From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V2 #710 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, July 12 1999 Volume 02 : Number 710 In this issue: - Re: Iron Path Re: music to empty parties by Re: Iron Path Toniuttie Re: Toniuttie Re: Toniuttie rahsaan plays great jewish music Re: music to empty parties by Re: rahsaan plays great jewish music Re: Kirk Re: rahsaan plays great jewish music Re: rahsaan plays great jewish music Re: Toniutti Zorn's Q & A re: Kuryokhin I'm Your Man For heaven's sake free me before I get another degree Zorn article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 11:05:40 -0700 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: Iron Path On Sat, 10 Jul 1999 09:54:59 EDT CuneiWay@aol.com wrote: > > Despite the "dissing" that Iron Path [the studio Last Exit release] > apparently gets [not from MY circle of listening friends], it is [& has been > for YEARS now] the *only* one that I still play regularly & enjoy. There has definitely been a shift in the perception of this record (from very bad to good/very good). I think remembering Peter Brotzmann's reaction and it had some impact on my appreciation of it (also based on the fact that I was listening to Last Exit for raw energy, and not lace knitting around a cup of tea :-). I will dig it and play it again. Thanks for the feedback, Patrice. PS: CIVILS WARS seems to produce very different feelings... Steve Smith hates it Joseph Zitt loves it and somebody compared it to LA BELLE ET LA BETE hum... I guess I will have to give it a try. - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:14:40 -0400 From: Perfect Sound Forever Subject: Re: music to empty parties by Not that I'm anti-social or anything (heh) but if it was time to clear the place out and clean up, I'd take a gander at the crowd and choose the appropriate music. This can range from anything like Barney the Dinosaur to Celion Dion to Borbetomagus. If you happen to have a crowd that actually savors all of this (!), might I recommend flicking off the lights and informing your guests "I am the Angel of Death- the time of purification is at hand." Luckily, I haven't had to resort to this, yet. Best, Jason - -- Perfect Sound Forever online music magazine perfect-sound@furious.com http://www.furious.com/perfect - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:08:49 EDT From: CuneiWay@aol.com Subject: Re: Iron Path I wrote >> Despite the "dissing" that Iron Path [the studio Last Exit release] >> apparently gets [not from MY circle of listening friends], it is [& has >been >> for YEARS now] the *only* one that I still play regularly & enjoy. Patrice wrote: >There has definitely been a shift in the perception of this record (from >very >bad to good/very good). I think remembering Peter Brotzmann's reaction >and it >had some impact on my appreciation of it (also based on the fact that I >was >listening to Last Exit for raw energy, and not lace knitting around a cup >of >tea :-). I will dig it and play it again. Well, one difference between our ears may be that the member of Last Exit who is the *least* interesting to me is Peter Brotzmann. So, if he doesn't like that record or says bad things about it, it isn't necessarily something that would prevent me from enjoying it. I have a lot of respect for Brotzmann; he pretty single-handedly carved out a very unique niche for himself in European/German free improv that can not be denied. And his playing *can* be surprisingly affecting & subtle, for someone known as a "balls to the wall" player. Having said that, I must say that in Last Exit, he tended to do the things that I find the least interesting in free improv music which is "macho", balls to the wall, HARD blowing. Not that Last Exit were a band *about* subtlety, but it might've been nice if they *had* had more of that in them. Especially live, where, at times, the sheer "we're all big hard-livin' men & we're going to blow hard - Your Balls/My Chin" attitude kept them from doing more than just blowing hard, at least for my tastes. And Iron Path, for me, mixes some interesting [& maybe even subtle] types of ambiences with the more "Your Balls/My Chin" sound you might expect from these "four big men". Steve Feigenbaum - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:34:38 -0400 From: Tom Pratt Subject: Toniuttie Does anyone know anything about a composer/musician named Giancarlo Toniuttie? The Forced Exposure description of Jonathan Coleclough's 'Cake' (which I love - thanks, Jon) says that the disc "should easily engage those interested in the likes of Organum, Giancarlo Toniuttie, Eliane Radigue, a.o." Now, I'm familiar with Organum and Radigue, but I'm curious to know