From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V2 #1001 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 Friday, July 14 2000 Volume 02 : Number 1001 In this issue: - Re: new dream syndicate cd Re: Steve Reich 45+ set buys the most cds Re: Steve Reich miscellany otomo yoshida/carl stone Re: Steve Reich Re: Steve Reich Re: otomo yoshida/carl stone RE: Steve Reich New Music in RealAudio Re: new dream syndicate cd Steve Reich hip-hop Cobra cancelled? Re: new dream syndicate cd BBC radio 3 Re: new dream syndicate cd Re: new dream syndicate cd Re: hip-hop Cobra cancelled? funk Review: Dave Douglas' Witness, Tonic, 7/13/00 (long) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 18:07:33 -0400 From: "Jesse Kudler" Subject: Re: new dream syndicate cd There's actually about a 1:30 length sample of the record at www.othermusic.com that I at least thought was pretty rocking. Fairly comparable to other Conrad stuff, and I can hear the voices droning around a lower note. > I think it's depressing that we have to "pick sides" on the whole Dream > Syndicate thing. What is La Monte Young scared of? Having his odious authorship and marketing practices revealed. Anybody want to buy a $100 Black Record from his website? The only musician who *doesn't* want anyone to hear his music. . . unless they're rich. - -Jesse - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 15:05:41 -0700 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: Steve Reich On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 22:56:45 +0100 "Alastair Wilson" wrote: > > Ah, the joys of email...I took the fact that you wrote > > > DRUMMING (about two hours of percussion and now a yawn) Yes, that's what I meants ("not a yawn"). Sorry for the confusion. > Confession time: I found myself struggling against sleep during a > performance of Reich's "The Cave" at the Royal Festival Hall. Even the > visuals couldn't attract enough attention. Anyone else zzzzed through a > performance? I do, but with the record. One of the very rare compositions by Reich that does not do too much to me. Patrice (amazed that nobody has ever wrote a book on Reich when there are 5-6 on Norem). - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 18:28:01 -0500 From: kurt_gottschalk@scni.com Subject: 45+ set buys the most cds me? i'm in the lost generation betwixt bizkit and chadonnay, and listening to sly stone at the moment. email me if you want to read the whole article. kg Largest group of music buyers last year was adults 45 and older By Tom Moon Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT) Everywhere you turn in the recording industry these days, youth reigns. Stadium acts talk about pleasing "the kids" as Job One. Scouts spend their time chasing budding artists, and in the race for the big contracts, those under age 15 have a pronounced advantage. The biggest draws on MTV's "Total Request Live" are Britney Spears, 'N Sync and other acts whose target audience isn't using acne cream yet. But things are rarely what they seem, particularly when it comes to music. According to 1999 figures recently released by the Recording Industry Association of America, the fastest-growing segment of the record-buying public isn't the Britney brats (age 10 to 14), or the Limp Bizkit generation (age 15 to 19). It's the Eric Clapton-and-Chardonnay set. In one of the more surreal statistical swerves of the kid-power era, the RIAA found that in 1999, adults 45 and over accounted for 24.7 percent of all recording and music-video purchases. The jump - a 36.5 percent increase over that demographic's 1998 market share and a staggering 122.5 percent increase over their 1990 share - was the largest of any age group. And it happened in a year when several other age brackets - including teens between 15 and 19 and adults from 25 to 29, demographics for which music traditionally plays a key part of life - actually dropped. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 18:28:13 -0400 From: Perfect Sound Forever Subject: Re: Steve Reich miscellany On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 09:38:40 -0700, "s~Z" wrote: > >I find it fascinating that the phrase "Come out t' show dem" (a sample of >the Reich version appears at the beginning of the "Bruise Blood Remix" of >Tortoise's "Djed") occurs on Reich's 1967 tape loop composition "Come Out" >and in the lyric of Capt. Beefheart's 1969 composition, "Moonlight On >Vermont." Well, actually, that's not a coincidence. Beefheart was listening to "Come Out" at the time that he was recording Trout Mask Replica. This according to (of all people) Pamela "I'm With the Band" Des Barres. As for favorite Reich recordings, you can't go wrong with the 1978 ECM version of Music for 18 Musicians. Completely transcendent. Best, Jason Perfect Sound Forever online music magazine perfect-sound@furious.com http://www.furious.com/perfect - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 18:52:52 -0500 From: kurt_gottschalk@scni.com Subject: otomo yoshida/carl stone i know these guys recorded together. can anyone give me the info? other opinions or tips about stone are also appreciated. thanks, kg - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 18:56:08 -0400 From: Nils Subject: Re: Steve Reich It's also worthwhile to check out the recent Nonesuch record 'Reich Remixed,' which renders his most popular stuff to beats (ie remix). And believe it or not, some of that is quite satisfying. