on 11/11/02 10:44 AM, Tom Benton at rancor@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu wrote:
skip heller wrote...
John -- You make a good point here, but you might want to take it a step further: You're John Zorn, you've time-consumingly written and arranged a bunch of music...
You think? Admittedly, I haven't heard the electric masada band, but based on some of these filmworks records it doesn't seem like he's working very hard at all some of the time. Unless the time-consuming part is figuring out where he put his rolodex. Don't get me wrong, he's a monstrously talented guy when he's on, but I suppose I just flinch a little bit at seeing 'music composed by JZ' stamped on 'Trembling Before God' just as a for instance (a record I enjoy quite a lot, for the record).
Point taken, on one hand. But how many people call up John Zorn and try to get Tzadik deals? How many guys in his various ensembles call him and try to negotiate secret deals for just a little more breas than the other guys in the band? How many people around him are jockeying for his favor?
But anyway, I suppose that's beside the point. John Zorn is certainly not a human jukebox, but he may be a talented asshole. As someone mentioned earlier, maybe this is such a part of his schtick at this point that he can't just solve problems like a stern but nevertheless civil human being; still, given the choice between ruining some affectionate if massively inconsiderate idiot's day or not, I'm a fan of the latter. (and this doesn't even touch on the sad witnesses to this massively unprofessional explosion...)
I agree with you on that point, but I'm willing to cut John more slack than most guys get out of me. He's got more people and compositions to deal with. OTTH, I have walked off the bandstand and told people in the audience to shut up, usually out of earshot of the rest of the audience. In one case, I did walk off the bandstand and get physical with somebody, but he was being really obnoxious, not just talking loud while we were playing, but verbally abusing a waitress in the club where we were playing. The rest of the audience didn't seem to mind. sh sh