From: skip heller <thisparadise@sbcglobal.net>
As for my beef with the semantics, perhaps. But words is what we do here. The minute somebody gets into "Zorn should make another record that sounds like this other record he made that I liked", it's past "I didn't like that" and right into "I know better than the artist", I get angry. That's not a technical call -- that's bad manners.
There's no necessary connection between an audience wanting an artist to produce another record like the one previously liked and an audience "knowing better than the artist." There are any number of instances that we, as members of an audience, wish an artist would produce more in the same vein of a particular work. And that's not disrespect at all. It's an issue of desire. The argument here assumes that the artist knows best about what can be done. That's a dubious call. There's no reason to worship artists just because they produce music. We can appreciate their work or not, but their reception as artists has everything to do with how an audience reacts to their work. If Efren or Zach feel that critically, Zorn has overdone the Masada project and should move on to something else, that's a legitimate complaint coming from people who obviously admire his work. In fact, Efren originally said, "There are a few ones which look great, but I keep wondering why another Masada ST with so much happening last September at Tonic!" And Zach's claim was similar--a desire to hear a recording of some of the other work that was produced at the Zorn tribute. No one is saying that Zorn is "wrong" to produce another Masada ST CD. They are saying they don't like the choice of doing so. Ultimately, obviously, Zorn has the final say in what he puts out. And we (audience) have the final say in terms of both consumption and judgment. The other point about Nina Rota or Cecil Taylor is really not apropos. Zorn is far more eclectic than these artists in terms of the styles of music he produces and the number of different projects he takes on. It's much more legitimate to criticize someone like Zorn for working too long in a musical form since he's built a career out of not doing so. I happen to agree with Efren, Zach, and Patrice that Masada has gotten old. I don't buy these CDs anymore. Tiring of someone's work doesn't mean I'm telling him what to do, though I may wish he did something else. On a final note, and I won't get into the issue of someone's arguments being "incoherent," "unsound," "invalid," "illogical" or what have you, let's not get into ripping people about their abilities in English. Much of what passes as native speaker English around lists such as this one are riddled with slang, colloquialisms, obscure idioms, hip dialect, etc., such that any non-native would have a good deal of trouble at times following all the riffs. And some of the native speaker writing, when it isn't full of such phrasing, is badly written. I'm not here to correct grammar, one of the things I do for a living, but seeing the trials that non-native speakers undergo in learning a new language, not to mention my own attempts to learn other languages, I don't think anyone around here or anywhere else is in any position to critique someone else's English. Just be glad that they're making an attempt, despite the fact that when we write around here we almost always assume that our audience is our own countrymen. There are people on the Zorn list from all over the world, many of whom probably don't write as often as they would like for fear of being ridiculed for their English ability.