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:18:35 -0400 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: Steve Reich On Thu, Jul 13, 2000 at 10:56:45PM +0100, Alastair Wilson wrote: > Confession time: I found myself struggling against sleep during a > performance of Reich's "The Cave" at the Royal Festival Hall. Even the > visuals couldn't attract enough attention. Anyone else zzzzed through a > performance? While I haven't seen it done live, I find The Cave, and its sketchbook, Different Trains, to be among Reich's least effective work. In each, I don't hear the music as adding anything to the texts, which I think would have worked better on their own, but which, conversely make it difficult to listen to the sounds as pure music on their own. - -- |> ~The only thing that is not art is inattention~ --- Marcel Duchamp <| | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | Latest CD: Jerusaklyn http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 19:03:20 -0400 From: Brian Olewnick Subject: Re: otomo yoshida/carl stone kurt_gottschalk@scni.com wrote: > > i know these guys recorded together. can anyone give me the info? other opinions > or tips about stone are also appreciated. The disc (the only one as far as I know) is "Monogatari: Amino Argot" (Trigram TR-P 908, 1994). The "gimmick", as it were, was that Otomo records a piece, sends it across the Pacific to Stone, he fiddles (drastically) with it, sends it back, Otomo remakes Stone's remaking, etc, back and forth, ending up in six pieces that one would be hard put to identify as coming from the same initial source. I like it a lot. Stylistically, it ranges as widely as one would guess. I enjoy Stone's work greatly and consider his "Mom's" on New Albion to be one of the finer recordings of the last dozen years. His MO is taking small samples of material and delving deeply into them, discovering unexpected richness. In "Shing Kee" from "Mom's", for example, he samples a second or two from a Japanese vocalist singing Schubert (in English) and _very_ gradually extends it, totally transforming it into a microscopic examination of the granularities of her sound. The release on em:t, "Nyala" also has some fine moments. Other stuff is sometimes hit and miss, but usually contains something of value. Brian Olewnick - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 17:34:10 -0600 From: "Matthew W Wirzbicki (S) " Subject: RE: Steve Reich >"Early Music", containing (amongst others) the tape pieces "Come Out" >and "It's Gonna Rain", is essential. I couldn't agree more. This material remains amoung my favorite Reich. Get a copy of this recording (which also contains "Piano Phase" and "Clapping Music). Of course "Drumming" and "Music for 18 Musicians" neccessary for life. and don't forget "four organs." Matt Wirzbicki - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 19:11:08 -0500 From: Herb Levy Subject: New Music in RealAudio Hi, I'd thought this had gone out over the weekend, but it got stuck in the wrong e-mail box. This week on Mappings some music relevant to the list's concerns: four works for multiple groups of similar instruments including John Cage: Twenty Three; Phill Niblock: Four More String Quartets; Pauline Oliveros: Horse Sings From Clouds & John Oswald: Spectre. Upcoming shows include new music from Western Canada, wind instruments with electronics, and August's first show of the month solo feature will be Jerry Hunt. Hope it's cooler where y'all are. Bests, Herb - -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Forth Wort, TX 76147 817 377-2983 herb@eskimo.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 20:18:51 -0400 From: David Beardsley Subject: Re: new dream syndicate cd "Alastair Wilson" wrote: > I think it's depressing that we have to "pick sides" on the whole Dream > Syndicate thing. What is La Monte Young scared of? Getting ripped off. Duh! - -- * D a v i d B e a r d s l e y * xouoxno@virtulink.com * * 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time" * M E L A v i r t u a l d r e a m house monitor * * http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 10:20:43 +1000 From: "Lee, Edgar" Subject: Steve Reich > In a message dated 7/13/00 9:18:38 AM, James.Graves@oberlin.edu writes: > > << On another note, I saw that electronic musicians Pita and Fennesz will > be > performing in nearby Cleveland in a few weeks. I have one of Pita's CD's, > but has anyone seen them live? >> > Pita and Fennesz played earlier this year at the Melbourne "What is Music Festival" along with other Mego acts. I usually find watching someone playing their powerbook as interesting as watching someone reading their EMails on their computer. What made this a more interesting experience were the experimental style films in the background and the sheer volume. Fennesz usually looks at his powerbook very seriously while Pita has a cigarette dangling from his mouth. They are both very approachable so try and have a chat to them after the show. I appreciated their CDs a lot more after seeing them. Edgar n.p Cabin in the sky - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 21:24:54 EDT From: JonAbbey2@aol.com Subject: hip-hop Cobra cancelled? according to the Other Music web site, the hip-hop Cobra show next week at the Anchorage is "...now tentative. Orders are not being accepted at this time." anyone know the story behind this? Jon www.erstwhilerecords.