Zornfest @ Knitting Factory 9/11-12/93
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Originally posted to rec.music.bluenote, 13 Sep 1993 03:25:37 -0400.
Went to the first gig of a band called Snap Wilson at CB's 313. An
enjoyable set. The sax player sounded best during some of his solos when
he was improvising full force; when he was playing the heads I didn't like
his sound -- it lacked strength or confidence or something. The guitarist
was not overly impressive when improvising OTOH -- stylistically sort of
like a combination of Marc Ribot and Elliott Sharp perhaps? Often I didn't
think he was fitting in as well as he could have been. But I had gone cuz
fellow r.m.b reader and panix denizen Reuben R. was playing bass. (Hi
Reuben.) I enjoyed his playing quite a bit; I was quite surprised when he
told me after the gig that he'd only been playing upright for 4 months
(after years of electric)! There was one solo where he was bowing that I
thought could have been better, but apart from that I have no criticisms!
The band was a typical (and fun I thought) downtown jazz/rock/funk/noise
sort of thing, with some nice material.
After Snap Wilson I went back to my brother's place for a little while.
He and Nas were playing (guitar and bass, respectively). After a little
listening, I grabbed Nas' conga and joined in for a tune. It was one of
our best jams I think. It was fairly long and went through several phases
and developed in interesting ways. All three of us were playing things
that fit and complemented each other I thought (this doesn't always happen
so well). It even had a good ending, which I always pray for! (OK,
admittedly I had been playing really loud on the conga, and started fading
out, which is a pretty obvious cue, but still it's encouraging...) Then
Nas offered me the bass so we did some more. Having beaten my hands to a
pulp on his drum, I kept it mostly more or less mellow on the bass. In
fact I found myself wishing for a fretless bass... All three of us ending
together on the first tune was a pleasant surprise. It's nearly miraculous
that we came up with just as effective an ending for the second piece. And
this one was not a fade out, it actually involved harmony! I believe it
was actually a rather cool modulation that we landed on even. Sort of an
ending chord that was "final" and yet "new" at the same time, which is
something I like to achieve for endings to mellow tonal free improv
tunes... Playing solo these things are possible (although sometimes
difficult) to nail; with other players it's that much more difficult. So I
was glad it happened. I hope it will continue happening. (It can only get
easier with experience, I imagine?)
The first set was apparently pretty long (72 minutes); this one was even
longer (more than 90 minutes). As I've mentioned before, I'm not that
crazy about Zorn's more "straightahead" playing. And Wayne Horvitz isn't
one of my favorite pianists either to be honest. Basically the gig lived
up to my modest expectations, and there were some moments that were great
anyway. I don't think Zorn really has the combination of facility with the
sax plus the harmonic/melodic sense needed to play this kind of music.
Same goes for Wayne Horvitz. Frequently they simply fail to cover the
changes in an interesting way (when they appear to by "trying" to do so).
Wayne often left ideas stranded, never to be developed. But as usual there
was genuine music going on as well, when they weren't letting the "style"
dictate their playing. And Bobby Previte was doing some cool things with
the drums. He would layer totally skewed second rhythms on a cymbal with
the rest of the pulse he was playing. And at the end when he was taking a
solo, he would crash on the drums, then he'd scream while gesturing as if
he were Zorn playing the sax. Zorn seemed amused -- as did the audience.
For the ending of one of the last tunes, they were all leaning on the last
note, and Previte started screaming again, and this time Zorn "obeyed" and
shrieked on the sax as directed. Despite my reservations about certain
aspects of the playing, I still enjoyed the music quite a bit.
Went into a studio (Tu Casa on Ave B) with Rob (my brother, on guitar),
Hugh (drums), and Ryuhei (bass) to jam and work on some material Hugh wants
to put together. My brother got a new distortion pedal so I got to use his
old one on my keyboard. I'm not sure I consciously applied Elliott Sharp's
two-handed guitar technique to the piano (perhaps combining it with a
little of Ned Rothenberg's style as well), but with the distortion it
sounds quite similar in some ways to his playing... Freeing up a hand to
do pitch-bending resulted in yet a different but still E#-like sound,
screeching and wailing, etc. It was a fun jam (although virtually the
whole thing was centered around the key of E...). In addition to the usual
heavy-metal/industrial/funk kind of stuff, Ruhe did some nice fast walking,
which meshed well with the harmonic shifts I was throwing at him. I hadn't
played loud noisy hard-core shit like this for a while (well, not on
keyboard). There was one part that sounded exactly like some of
"Possession" (God): one note being repeatedly and metallically slammed to a
heavy beat with lots of noise shrieking around it.
I have a theory that people in NYC might tend to produce this kind of music
simply because the city is so fucking loud. Keith Jarrett can be satisfied
with his tablas and harpsichords, cuz he lives someplace in rural New
Jersey where Silence exists!
This is a band Zorn put together to do some soundtrack work for a major
film {Walter Hill's "Tresspass"}. But his music (and all the other music
they had commissioned) was not used in the film when it was released.
Fucking Typical... The gig was broadcast live on the radio as they played.
It was great. The first part of the set consisted of the soundtrack, a
long suite with different sections. For the most part the audience was
silent during the breaks, but after one particularly fantastic part,
everyone just had to applaud. Baron was a monster as usual. He was
absolutely rocking when playing brushes. Zorn played mostly sax, but near
the end he moved to piano for one part. His playing was effective,
although not in the least virtuousic. In fact he looked like he could
barely play at all, the way his fingers were splayed out. A lot of four
note voicings (2 + 2). His comping and soloing was not technically
impressive but musically it was entirely adequate. I was suprised that he
didn't do more of a discordant, cluster-oriented freak-out on the piano --
he was much more restrained, even "tasteful" (!) one might say, than he is
on sax. I liked the writing and the improvising for this music very much.
Zorn was doing some great playing today (in fact it's one of the best
examples of his more lyrical, melodic playing I've heard yet, I would say).
Dave Douglas was great too (saw him play with Myra Melford's trio in April
at the Knitting Factory, which was a great concert BTW). For the second
half of the set they played Masada tunes. Looked to me like Baron was
reading them for the first time. I don't know about the other players.
Greg Cohen couldn't quite keep up with the furious tempo Baron set on one
tune where the bass is walking really fast -- when I saw Masada with Mark
Dresser (and not Baron) it was a different story... In fact, I didn't
think this was a particularly great execution of the Masada tunes. Perhaps
it was because they weren't familiar enough with the music to forget about
playing it right and actually *do something* with it. Most of the tunes
just didn't seem to evolve or go anywhere, even if at any given point in
time they were playing well. Give Baron a chance to familiarize himself
with the charts (even so he kicked ass!) and get Dresser back on bass, and
*then* I'd be pretty excited... The combination of Douglas (who didn't
seem to be having any trouble) and Zorn worked well I thought.
If Thieves Quartet hadn't start so late (scheduled for 8, they didn't go on
until around or after 8:45), I might have had a chance to check out Elliott
Sharp's guitar quartet (Guitarorrists) at CB's 313. Oh well. Also noticed
what appeared to be some good jazz at "Yardbird Suite" when I walked by (I
wanted to see Dewey Redman's quartet there but I just didn't get around to
it).
Ciao,
-Ed
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Last modified 18 March 1994.