From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V3 #489 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 Thursday, July 5 2001 Volume 03 : Number 489 In this issue: - Re: Monk? did I miss something? Re: Improvising guitarists and how they learn how to do what they do Re: Monk? Re: did I miss something? Re: Improvising guitarists and how they learn how to do what they do oTo T22 mp3 sample Re: gainesbourg novel, + Q by novice Re: gainesbourg novel, + Q by novice Re: Reviews of Maldoror (Ipecac) Chadbourne Re: Chadbourne birkin's marriages Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) Re: birkin's marriages Re: birkin's marriages Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 09:51:27 -0700 From: Skip Heller Subject: Re: Monk? > At 10:01 AM +0200 7/5/01, patRice wrote: >>=20 >> So what do you boys and girls think is essential Monk? Must as I could get me head chopped off for this, I recommend the Columbia stuff first and foremost, because I think that quartet really g=F8t those tunes just right. Also, THE UNIQUE THELONIOUS MONK, a trio LP on Riverside, is mindbendingly great. I have pretty much all of Monk, so I can tell you this much -- getting into Monk is something you kind of do heavily when you first get around to it. So I'd almost say to just buy anything, because there's so little bad Monk. skip heller np: monk -- criss cross - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 09:55:11 -0700 From: Skip Heller Subject: did I miss something? I was out of town, but I thought I saw all my email. Is is possible that the death of Joe Henderson aroused no commentary from a group that is supposed to be concerned with improvising? skip h - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 13:08:35 -0400 From: Mark Saleski Subject: Re: Improvising guitarists and how they learn how to do what they do there are some interesting books out there on improvisation (aside from Bailey's): i haven't picked up either of these in a long time but remember liking them a lot: The Inner Game of Music The Listening Book it seems to me that some of this is a matter of having 'big ears'. there are times when i play where i can hear a single interval, or maybe even a single note...and all sorts of possibilities just pop into my head. some of it just comes from years and years of listening to all sorts of music, not just free-improv-type stuff. - -- Mark Saleski - marks@foliage.com "Is it so wrong, wanting to be at home with your record collection?" - Nick Hornby - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 13:32:43 -0400 From: Dwayne Subject: Re: Monk? Must have for any Monk fan(s) are the solo Black Lion sessions, some of the best Monk I've heard. It's Monk's Time is a nice Columbia lp from '63, I think, with mostly originals which is odd for Monk. Usually he re-recorded a lot of his stuff. - -Dwayne patRice wrote: > > Hi y'all... > > After reading the Zorn interview again in Duckworth's "Talking Music" I > thought I should once again delve a bit more into Thelonious Monk. > > So what do you boys and girls think is essential Monk? > > I remember hearing some stuff at a friend's place years ago that I > liked; and I've got a CD that has some good stuff on it. Must say I > prefer the pieces that don't have wind instruments. > > Suggestions welcome. > > patRice > > np: Morcheeba, Fragments Of Freedom > nr: Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Rashomon > > - - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 10:42:02 -0700 From: improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel) Subject: Re: did I miss something? At 9:55 AM 7/6/01, Skip Heller wrote: >I was out of town, but I thought I saw all my email. Is is possible that >the death of Joe Henderson aroused no commentary from a group that is >supposed to be concerned with improvising? > >skip h Oh my god, I hadn't heard that anywhere yet. What a terrible loss, he was an amazing musician. ____________________________________________ Dave Trenkel : improv@peak.org New & Improv Media http://www.newandimprov.com Now available: Minus: Dark Lit ____________________________________________ - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 10:47:28 -0700 From: improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel) Subject: Re: Improvising guitarists and how they learn how to do what they do At 1:08 PM 7/5/01, Mark Saleski wrote: >there are some interesting books out there on improvisation (aside from >Bailey's): > >i haven't picked up either of these in a long time but remember liking >them a lot: > >The Inner Game of Music >The Listening Book > Another book I like a lot is Creative Improvisation, by Roger Dean (Open University Press 1989). I have no idea if it's still in print, probably not, but it offers a collection of really interesting listening and interaction exercises that I found pretty valuable at the time. ____________________________________________ Dave Trenkel : improv@peak.org New & Improv Media http://www.newandimprov.com Now available: Minus: Dark Lit ____________________________________________ - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 19:03:15 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Michael=20Gillham?