about this Toniuttie character, and all of my Internet searches have come up empty. Are there any (good) recordings available? I'd appreciate any information. Thanks! -Tom Pratt listening to: omoide-hatoba - Vuoy (Polystar). I got this today and haven't stopped listening yet. On these first few listens, I'm hooked! - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:42:12 -0400 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: Toniuttie On Mon, Jul 12, 1999 at 03:34:38PM -0400, Tom Pratt wrote: > Does anyone know anything about a composer/musician named Giancarlo > Toniuttie? The Forced Exposure description of Jonathan Coleclough's > 'Cake' (which I love - thanks, Jon) says that the disc "should easily > engage those interested in the likes of Organum, Giancarlo Toniuttie, > Eliane Radigue, a.o." Now, I'm familiar with Organum and Radigue, but > I'm curious to know about this Toniuttie character, and all of my > Internet searches have come up empty. Are there any (good) recordings > available? I'd appreciate any information. Thanks! The latest issue of ND has an interview with Toniutti (which spelling should work better on the search engines....). Available at better newsstands, or from http://www.nd.org/ - -- | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/~jzitt | | Latest Solo CD: Gentle Entropy http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 15:45:47 EDT From: JonAbbey2@aol.com Subject: Re: Toniuttie In a message dated 7/12/99 3:33:03 PM, tpratt@ctech.smtc.net writes: << Does anyone know anything about a composer/musician named Giancarlo Toniuttie? The Forced Exposure description of Jonathan Coleclough's 'Cake' (which I love - thanks, Jon) says that the disc "should easily engage those interested in the likes of Organum, Giancarlo Toniuttie, Eliane Radigue, a.o." Now, I'm familiar with Organum and Radigue, but I'm curious to know about this Toniuttie character, and all of my Internet searches have come up empty. Are there any (good) recordings available? I'd appreciate any information. Thanks! >> I don't know much, but I do seem to recall that his name is actually Toniutti. try that in your Internet searches. Jon - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 13:21:14 -0700 From: Martin_Wisckol@link.freedom.com (Martin Wisckol) Subject: rahsaan plays great jewish music Just some trivia for klezmer fans: Spurred by the Rahsaan thread, I pulled out "prepare thyself to deal with a miracle.'' indeed, a very enjoyable and diverse outing. on the 20-minute suite, in which he circular breathes without a pause throughout, rahsaan goes into a klezmer stomp. then it occurred to me that there's another LP i have in which he also plays ze klezmer, although i got distracted before i tracked it down.... Martin - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 16:37:04 EDT From: OnionPalac@aol.com Subject: Re: music to empty parties by Empty partys out? I usually get naked, smother myself with peanut butter, and pour milk over my body while screaming the Mister Roger's theme song. If nobody leaves at this point I'll grab a pair of scissors and hold them up to my testicals and yell out how I was waiting years to do this! But damn it, more and more people show up every party and circle around me like I'm the mega-entertainment buff. What does it take to horrify people these days? I mean, in twenty years from now how are you going to gross someone out? Everybody has already seen everything. Were is G.G. Allen when you need him? - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 99 16:33:26 -0500 From: brian_olewnick@smtplink.mssm.edu Subject: Re: rahsaan plays great jewish music >Spurred by the Rahsaan thread, I pulled out "prepare thyself to deal >with a miracle.'' indeed, a very enjoyable and diverse outing. on the >20-minute suite, in which he circular breathes without a pause >throughout, rahsaan goes into a klezmer stomp. then it occurred to me >that there's another LP i have in which he also plays ze klezmer, >although i got distracted before i tracked it down.... There's a brief portion on one of the tracks from 'Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata' (I forget which) where he plays a few strains from Have Negilah. Brian Olewnick - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:40:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Ken Waxman Subject: Re: Kirk Introducing was (is) on Argo, but wasn't really his first record. He made an earlier one for King Records, the Cincinatti label best known for James Brown in 1956. It disappeared without a trace and was only reissued on vinyl in the late 1970s. Also, Kirk didn't "work with Qunicy Jones band for a while". Q didn't have a band