers. If people scanning the lists for information and thinking about music actually find something useful, advancing the cause of the music in the process, what's the harm? If somebody should want to steal my rhetoric/ideas and put something into print, they can have it. I didn't get it all by myself anyway. We're all collective authors. - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 14:16:36 -0500 From: "Joeseph Simon" Subject: RE: who understands harmolodics? Isn't it improvising inbetween a set structure. Inbetween notes, doing improvisation??? Joe Simon - -----Original Message----- From: owner-zorn-list@lists.xmission.com [mailto:owner-zorn-list@lists.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Samuel Quentin Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 2:10 PM To: zorn-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: who understands harmolodics? But I'm left concluding from this exchange that you understand very little about harmolodics. do you understand harmolodics? (bill or anyone) and if so could someone direct me to a source that would be good for understanding it... or at le= ast explain it to me. all the interviews and books where it's been mentioned are so vague that it seemed a little bullshitty to me. but this is only = an impression. i am open and willing to change my mind on this. i just had the impression from Ornette interviews that it was just this vague b.s. idea given a fancy name to draw attention. so somebody prove this wrong. thanks, -samuel - - _________________________________________________________________ Join the world=92s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com - - - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:18:10 -0800 (PST) From: rizzi@browbeat.com (m. rizzi) Subject: Re: Zorn List Change? (PLEASE READ) Thanks for the comments Steve... Steve Smith, demi-God and Icon sez: > >ANYTHING that makes Mike's life easier is okay by me. >Go with Mailman, but keep our thoughts private, is my thought. Sadly, we can't have both searchable and private archives for the zorn-list. They go together since google.com is the provider of searching capability for xmission. I'd like to point out that the current zorn-list archives are not private. Anyone can browse into them from the zorn-list website right now. mike rizzi - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 13:22:58 -0600 From: "Samuel Quentin" Subject: RE: who understands harmolodics? Isn't it improvising inbetween a set structure. Inbetween notes, doing improvisation??? if that's the case then i don't see what's so hard to understand about it. an original idea for it's time but i don't see why it requires the fancy name. -Samuel _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 19:46:13 +0000 From: "thomas chatterton" Subject: Re: who understands harmolodics? >From: "Samuel Quentin" > > >do you understand harmolodics? (bill or anyone) and if so could someone >direct me to a source that would be good for understanding it... Don't know if I understand harmolodics in the theoretical sense, but as I mentioned earlier, seeing the original Prime Time band gave me a chance to experience the sound of it, which to me seemed relatively simple (in theory!) but very complex and difficult to pull off in practice, That is, each instrumental voice plays a lead melodic(solo) line that is also relative harmonically and rhythmically to what the other soloists are playing. So we have harmonic melodies (melodic harmonies?), that's my rudimentary grasp of the concept. Once again, it's unfortunate there are no recordings that do that Prime Time band justice (and certainly the second edition of that band with the keyboardists was pure shite!). Incidentally, didn't the jazz-rock-blues-harmolodic guitarist Blood Ulmer, (whose last album some on this list seem to favour) serve his apprenticeship with Ornette? np: Aztec Gameshow Death Ritual _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 12:07:11 -0800 From: Skip Heller Subject: Re: Odp: Odp: Ornette Coleman Is God > >> The 88 band was kind of the height of great technique/not much fun >> personality for me. I think his best band was the scaled down 74 line-up. >> (YCDTOSA, Vol 2). > > I like the 88 band much. The bras arrangements are amazing. I do not like > the 'funk band' sound of the 74 band (george duke is the guilty here) > > See, I thought the funkier rhythm section did a lot to get that music to breathe a little more. There's something very animated about that period for me. skip h - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 12:07:55 -0800 From: Skip Heller Subject: Re: Ornette > Skip, you can't say that something is just your opinion and then equate it > to the Emperor with no clothes. You're essentially saying 'this is just my > opinion but it's right'... > > > - > How about "This is my opinion and I don't feel it's wrong?" sh - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 15:07:10 -0500 From: James Hale Subject: Re: who understands harmolodics? I've never seen a completely satisfactory explanation of harmolodics, and I couldn't even begin to sort through the definition Ornette once provided directly to me. There's a live radio broadcast of Prime Time v. 1 from the 1982 Montreal jazz festival that comes close to capturing their sound, but so much of their impact was through volume dynamics that I really don't think a recording can do them complete justice. You really had to see what Bern Nix and Charlie Ellerbee were doing to sort through it; same goes for Jamaaladeen and McDowell. That said, OF HUMAN FEELINGS is one of the best-sounding recordings of its time (WHEN will it be on CD???) but that's a bit of a cheat because it was only half the band, which probably accounts for the clarity. I think the most representative recordings of harmolodic theory in action are some of the Decoding Society recordings, particularly NASTY and MANDANCE. You can really hear the parts shifting over and around each other. As far as Blood goes, I think ARE YOU GLAD TO BE IN AMERICA captures his approach to harmolodics best, mainly because of the presence of Shannon Jackson, who embodies the multi-layered approach as much as Ornette himself and is the only Ornette-trained drummer with the chops to pull it off by himself. James Hale thomas chatterton wrote: > Once again, it's unfortunate there are no recordings that do that Prime Time > band justice (and certainly the second edition of that band with the > keyboardists was pure shite!). Incidentally, didn't the > jazz-rock-blues-harmolodic guitarist Blood Ulmer, (whose last album some on > this list seem to favour) serve his apprenticeship with Ornette? - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 12:19:26 -0800 From: Skip Heller Subject: Re: free jazz (was spontaneous performance/composition) >> From: Skip Heller > Grover's problem was less with his chops than with his > material in my opinion. No matter what your personal experience was with > Grover, I can't see how you can say or suggest that one of the most seminal > musicians in the history of avant-garde jazz is some how worse than the > output of Grover Washington Jr.--not only worse, but a bad sax player to > boot. Well, if you don't like rhythm'n'blues, you're not going to like GW's material. I'll go so far as to agree his later stuff got sugary. But the early Kudu recordings are badass. Certainly beyond any questions of authenticity. I also don't think avant-garde jazz is any more noble than any other form of music that people play for money, so belonging to that camp does not buy you protection. > Fair enough, Skip. Me neither. But I'm left concluding from this exchange > that you understand very little about harmolodics. Your dismissal struck me > as pretty casual and unsupported. If you want to go that way, expect some > debate. Actually, I probably know more about it than you're led to believe. And I hold it as suspect as I hold other systems theories in music. I also think that just because a guy invents a vehicle does not mean he operates best. For example, I am no huge Schoenberg fan, but I do go for Berg and Webern in a big way. I always held Cherry as the harmelodic improvisor of note. His attention to craft, his ability to really play the damn trumpet, his ability to project ideas and be an effective ensemble player no matter with whom he plays, and his beautiful sound all let me in on something deep and special. Personally, I don't care about the debate. And my dismissal of the stuff is based on years of hearing it, going back to it with the question of "Am I missing something?" and checking it out again. And always coming up with the same answer -- something I can't say about Cecil, Paul Bley, 70s Miles, and of course Sun Ra. Orrin Keepnews had a sign up in his studio that read "Important to who?", and I think that's always the best question. skip h - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V3 #692 ******************************* 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. 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