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 18:34:19 -0700 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: new dream syndicate cd On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 20:18:51 -0400 David Beardsley wrote: > > "Alastair Wilson" wrote: > > > I think it's depressing that we have to "pick sides" on the whole Dream > > Syndicate thing. What is La Monte Young scared of? > > Getting ripped off. Duh! And ripped off of what? What is available under his name? Does a musician have to go to such extent to protect his integrity? This LaMonte Young mystic seems to be about fantastic concerts that us, poor souls, where not lucky enough to attend (most of them happened in the sixties, anyway), or about records that we (the poor souls) have still enough dignity left to not buy (due to their outrageous prices). I keep on reading on how fantastic he is and everytime a record comes out (not often), I only read disappointements or even worst, wishy-washy comments. I have seen artists being dumped for less than that... Seriously, what has LaMonte Young done in the past twenty years that matters? I am sure that some people on the list have attended some of his concerts. Are we really missing something or is he simply a house built on sand? Patrice. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 21:21:52 -0500 (CDT) From: Whit Schonbein Subject: BBC radio 3 i was glancing at the bbc radio 3 webpage. european radio kicks u.s. radio's ass (i don't own a receiver, myself, it's so bad here) anyway, i gather that one can listen to the following live on the web, if anyone is interested (i haven't tried it myself): JAZZ ON 3 [Saturday, 11.30pm-1.00am] (time is local - w) 22 th July Cyrille, Dresser, Erlich Trio/David Fiuczynskis Jazzpunk (Knitting Factory Festival 2000, NYC) 29th July Matthew Shipp String Trio/Jeff Tain Watts Experience (Knitting Factory Festival 2000, NYC) 12th August Uri Caines Mahler Project/ Myra Melfords Crush (Knitting Factory Festival 2000, NYC) 19th August Crispell, Peacock, Motian/Michael Formaneks Northern Exposure (Knitting Factory Festival 2000, NYC) I do not know if these are full concerts, excerpts, or what. the website is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/ if they are concerts, and if anyone here is planning on doing a dat > cdr of any of these (in particular, the shipp) i have stuff to trade (contact privately) - i'd also be interested in hearing the recent zorn performance at the barbican (i.e, the july 1 broadcast of masada and bar khokba - i don't think the zorn/laswell/frith/lombardi was broadcast?) apologies for wasting space with 'trade talk' - i hope the webcast aspect of it offsets any annoyance. cheers, whit np -gastr del sol - crookt, crakt, and whatever...(soon to be parmegiani, de natura sonorum) - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 00:07:46 -0400 From: Matt Laferty Subject: Re: new dream syndicate cd "Patrice L. Roussel" wrote: > I have seen artists being dumped for less than that... Seriously, what > has LaMonte Young done in the past twenty years that matters? I am sure > that some people on the list have attended some of his concerts. Are we > really missing something or is he simply a house built on sand? Howdy Thread: I ain't going to be the one to defend LaMonte Young's near-fascistic control over "his" sound, but 5 or 6 years ago, I was in the excellent Record Exchange in Blacksburg, VA and bought the 5 cd boxset/live performance called "The Well-Tuned Piano" for 12 bucks. 5 hours of solo piano minimalism. It had been floating round for years in the chain, going from store to store, being marked down and marked down and marked down. Seriously, the thing had 8 or 9 price stickers on it, was white on the corners from being taken in and out of boxes and the store manager personally thanked me for getting it off their hands. I had to come home and research Young, but I bought it solely for hip-masochistic credibility and hardly listened to it. Then I read about Charlemagne Palestine in an old issue of Sonic Youth's fan club zine (R.I.P.) and was reminded of the record...pulled it out, put the headphones on and cranked the volume. The drones around the piano notes were shocking. So, asshole or not (I mean, Beefheart was/is an asshole, too.) "The Well-Tuned Piano" is great. btw: I'm trying to order some damn Stockhausen from the label over there. Anybody have an inside scoop on Verlag's "Kontakte" (as compared to the record called "Kontakte Refrain Zyklus" and "Zodiac Boxes"? matt - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 00:27:39 EDT From: JonAbbey2@aol.com Subject: Re: new dream syndicate cd << I have seen artists being dumped for less than that... Seriously, what has LaMonte Young done in the past twenty years that matters? I am sure that some people on the list have attended some of his concerts. Are we really missing something or is he simply a house built on sand?