after 1960. Kirk was a sideman on some Jones' LPs and he may have used Jones to arrange big band sessions for him the way he used Benny Golson. Ken Waxman On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Peter Risser wrote: > A little late but: > > You can hear Roland Kirk blow some nice straight-up jazz on his disc > Introducing from 196?. Also, he worked with Quincy Jones' band for a > while too. I've got him on the soundtrack for In the Heat of the Night > and even Big Band Bossa Nova. > > Peter > > _________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com > > > - > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 17:46:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Ken Waxman Subject: Re: rahsaan plays great jewish music So is he another candidate for our "great Jewish music" series? Ken Waxman (and to think I left out Phil Ochs and Dinah Shore) On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Martin Wisckol wrote: > Just some trivia for klezmer fans: > > Spurred by the Rahsaan thread, I pulled out "prepare thyself to deal > with a miracle.'' indeed, a very enjoyable and diverse outing. on the > 20-minute suite, in which he circular breathes without a pause > throughout, rahsaan goes into a klezmer stomp. then it occurred to me > that there's another LP i have in which he also plays ze klezmer, > although i got distracted before i tracked it down.... > > Martin > > - > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:53:02 -0700 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: rahsaan plays great jewish music On Mon, 12 Jul 99 16:33:26 -0500 brian_olewnick@smtplink.mssm.edu wrote: > > There's a brief portion on one of the tracks from 'Natural Black Inventions: > Root Strata' (I forget which) where he plays a few strains from Have Negilah. BTW, there is an excerpt taken from 'Natural Black Inventions: Root Strata' on the ZORN RADIO HOUR sampler. Patrice. NL: 1898/MUSIC FOR RENAISSANCE INTRUMENTS: Mauricio Kagel - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 18:01:41 -0400 From: "Caleb T. Deupree" Subject: Re: Toniutti At 03:34 PM 7/12/99 -0400, Tom Pratt wrote: >Does anyone know anything about a composer/musician named Giancarlo >Toniuttie? The Forced Exposure description of Jonathan Coleclough's >'Cake' (which I love - thanks, Jon) says that the disc "should easily >engage those interested in the likes of Organum, Giancarlo Toniuttie, >Eliane Radigue, a.o." Now, I'm familiar with Organum and Radigue, but >I'm curious to know about this Toniuttie character, and all of my >Internet searches have come up empty. Are there any (good) recordings >available? I'd appreciate any information. Thanks! Jon and Joseph have corrected your spelling, so I'll just mention that the only piece currently available seems to be a collaboration with several Selektion artists called Itineraire (on Selektion). I had an interesting exchange about Toniutti with Eric Lanzillota at Anomalous about a year ago, when I traded an old cassette recording to him. The tape I traded was almost a decade old, very minimal, and (Eric told me) not especially representative of what he's doing now. He's also done photography, and his pictures adorn the cover of the original release of Bernhard G=FCnter's Details Agrandis CD. - -- Caleb Deupree cdeupree@erinet.com It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country. - -- Raymond Chandler - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 18:44:20 EDT From: OnionPalac@aol.com Subject: Zorn's Q & A Subjects & Quotes *He never did drugs except for the occasional toast of champagne *The solution to writer's block according to Zorn: "Don't worry about it." *"Shut that video camera off!" *He still wears his camoflause pants to express his part in the Hardcore culture. *He hates traveling ("You go fly on an airplane about fifty times, then tell me how you like it.") *He wants to eventually get more involved with The Theater of Musical Optics visuals again. *He highly encouraged musicians to start their own scene rather than dwell into one. *He owns much less amount of records than The New Yorker stated. *The death of his father was one of the many parts that helped build Masada. *He hates the Knitting Factory, "They're a bunch of fuck-shits!" *He called his parents "those people." *"Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat; best album." *Downtown Music Gallery's Bruce Lee was a reference guide for Zorn whenever he needed a question about himself that he didn't know. *He said that since the New Yorker article he was been constantly thinking about how people perceive his music, and it makes him really mad. At Mark Ribot's sessions he passed around the scores to the