on 12/12/03 1:03 AM, Efrén del Valle at efrendv@yahoo.es wrote:
I suggest you to read my paragraph again more carefully. I'm clearly saying that Zorn WOULD probably make more money out of an album in the style of THE GIFT!
Oh. Money. Much different.
Dozens of people have expressed similar feelings about the Masada project here and nothing happened, Skip. Something personal maybe? And why are you so sure of what Zorn thinks? Some years ago he said it was his vehicle for playing sax again. The reasons seem to be quite different in 2003.
Well, a conversation I had with him earlier this year -- which I won;t quote directly because personal conversations are off the record -- left me under the impression that he cares deeply about having a body of jewish music, and that he feels it should be represented by recording it. Also -- food for thought and nothing more: Any musician will tell you that a project that begins for one reason can often open other doors. Masada definitely began as a vehicle for the saxophone aspect of Zorn. But it became a vehicle for him to express a whole other series of things. And once that happens, you don;t don;t generally give up creating until you feel there's nothing more. So his reasons are very likely different in '03 than, say, '97. I'm shocked that none of the classically-oriented listers brought this up: Since Zorn is a child of CRI-type labels and has found his way onto the "legit" music radar... Well, put it this way -- so-called legit composers fr Bach to Elliot carter and beyond usually warrant the recording of a full cycle of things (generally instrument-based) in their body of work. Certain types of pianists record complete Chopin cycles, Schoenberg cycles, Mozart cycles of the composer-in-question's piano music. Certain string quartets do the same. Most often, the composers are dead by the time this happens, so while we get a complete recorded cycle of their work, we don;t know how the composer intended for it to sound. Zorn is a composer who has earned the consideration of a complete recorded cycle of his string music. More the better, that complete cycle can be recorded under his supervision, so we have the benefit of hearing the composer's conception of that work. There's a lot of it, so it's likely to take years for him to complete a Masada String Trio cycle. Much as it took Glenn Gould years to massacre the complete Mozart piano sonatas.
And musically, I'm pretty qualified to discuss someone's technical resources on an instrument.
I don't know in your social environment, but here self-appraisal is not too nice.
Nice or not, ensemble music performance is my living, and I wouldn't be able to make that living unless I could hear other people's skills. I certainly wouldn;t be able to audition anyone if I couldn;t tell if they could play or not. (Anyone who has ever wondered why I -- a guitar player -- never jump on the Fahey threads: I don;t get Fahey. I know he's incredible and all, but I guess he's a genius who's operating in a language I don;t speak.)
I must express myself horribly or you don't get anything. If you're such an artistry-defendant, then do it all the time, and not only when someone talks about one of your untouchables, that's what I'm saying. You must be one of those who think that a writer who says good things about you is an informed, respectable, knowledgeable critic, and those who dislike your albums are totally illiterate, mental retarded wannabees to whom someone gave a pen by mistake.
Artists should defend one another as artists. If you recognize someone as a real artist -- whether that person if John Zorn or even Justin Timberlake (I'm sure there's someone out there) -- the first thing should be respect for the right of an artist to deal with his vision on his own terms. That's a dual thing. The artist should respect the audience by doing the absolute best you can do, but probably first should respect the muse. Once you've taken your orders from the muse, you work hard to bring it as good as you can to the audience. They're the ones who spend money on your work. That said: All you owe them is the best possible version of your vision. Nothing more. (Example of artist disrespect -- when Tom Waits did live shows behind MULE VARIATIONS, he played four nights at the Wiltern here in LA. Tickets were ALL seats $65, which is a lot of bread for a four piece band who lives in LA, ie no hotel rooms, and the road crew duties were minimal since the players all brought their own stuff and left it standing for four days. There was no set onstage, nor any elaborate stage design. The only party that needed hotel rooms was Tom Waits and Immediate Family. I saw the third of four shows, and THE BAND WAS NOT WELL REHEARSED. How did I know? The bass player clearly didn;t know the tunes. REALLY clearly. Looking at Tom's hands to see what the chords were. Before you ask "how did YOU know?", ask any musician on the list what that looks like. We've all seen it in bar bands and we know unmistakably what that looks like. And Larry Taylor was doing it. I thought this disrespectful of Tom Waits, and it's really hurt my previously high opinion of him since. if you're gonna charge that much for a show that doesn;t cost much to put on, make sure the band is on fire.) As for critical reception to my own work (why you mention this, I have no idea), I've been lucky. I've had very few negative reviews, and the less positive ones I have read of my own work have generally been written by critics who had the same reservations I did about the record at hand, or who heard a hole I missed spotting, so I've been fortunate to be reviewed by very responsible critics as a rule, good and bad. Except for one -- whose wife I used to date. But I would offer that a critic with that releationship to the artist is suffering from conflict of interest issues. That said, it wasn't a bad review.
Again, your reaction is TOTALLY OVER THE TOP.
It would be even worse for you if you were in the room with me. I apologize for the name-calling -- to the group -- but I just have a real problem with people who think they know what artists should be doing. Instead of being thankful that there is art in the world for the sake of making something beautiful, they're thankful to have art in the world so they can express their viewpoint about it. It's the last I will say on the subject at all. skip h