>> I thought the Forever Blues band were great when I saw them play Lincoln Center about seven years ago. half of the audience walked out holding their ears in fright, and the other half gave them a standing ovation at the end. I may never play the double CD all of the way through again, but I enjoyed that night a lot. << I'm trying to order some damn Stockhausen from the label over there. Anybody have an inside scoop on Verlag's "Kontakte" (as compared to the record called "Kontakte Refrain Zyklus" and "Zodiac Boxes"? >> the one you probably want (the all-electronic version) is on catalog number 3, Elektronische Musik 1952-1960. also, if you decide to take the plunge for Hymnen at some point (so expensive, but so worthwhile), the one you probably want is the four disc set, catalog number 40. and the disc with Telemusik is also amazing, but my copy's lent out now, so I don't know that number. Jon www.erstwhilerecords.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 01:05:44 EDT From: Drivymovie@aol.com Subject: Re: hip-hop Cobra cancelled? I'm not sure exactlywhy the Cobra performance at the Anchorage was cancelled, but I'll be happy to inform you that it was rescheduled for the following monday (7/24) at Tonic (in case you didn't already know that). I speculate that the performance at the Anchorage was most likely postponed because of a Masada performance scheduled for that same day (7/21) in Seattle. - -Evan - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:58:47 +1000 From: marco Subject: funk re funk betty davis is the nasty girl of funk responsible for miles getting funked? they say im different is worth enshrining the last three tracks are particularly exquisite marco :) - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 04:00:25 -0500 From: Steve Smith Subject: Review: Dave Douglas' Witness, Tonic, 7/13/00 (long) Fellow Z-listers: I hope you'll indulge me in the little fantasy that follows. While I've recently left the record industry to resume my long-postponed journalistic career, it's obvious to me that, having served until recently as a paid spokesperson for his record company, there's no chance in hell that anyone would let me review in the mass media the remarkable Dave Douglas show I saw tonight. But I found what I heard to be so compelling that I've just got to say something... so I'm attempting to write the review I would file if I actually had an assignment to cover this show. (And please be kind, as I don't have anyone to edit this into shape for me...) And don't forget, you New Yorkers, that you can see this on Friday, July 14 at Tonic as well. Me, I plan to go back, both to hear the music again and to meet up with fellow Z-lister Tom Benton. Where were the rest of you?!? Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com NP - nothing but the ringing in my ears... ======== DAVE DOUGLAS'S WITNESS Tonic, New York City, July 13, 2000 Preconceptions were in abundance for the American debut performance of Dave Douglas's newest and largest working band, the nine-piece Witness. In its size, scope, and use of electronic elements, it was expected to be a sequel of sorts to the trumpeter's sprawling Sanctuary project from 1997. In its agenda to perform new music inspired by Douglas's outrage at the profiteering of American weapons makers during the NATO "peacekeeping mission" in the former Yugoslavia, Witness might have been expected to serve as his "Liberation Music Orchestra," shaking fists and playing anthems of the downtrodden. And the fact that this same project's berth at the JVC Jazz Festival in late June had been cancelled due to slow advance ticket sales might have accounted for a less-than-packed house on an evening with little compelling competition elsewhere. Douglas, however, revels in confounding expectation. The music performed by Witness was neither beholden to Sanctuary's Coltrane-Miles-Stockhausen spaced funk axis, nor was it in any way espousing a specific political or polemical stance. Indeed, the only mention of the outrage which birthed this project was in a bright red handout sheet distributed at the front desk of the club. Without the primer, the evening's agenda might truly have been hidden, and the program was important enough to Douglas that he reminded the audience on several occasions to make sure they acquired a copy. But, to the credit of the music, it would not have mattered if the audience had ignored his prodding. In his effort to pay homage to "artists and activists who have creatively challenged authority... inspiring