= Subject: oTo T22 mp3 sample oTo T22 - Michael Gillham A wonderful swarm of guitar drones. Like being a grub eating honey in your hexagonal cell and listening to the rest of the hive go about the day. Mp3 sample http://www.fencingflatworm.cjb.net Guitar? ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 21:53:52 +0200 From: Ari Subject: Re: gainesbourg novel, + Q by novice >> np: the best of john barry > > Does it include Jane Birkin? ?? euh... no, i don't think jb ever worked with jb, did (s)he? - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 12:56:59 -0700 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: gainesbourg novel, + Q by novice On Thu, 05 Jul 2001 21:53:52 +0200 Ari wrote: > > > >> np: the best of john barry > > > > Does it include Jane Birkin? > > ?? euh... no, i don't think jb ever worked with jb, did (s)he? Weren't they married? Or am I confusing with another soundrack English composer... Patrice. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 15:56:07 -0400 From: "&c." Subject: Re: Reviews of Maldoror (Ipecac) Have you read the novel by the same name? If you haven't, the logic of the album will escape you. It was intended to be loosely a musical interpretation of the work. The novel has a twisted logic (actually the lack of logic becomes it's logic) of its own. I definite must read even for non-Patton Fans. Surrealist literature at its most beautiful. Zach - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 16:33:11 -0500 From: Herb Levy Subject: Chadbourne Skip Heller wrote: >Some guys -- and I think Chadbourne is one of these -- are just born with a >certain kind of inner-ear. I think that he was just born to play a ceratin >way. As for his practicing scales, I don't really get the feeling that I'd >like to hear him in a jazz group playing "Giant Steps". I don't get the >feeling that's something he could really do. Robert Quine, on the other >hand, seems to me to be more at home with the traditional literature. And, >obviously, Frisell. > >A lot of guys like Chadbourne (and Beefheart) wind up designing contexts for >the way they play, which is great to do, because I can't see where >Chadbourne would shine so brightly other than where he shines. Anybody who >doesn't think context matters should hear the Paul Bley record where Ornette >plays "Klactoveedsedstene" (a Charlie Parker tune) very very badly. But the >clue of someone who's taking a Bailey/Frith/Chadbourne etc tact is to design >and build your own context. And I often doubt if that impulse can be >learned as much as it is something to which one gravitates naturally. > I'm not sure exactly where Skip is drawing this line, but Chadbourne can play changes very well, as his solo recordings (I have them on cassette, but they may now be available on CD) released as the Eddie Chatterbox sessions show (as do several other scattered recordings). However, he doesn't seem to be interested in playing jazz idiomatically and on the rare occasions I've heard him live or on record with "real" jazz musicians, that's not a style in which the ensemble stays for very long. This is probably what Skip is talking about in terms of inner ear, though I'd use this term to describe something more along the lines of harmonic sensitivity, which I think Chadbourne has lots of. His situation, and that of many other musicians who might fit into Skip's category, seems to me to be more related to a lack of an idiomatic time feel, which may be a conscious decision as often as the innate situations that Skip describes. Most of the situations in which Chadbourne plays what someone else referred to as "twisted" versions of standards are examples of folks who don't play jazz idiomatically using jazz tunes as a context for improvising using a very different vocabulary of schticks. Bests, Herb - -- Herb Levy Mappings on Antenna Internet Radio http://www.antennaradio.com/avant/mappings/ mappings@antennaradio.com Mappings P O Box 9369 Forth Wort, TX 76147 - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 14:48:14 -0700 From: Skip Heller Subject: Re: Chadbourne > I'm not sure exactly where Skip is drawing this line, but Chadbourne > can play changes very well, as his solo recordings (I have them on > cassette, but they may now be available on CD) released as the Eddie > Chatterbox sessions show (as do several other scattered recordings). My experiences hearing Chadbourne