whole Book of Heads album. That was super, my understanding level of extended technique really shoot up. The thing that got me the most throughout all the sessions I went to was when William Parker said, "I don't hear music in my head." I'm still thinking about that. Also, after Zorn's session I went to the bathroom in The Tonic and saw written on the wall, "Zorn is gay." Very strange. Marcus - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 19:05:05 -0400 From: "Dmitry Elentuck" Subject: re: Kuryokhin I'd like to second the recommendation of 4CD set on Leo Records --- it is probably the most accurate represantation of Kuryokhin's spectrum. However, if you want to start with something more compact and less expensive, try to track down his 1991 CD on Leo Records "Some Combinations of Fingers and Passion" -- it's 1 hour of playful but highly professional solo piano improvisation. I also enjoy his collaborations with sax player Keshavan Maslak (aka Kenny Millions) --- "Friends Afar" (on Japanese label Sound Wave) and "Dear John Cage...."(on Russian label Long Arms Records) ----- both can be ordered directly from Keshavan Maslak (he has a web page but I lost the URL). SK's collaboration with Henry Kaiser on RykoDisc, "Popular Science" (1989), just a couple of years ago could be found literally in every used CD store of Boston for less than $6. it may still be the case. I don't play this much around the house but I remember it being pleasantly goofy. Finally, there is a whole bunch of CDs with his soundtrack/soundtracky work, the best, IMO, being "sparrow Oratorium -- Four Seasons"; many others are currently being re-released by his widow in St. Petersburg. Hope this helps, Dmitry - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 16:45:53 -0700 From: s~Z Subject: I'm Your Man Ken Waxman wrote: > > So is he another candidate for our "great Jewish music" series? has Leonard Cohen been mentioned? - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 20:18:22 -0500 (CDT) From: Charles Gillett Subject: For heaven's sake free me before I get another degree I was poking around, reading about serial killers on the web (prompted by the new Spike Lee movie, even though I don't plan to see it), and I came across something Zorn-related. William Heirens, the man credited with creating the scene shown in the artwork for Painkiller's _Buried Secrets_ ("For heaven's sake catch me before I kill again I cannot control myself" written in lipstick on an apartment wall, for those who haven't seen it), now has a crew of social activists working to free him. According to them (and they obviously have an agenda), he didn't kill those three women. Get the scoop at . And now you know the rest of the story. I just got Evan Parker's _Saxophone Solos_ and _Monoceros_, Derek Bailey's _Fairly Early with Postscripts_, and Jandek's _Glad To Get Away_ and _New Town_ today, courtesy of Forced Exposure by way of UPS and MasterCard. A fine evening awaits.... - -- Charles - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 16:15:16 -0500 From: Diego Gruber Subject: Zorn article I've received so many requests for this article that what I'm gonna do is simply post it to the list divided on a couple of e-mails so that it doesn't get blocked by the message-lenght restraints. Sorry for those, who have already received it from me privately. So here's the first part of it, and in my next message I'm sending the second part. Also for those who have the books, from which the quotes on the interview come from, you should check out the accuracy of the translation. This is an interview which appeared on an Argentinian magazine, "Escvlpiendo Milagros" (anyone know something about this magazine?) a couple of years ago. Of course, written in Spanish. A friend of mine asked me to translate it for him and so I kept it for some months already, now I thought it might be interesting for some of you to read. The content of the interview is kind of dense, some parts are hard to understand but believe me it doesn't have to do with the translation, it was as difficult in Spanish. Parts were especially unclear for me as I was not familiar with Zorn's game pieces, it is most lkely it won't be as difficult for most of you. Let me know what you think of this thing. - ---------- Success and economical factors usually condition the attitude of certain musicians whose weak convictions can only admit creative freedom on extraordinary circumstances. They take music as a good for popular consumption and therefore ease its digestion in order to obtain generous rewards. Such apocryphal music which floods radio stations, record stores, and ears does not accomplish to neutralize an irreverent beat from