the rest of us to resist," Douglas created one of the most successful amalgamations of his various musical voices and styles to date, informed by elements of virtually all of his prior projects and using a band that compiled pieces of several of his other working units. The nine members of Witness were deployed in a variety of ways during the course of the evening's two sets. On occasion the counterpoint between sections - winds (Douglas, clarinetist/saxophonist Chris Speed, euphonium/tuba player Joe Daley), strings (violinist Joyce Hammann, cellist Peggy Lee, bassist Drew Gress) and percussion (mallet percussionist Bryan Carrott, drummer Mike Sarin, drum machine player Ikue Mori) - was explicit. But no one was assigned to a rigidly formatted role. The too frequently overlooked Carrott was one of the most exciting soloists of the evening, while Gress was allied with the rhythm section more often than with the other string players. Mori's pontillistic coloration was applied subtly to ensembles, and she sat out frequently, but she was also afforded numerous opportunities to splash her sounds more broadly across the ensemble's canvas. The six pieces that comprised the first set, each dedicated to one of the artist/activists that inspired Douglas, managed to stake out new ground while still drawing from several of his past projects. "Witness," the opener, managed to span the gamut from a melancholy, anthemic opening theme to a jolly stretch of New Orleans-style three horn dialogue, with plenty of freestyle rumination in between, without sounding forced. "Child of All Nations" began as a rhapsodic showcase for cello (intended for Douglas mainstay Erik Friedlander, but delivered with aplomb by the equally remarkable Lee) before giving way to a demanding stretch of metric modulation at breakneck speed that had several band members staring at their sheet music in fear. Sarin navigated these treacherous metrical changes with panache, leading Douglas to turn and bow in homage to him at the piece's conclusion. The jolting jump-cuts of "Kidnapping Kissenger," with its interpolations of ensemble shouts and unorthodox methods of sound production, electronic and otherwise, was stongly reminiscent of the music of John Zorn, with Douglas manipulating digitally sampled snippets of his trumpet playing almost as much as he actually blew his horn. "Episode" opened with a virtuosic solo passage for Douglas, a catalogue of extended techniques and whimsical gestures, boppish asides and bluesy licks that once again confirmed his assumption of Lester Bowie's mantle as the avant hornblower most deeply cognizant of the trumpet's lineage. After the anthemic wind chorales and dizzying cello/vibraphone/drum machine trio at the heart of "Sozaboy," the set closed with a bumptuous, often fractured funk beat with "One More News," recalling most clearly the hard bop heart thumping at the core of Douglas's working sextet. Opening the second set was "Mahfouz: A Catalog of Scenes," music that has been workshopped over the last two years by a very different group of musicians from which only Douglas and Mori remain. In its new setting, the 40-plus minute piece combined vaguely dreamy melodic lines from the ensemble, in similar motion but not locked into unison, with constant showers of sparks thrown off by Mori's melodic drum machines and interpolations by one musician after another. An episodic work of epic length for the jazz world, "Mahfouz" on occasion seemed to have evolved into an intellectualist's "string of solos," in the old parlance - - not that that in itself is cause for complaint when the soloists in question are of such high pedigree. Smaller subdivisions of the ensemble provided dazzling textures, and when the entire band played in unison for the first time some 20 minutes into the piece, there was a distinctive power and majesty in the force of the voices en masse. Sarin subtly implied and only gradually made explicit a stuttering rock beat that lifted the energy level another notch, but this, too, was but a fleeting element in an expansive tonal landscape. In structure and essence this was a novel in an idiom that expects short stories, but in its new incarnation "Mahfouz" was a welcome reminder that jazz is as viable a medium as any to allow an artist to realize his or her expressive potential without compromise. The set's closer, "Woman at Point Zero," adhered to a gentle odd-meter ostinato rhythm over which the plucked strings and deliberate melodic line brought to mind the music of Zorn's Masada Chamber Ensemble. It was the payoff for an evening of challenging listening. - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V2 #1001 ******************************** 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. A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "zorn-list-digest" in the commands above with "zorn-list". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from ftp.xmission.com, in pub/lists/zorn-list/archive. These are organized by date. Problems? Email the list owner at zorn-list-owner@lists.xmission.com