play changes have nothing to do with whether or not he can do it well -- he can certainly approximate the approach admirably -- but it always sounds to me (emph. TO ME) like someone speaking a translation and not his first language. > > However, he doesn't seem to be interested in playing jazz > idiomatically and on the rare occasions I've heard him live or on > record with "real" jazz musicians, that's not a style in which the > ensemble stays for very long. > > This is probably what Skip is talking about in terms of inner ear, > though I'd use this term to describe something more along the lines > of harmonic sensitivity, which I think Chadbourne has lots of. I would never say something so ill-founded as Chadbourne lacks any kind of musical sensitivity. Ever. Ornette Coleman, yes. Chadbourne, never. His > situation, and that of many other musicians who might fit into Skip's > category, seems to me to be more related to a lack of an idiomatic > time feel, which may be a conscious decision as often as the innate > situations that Skip describes. Either way, to pursue that kind of idiomatic time defiance requires an aggressive step. > > Most of the situations in which Chadbourne plays what someone else > referred to as "twisted" versions of standards are examples of folks > who don't play jazz idiomatically using jazz tunes as a context for > improvising using a very different vocabulary of schticks. You want a twisted take on a jazz standard, check out Monk's version of "Honeysuckle Rose". Twisted is great, when it's done well (ie Marc Ribot's "I Should Care" is a yes, but his "Wind Cries Mary" doesn't thrill me). > skip h np: cannonball adderley -- country preacher (not one of his best) - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 00:12:40 +0200 From: Ari Subject: birkin's marriages on 05-07-2001 22:16, Patrice L. Roussel at proussel@ichips.intel.com wrote: > > On Thu, 05 Jul 2001 22:11:34 +0200 Ari wrote: >> >> i only know she was married to gainsbourg, who became gainsbarre after she >> left him, but i don't think she went to barry then... > > She was married to Barry before (unless I am confusing...). > no, you're right! i didn't know this (but therefore this list exists, isn't it??) and did they record together? ari - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 15:25:04 -0700 From: William Crump Subject: Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) My VERY subjective take on free improvisors involves a word that is passing from one usage to another, and I hope that nobody thinks I mean this in a pejorative sense, because I don't. Improvisors have to be able to get their freak on, so to speak, at a moment's notice -- not to BE that freak, but to be able to channel their inner freak whenever. It seems to me that it must be like having multiple personalities, and at least one of those personalities speaks a language called "Chadbourne Freak" or "Zorn Freak" or "Bailey Freak" or whatever. Speaking Freak outside a musical context makes it difficult to get by -- imagine trying to buy a candy bar and a coke at the Stop'n'Rob and being able only to speak in Phil Minton Freak. But when two or more improvisors get together and speak to each other in their own dialect of Freak, and suddenly realize that the language can involve a degree of telepathy (like Delany's Babel-17?), it's a beautiful thing. So the improvisor has to nurture his or her own inner freak, and always have that portion awake and watching/listening, to pick up interesting sights and sounds that can be turned around into new words and phrases in their own dialect of Freak. I've read that someone who is very fluent in a second language sometimes finds themselves thinking in that language. Imagine thinking in Freak! I suspect that folks like Evan Parker, Bailey, Chadbourne, etc., who've been encouraged and even PAID to speak in Freak on a stage must think in Freak as often as they do in English or whatever their birth tongue is. Again, I don't want folks thinking that I mean Freak in the Tod Browning sideshow sense. I'm just playing off of the phrase "he got his freak on," because that's what I think free-improvisors do. So, to get back to the guy who's learning the guitar, I think you could cultivate and nurture the improvisor in you by letting it tell you what the language "Michael Howes Freak" sounds like -- vocuabulary, accent, squeaky or growly voice, etc. The dangers in this split personality business are pretty obvious, but the benefits are too, for zornlisters and anyone else who's heard Evan Parker go for a half hour without seeming to take a breath. whew! he said pretentiously William Crump - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 15:25:42 -0700 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: birkin's marriages On Fri, 06 