Zornfest @ Knitting Factory 9/20-25/93
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Originally posted to rec.music.bluenote, 26 Sep 1993 17:08:12 -0400.
This week I only managed to catch Masada on Wednesday and Zorn/Frith last
night (Saturday).
My brother saw the East Asian Bar Bands piece. Apparently the keyboard
part he didn't really care for (I had a similar reaction when I saw it a
couple years ago). He described one amusing part of the Joey Baron/Sam
Bennett drum section where Baron was doing some complicated and rocking
beat that was probably in an odd meter, and Bennett was right with him, but
then Baron added some other rhythm on top of it, and Bennett immediately
yelled "Oh, you son of a bitch!". I'm sure Frith and Frisell were great...
My bro sez Frisell was doing cool stuff with a slide and volume/wah-wah
pedal. And Frith was attacking his guitar with brushes and other things.
"Even the ugly parts were beautiful" according to Rob.
My brother and Nas and I managed to show up in time for Masada on
Wednesday. It was part of the
Radical Jewish
Culture segment of the Zornfest. I should have gone to more of it since
I hadn't heard much of the music, but I'm still somewhat sick and also I have
to pay some attention to school even it does interfere with my education...
Anyway, Masada was pretty good. The program listed Sebastian Steinberg on
bass but actually it was Greg Cohen (from Thieves Quartet). I was a little
disappointed; I was looking forward to seeing Sebastian Steinberg playing
in this band again (he was in it the first time I saw them) and if it's
gonna be acoustic bass, I'd rather see Dresser... Cohen seemed to be
having a lot of trouble playing the first tune. But after that he did
fine. Maybe he just needed to warm up. Joey Baron was great of course.
He's always great.
I had planned to go to the Improvisations on Friday but I just did not feel
like going anywhere (and there was plenty of music to be seen that night
too, not just at the Knitting...) so I vegetated. Actually I had some
people at my place and I had Herbie Nichols on the stereo; I was surprised
but everyone was actually into it. After that I thought a good thing to
try would be Kenny Werner ("Introducing the Trio"). And that went over
very well! We were having a good time just hanging out so that's what we
did...
I wasn't even too thrilled going out to the Zorn/Frith duo last night.
Nobody else who was around wanted to go with me, and it was raining and I
was sick, etc. Last time I saw Frith/Zorn {I think it was April 1992,
shortly after Naked City's Marquee appearance} it was ok but not
super-inspiring. But since Frith is such an improv god I decided I'd
regret it if I didn't go. And I'm glad I did -- it was great! I got there
relatively early (8:45) and there was no way I could sit up front, it was
really crowded (I guess cuz it was a Saturday). But I got a decent seat on
the first ledge-thing behind the soundboard. Not ideal but better than all
the people crammed into the standing-room space to my right! The problem
was I was surrounded by freaks! These Europen guys were arguing with some
Americans about Zorn and Frith and jazz vs. rock vs. classical. The
Americans were saying "Zorn's not really jazz." and the Europeans were
saying "It's free jazz!" and I felt like telling them to shut the
fuck up. They didn't even know what the hell they were talking about.
These people sitting next to me never applauded after any of the tunes, and
they were talking during the music (especially the quiet parts which is
very annoying). I think they didn't like it. The fools! The mad fools!
Anyway, this was a great set. Frith is a free improv guitar monster! He
did all kinds of stuff, from heavy distortion to fast percussion to
beautiful smooth chords, screwing around with the tuning as he's playing,
whipping the strings with two towels, pouring various things on the guitar,
etc. etc. etc. And Zorn played sax, duck-calls and various mouthpieces.
He kept to the more "outside" techniques, honking and squawking and
squealing and so on for the most part, not attempting to play melodically,
which I think kept the music alive and fresh and honest. They did a really
nice blues. Frith even played slide. He sounded a little bit like Loren
Mazzacane (aka Guitar Roberts) at times, who is really cool if you like
ethereal ghostlike blues... At one point Frith had a really rocking
rhythmic groove going using both hands on the fretboard (the harmonic
rhythm was happening too, ie he was playing real chords, not just random
notes). Frith and Zorn also managed to achieve fairly good endings for the
most part, which IMHO is fairly difficult to do in free improv. Had it
been less of a madhouse and had I been feeling better I would have stayed
for the second set without question. But as it was, I had already had a
very enjoyable musical experience, so why press my luck? So I left and
went over to my brother's place and played bass for a while.
Rest assured I will see every second of
Spy vs. Spy on Monday! I've
always been enthusiastic about the idea of Joey Baron plus Ted
Epstein...
Ciao,
-Ed
PS Speaking of Ornette... Tom Harrell's upcoming album "Upswing" (Chesky),
which I heard an advance copy of, has a really boring version of "Blues
Connotation". The whole album is really boring. Actually everything I've
heard on Chesky has been more or less boring. I was not impressed with
Danilo Perez. I've never been impressed with Phil Woods. Even Joe Lovano
(who has impressed me greatly with Motian and Frisell for example) sounded
boring on this record! Oh well. BTW, they originally had Paul Motian on
drums for this recording but they decided not to use him (fired him?) for
some reason -- my brother sez it's because he's not boring enough... :)
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Last modified 18 March 1994.