April 2003 - zorn-list - mailman.xmission.com

Vijay Iyer / Mike Ladd project May 8-11 (NYC dates)
by Steve Smith 21 Apr '03

21 Apr '03

(Potentially interesting project coming up soon in NYC...) IN WHAT LANGUAGE? a song cycle of lives in transit Improvisational in nature and hybrid to the core, "In What Language?" is a work of music and poetry created and performed by Vijay Iyer and Michael Ladd, leading an eleven-member ensemble of musicians and speaking voices. The work consists of a series of poetic interior monologues by people of color negotiating the hyper-globalized setting of an international airport. Directed by Rachel Dickstein Poems performed by: LATASHA NATASHA DIGGS ALLISON EASTER MIKE LADD AJAY NAIDU musicians: Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto saxophone Dana Leong, cello & trombone Liberty Ellman, guitar Vijay Iyer, piano, keyboards Stephan Crump, bass Trevor Holder, drums Lighting & projections by Clifton Taylor THURSDAY-SUNDAY, MAY 8-11, 2003 8:00 pm - one show each night $16 members/seniors/students; $20 nonmembers post-performance Q&A on May 9 For tickets, call 212.517.ASIA http://www.asiasociety.org/pressroom/rel-what_language.html Commissioned and produced by the Asia Society, "In What Language?" is made possible with generous support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and is a sponsored project of Creative Capital Foundation. Major support for performances at the Asia Society is provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Steve Smith ssmith36(a)sprynet.com NP - The Hub, "Burn It Down," 'Live at Gugalander' (emd.pl/records)

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equipment question
by Kasra George Ahmadi 20 Apr '03

20 Apr '03

Has anybody used any Roland analog reverb/delay modules, specifically the SRE-555 or 501. Email me personally, don't need to take up space on the list. Good day. kga

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Re: Jazz Guggenheims
by William Crump 20 Apr '03

20 Apr '03

Rova and their nonprofit, Rova:Arts, struck me as playing the game about as well as it can be played. I think it was at New Music on the Mountain that I saw some really fancy printed brochure of theirs -- in my naive youth, I thought it was a bit self-aggrandizing for a sax quartet no matter how highbrow their music. Now (in my wiser late 30s as opposed to my foolish mid-30s) I see that it's a necessary public face to show to granting agencies. Zorn connection: I think I remember Zorn listed as being on Rova's board in this brochure... don't know if he still is. William Crump ---------- >From: Herb Levy <herb(a)eskimo.com> > > If you want to help the Arkestra out, help them put together a board > and staff that will look like it has a chance of sustaining the band, > help them identify funders that might be more appropriate sources of > support. Unless they have a stable non-profit business structure > together, complaining about the Arkestra not getting grants isn't > much different than complaining about them not getting air play on > country stations. >

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re: grants
by CuneiWay＠aol.com 20 Apr '03

20 Apr '03

Skip wrote: >Maybe moreso, because this purports to be >different. But Patricia Barber -- a very well-positioned person with a >pronouncedly intellectual socio-political adgenda and a deal with Blue >Note >-- wins out. more and more the major labels are having their artists (or these artists themselves) are trying for these types of arts grants, which, of course, makes it ever *more* difficult for the small fry to get their hands on something like this type of help with their projects. I have SOME familiarity with how this all works and Herb's letter is basically spot-on. Of all the US artists I work with, the only person who has ever had any kind of luck whatsoever getting a grant for his work is guitarist/composer Nick Didkovsky. Other artists (most notably saxist/composer George Cartwright - who I personally think extremely highly of as a composer) has never been able to get anything, despite having a pretty good track record and the 'smarts' and organizational skills to 'play by the rules' as Herb basically put it. >Then again, I >doubt that Sonny Rollins addressed them and HE got the Guggenheim. Did somebody (grant writer? management? record label?) address them ON BEHALF of Sonny? That's what I would guess. Part of my day-to-day job is writing support letters on behalf of my artists/bands 'to whom it may concert' when/if my artists apply for these grants, so I've seen a bit of the process. Elsewhere, it's quite different: Many, many of my French, Canadian, English, Dutch and Belgian artists have gotten at least some money or support from grants; there's just more money for the arts in other places. How you feel about this (and how this is paid for) is another story.... <grin> Steve Cuneiform Records

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Re: Jazz Guggenheims
by Herb Levy 20 Apr '03