Jul 2001 00:12:40 +0200 Ari wrote: > > no, you're right! i didn't know this (but therefore this list exists, isn't > it??) and did they record together? Not to my knowledge (my comment was of a humoristic nature). Patrice. NP: DOUBLE-WASH: Marchetti, Voice Crack, Noetinger (Grob) - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2001 00:35:41 +0200 From: Ari Subject: Re: birkin's marriages >>=20 >> no, you're right! i didn't know this (but therefore this list exists, is= n't >> it??) and did they record together? >=20 > Not to my knowledge (my comment was of a humoristic nature). >=20 ok, but as they were married, it could've been... "mon nom est bond, james bond 069, l'homme =E9rotique" np: JS Bach violoncello solo suites I-VI (played by paolo beschi, one of my favourites) ari - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 18:48:14 -0400 From: "David Beardsley" Subject: Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) It's been a long while since I read Graham Lock's Forces In Motion, but doesn't Braxton refer to this as developing a language? David Beardsley - ----- Original Message ----- From: William Crump >It seems to me that it must be > like having multiple personalities, and at least one of those personalities > speaks a language called "Chadbourne Freak" or "Zorn Freak" or "Bailey Freak" > or whatever. Speaking Freak outside a musical context makes it difficult to > get by -- imagine trying to buy a candy bar and a coke at the Stop'n'Rob and > being able only to speak in Phil Minton Freak. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 15:56:50 -0700 From: William Crump Subject: Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) I suspected, during the writing, that I was going to be repeating an existing theory. I haven't read the Graham Lock book, but I do recall Zorn (in the Book of Heads liner notes) referring to the etudes as being in a language that only he understood and which nobody spoke (or something like that). I like the idea of each improvisor speaking a different dialect of it. And as with any other language, some people are more articulate than others. Some are as eloquent as Disraeli, some just grunt and point. (Which can be interesting in itself sometimes.) Wm. Crump David Beardsley wrote: > It's been a long while since I read Graham Lock's Forces In Motion, > but doesn't Braxton refer to this as developing a language? > > David Beardsley > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: William Crump > > >It seems to me that it must be > > like having multiple personalities, and at least one of those > personalities > > speaks a language called "Chadbourne Freak" or "Zorn Freak" or "Bailey > Freak" > > or whatever. Speaking Freak outside a musical context makes it difficult > to > > get by -- imagine trying to buy a candy bar and a coke at the Stop'n'Rob > and > > being able only to speak in Phil Minton Freak. > > - - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 20:01:49 -0400 (EDT) From: konrad Subject: Re: free improv (was Chadbourne) On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, William Crump wrote: > I do recall Zorn (in the Book of Heads liner notes) referring to the > etudes as being in a language that only he understood and which nobody > spoke (or something like that). > David Beardsley wrote: > > > It's been a long while since I read Graham Lock's Forces In Motion, > > but doesn't Braxton refer to this as developing a language? Sorry to not have read the book either, but this metaphor of each personal idiom being a different language seems a little strained at the point where Zorn takes it to. I mean, how can it still be a language if only one person understands it? I think fundamentally a language is something that doesn't belong to a person, but to a group. We may hear Chadbourne warping tunes or Zorn blowing duck and reed strawberries, but they've come to those sounds through a long history of practice, research and give and take. It certainly makes sense to me to say that they extend an existing language though, incrementally or by breakthrough. I know it may sound like a meandering distinction to say there's a difference between saying something new in a language that's around, and extending a language that's around so that new things can be said in it. But i think the first is like practicing licks and scales and becoming fluent enough with them to make your own idiom (Zappa), and the second is like figuring out that putting metal 16mm film canister on the strings of the guitar on your lap and dropping little beads onto it can make sounds that are musical (Frith). Any great improviser does both. konrad ^Z - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V3 #489 ******************************* 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