Manhattan's heart. There, experimentation has not ceased. Zorn and friends come against form sclerosis and creative cheapness of today's music with prodigious imagination. - -----JOHN ZORN- music with no govern ------ "There's good music, great music and false music on each genre and every genre is the fucking same! People grew up on the 60s listening to blues, rock, classical, avant-garde, ethnic music; i believe all of us share one belief in common: all of that music is the same deep inside; there's no such thing as a 'higher art' and a 'lower art'" - - John Zorn, 1988, on 'American Composers' by Edward Strickland. Officialist dinosaurs, stinking sounds merchants, musical segregationists, they can no longer prevent thousands of attentive ears from detecting the unusual, dazzling, astounding jugglings of Zorn on his struggle for the abolition of aesthetics' hierarchies and the imposition of equality on musical society. Fucking bullshit!, will Zorn say every time someone pretends to differentiate the classical from the popular as the sublime and the mundane. His artistic testimonies are clearly exemplifying of his way of thinking. One battle won after another right on the heart of the merchant's empire, suggesting there are no weapons that could possibly stop the rebellion of art or limits to brake the corrosion in front of new ideas. Jazz, rock, pop, klezmer, classical, electronic, concrete, improvised cannot be taken as stagnant compartments, but as materials for possible interaction, democratically disposable in the mind of the creator. A game for free people, particularly pleasant for those who have come to dominate the traditional tools and are no longer afraid of liberty. "Masterpieces of western music exemplify monarchies and dictatorships. Composer and director: king and prime minister. Establishing analogies between the musical situations we have and the desirable social circumstances of which we still lack, we make music important and suggestive, with the serious problems humanity is facing. Some composers do not portray on their work the social changes desired, since they utilize their music as propaganda for such changes or as criticism of a society insufficiently modified." - - John Cage, 'Empty words', 1973-78 >From the random experiences of the 50s improvisation has occupied an outstanding place on music of the 20th century. All the same, graphical scripture has become an adequate medium to transmit one undetermined music, set free to the imagination or intuition of the performer. When jazz got into the anarchic tides of collective improvisation some similarities with the "cultured" friends were glimpsed. Differences could be noticed on the bonds: the one the musician creates and the idea which originates a work (a drawing, a popular melody, isolated notes with brief instructions, an image). The bond which relates a group of instrumentalists playing at the same time (a dialogue with the others or the inner way). The bond with the own instrument and the culture. The implicit problematical in the work of John Zorn has equally the inheritance of the literature of the 50s and the 60s. His music promotes a rather unconventional approach from the performers to their instruments, impressing as much tempo switches as variations of tone. With expressive gestures he commands this games of improvisation and allows for unusual relations and behaviors, which result on music of great frantic spontaneity of everlasting unpredictability. Cage and his followers preferred their musicians wouldn't relate themselves but let the sounds mix randomly. The improvisational collectives of new jazz urged to the celebration of a collective ritual which would unite their cries on the maximum level possible. To randomness and communion of souls was added the unconformist individualism of the practitioners of improvisation. Zorn's generation takes the discoveries of the masters to search for new relationships, new bonds. On the amazingly open structure presented by the Cobra (recreated each month on Knitting Factory, New York, edited a couple of years ago at Hat Art and now live by Knitting Factory Works), musicians are forced to undress their personalities in public and incorporate their more immediate feelings to the construction of an unstable and nervous architecture. A game in which those who need to express themselves with verbosity appear, and others interrupt with violence to impose their ideas. A vast gamma of gesture codes enables the different musical ideas with absolute freedom. - -------END OF PART 1 - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V2 #710 ******************************* 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