20 Apr '03

Patricia Barber and Sonny Rollins received Guggenheim fellowships as individuals. As I've written since the start of this exchange, fellowships are a way to support individuals, there's no need for a non-profit structure, just an application that gets all the way through the process. On the other hand, it's extremely unlikely in the current funding climate that an organization will be very successful in receiving grants if the organization isn't a well-run non-profit business. It's not simply a matter of the Arkestra showing up for gigs on time more often than they did in the past. Virtually no granting agencies will provide funding for arts organizations that are not standard non-profits with a 501c3, board of directors, staff, business structure, budget review process, audits, long-range plan, etc. The less like that the Arkestra is, the less they're likely to receive grant support from ANY institutional sources. This has absolutely nothing to do with the relative value of the Arkestra, & it's not about need. No responsible funding agency is going to give money to an arts organization that doesn't look like it can handle it. There's no state constitution in the US that will allow public arts funding agencies to give grants to an arts organization that's not a non-profit. Nearly every governmental arts funding agency has additional limits on the structure of the organizations they can support. Very, very few private funding agencies will do this in very rare cases. Some individuals with deep pockets who also don't care about the tax advantages for charitable contributions will support organizations that aren't non-profit, but the individual has to really love the work. Every funding organization, whether it's public or private, will go over panel comments and let you know what looked good and bad about an application package. This information is worth as much as a grant award, cause with it, an organization can learn how they can make their approaches more effective. If the Arkestra is unable to become a non-profit organization that looks like it has the ability to sustain itself as such (& again, this is a lot more than just being less flakey than the band used to be under Sun Ra), there's virtually no chance that the organization will receive funding from granting organizations. If you want to help the Arkestra out, help them put together a board and staff that will look like it has a chance of sustaining the band, help them identify funders that might be more appropriate sources of support. Unless they have a stable non-profit business structure together, complaining about the Arkestra not getting grants isn't much different than complaining about them not getting air play on country stations. Or you can try to find a rich fool who'll throw money at the band regardless of what they do. -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb(a)eskimo.com

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Rising Tones Cross
by serge dautricourt 20 Apr '03

20 Apr '03

i stumbled upon a website for this video, http://members.aol.com/FilmPals/credits.htm. i was wondering if there are any plans to put this on DVD. i havent seen it but looks like it could be really good. serge _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Re: Pleistozaen Mit Wasser
by IOUaLive1＠aol.com 19 Apr '03

19 Apr '03

In a message dated 4/19/2003 4:24:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time, crowmeat(a)hotmail.com writes: > One time I played the Bailey/Taylor duo in this record store I was working > at and this guy got really pissed off about it. Said something like > "someone should teach that guitarist how to play on the proper side of the > bridge." He was fuming. > > I was a little too surprised and tongue-tied at his anger to explain that > the guitarist was actually mostly playing muted strings and harmonics --- > or that he should have been more concerned about that freak who didn't seem > to know the piano strings had keys and hammers (at least for like the first > 10 or 20 minutes of the performance). > > or that he should just fucking relax a little and listen to the sounds > themselves rather than judge the proper musicianship of the guys making the > sounds. It's a beautifully disjointed mess of a > record/artifact/performance. > > > > > > > >From: Zach Steiner > >To: zorn-list(a)mailman.xmission.com > >Subject: Pleistozaen Mit Wasser > >Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 14:54:43 -0500 > > > >Can any one comment on this duo of Cecil Taylor and Derek Bailey? Sounds > >intriguing. > > I love this CD ......

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Re: Pleistozaen Mit Wasser
by Crowmeat Bob 19 Apr '03

19 Apr '03

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Re: Jazz Guggenheims
by Herb Levy 19 Apr '03

19 Apr '03

skip Heller <velaires(a)earthlink.net> wrote: on 4/17/03 8:56 AM, Samerivertwice(a)aol.com at Samerivertwice(a)aol.com wrote: > Fred Hersch, Patricia Barber and Henry Threadgill all received Guggenheim > grants this year. Dave Douglas is closing in... > > (Or did Dave already receive one?) > > Tom Patricia Barber? Is there no quality control in the grants process? Meanwhile, Marshall Allen has no grant funding. If I wasn't revelling in the fact that the world's not fair, I'd be pissed off right now. skip h Uh, before you get a wild hair up your butt on this, Skip, has Marshall Allen actually applied for grants that he hasn't received, and if he has, are his applications any good? In nearly all grant situations (and I've been on a lot of grant panels over the years), artists are often their own worst enemies: submitting badly chosen, badly recorded work samples that aren't relevant to what they are asking to support (flute solos with a request to do a music theater project is one example I remember) and/or don't accurately reflect what they really can do (sending the newest recording cause it's readily available rather than the best recording). And then there are lots of very badly written project descriptions and/or artist statements. If an artist doesn't make a great case for their work, even if there's a sympathetic ear on a panel, it can be VERY difficult to convince panelists who aren't familiar with what the artist does that the application is competitive. Grantsmanship is largely about submitting the best work sample you can, being very clear about what you want to do and providing support materials that make it seem as if you can do what you propose. If you provide all that, you'll usually make the first cut. If an application doesn't have all that, it's got to be from someone that the majority of the panel knows and agrees that the work is excellent and, especially now that panels and the applicant pool are more mixed (thankfully it's not just about "classical" music anymore), there are very few applicants for which this is likely to be the case. Yeah, the world isn't always fair, but a lot of artists really don't understand how to present their work in this context. -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb(a)eskimo.com

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Whatever happened to?
by JSub＠aol.com 19 Apr '03

19 Apr '03

Seeing the 10" by Stefan Jaworzyn that someone had for sale made me wonder: Whatever happened to this guy? Its been years since the Ascension/Descension titles came out and as far as I know there hasn't been anything since. He also had a great label, Shock, that put out some interesting titles, including Rudolph Grey/Blue Humans. Which is another person thats seemed to have disappeared (or at least not released anything in a while). Does anyone have any current info about these folks? jeff

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