Zornfest 9/93: Zorn's program notes
The tape/performance piece MIKHAIL ZOETROPE is both embarassing and
revealing. An early crossroads where the influences of Kagel, Braxton and
Godard are in full bloom. Though not as dynamic or as directed as my
later, more structurally refined works like SPILLANE, GODARD, or ELEGY,
there are a few outrageous moments that, while they may not make up for the
rambling self-indulgent nature of the piece, are at least good for a few
hoots.
Morton Feldman's exactly notated music was once described as "Morty
playing his own graph pieces" and I wonder if the same can be said of me.
Like all my other compositions, I try to write music that is a challenge
and yet fun to play, and most importantly, music that reveals its secrets
only after scrupulous study. Memento Mori for string quartet and Angelus
Novus for wind octet are two recent pieces I had hoped to present tonight
but because of contractual obligations in the commission it became
impossible.
Looking out at the most pit in Tokyo a few years back I remarked to
Laswell: "This is it! We've waiting ten years for this... slam dancing to
free improvisation!" Of course it was a bit of an exaggeration.
Painkkiller has developed a method of improvising in a rock format that's
very idiosyncratic, but improvising it is, and the Sonny Rollins trio it
ain't! The unsung heroes of Painkiller: Oz Fritz, our sound engineer;
Tomoyo T.L., our cover artist.
Elegy is too important a piece for me not to include in this
retrospective, but it is very complicated to present live (as yet we've
never done it). The piece is loosely based on Boulez's "Le Marteau sans
Maitre", both in its instrumentation and in its pitch matrices, and is
dedicated to Jean Genet. Film maker Ela Troyano and I go back 18 years
together to the days when we used to hang out with Jack Smith and Richard
Foreman, so it seemed a perfect opportunity for her to present one of her
screen performances.
The music for Cynical Hysterie Hour is the only recording I've done for a
MAJOR label (CBS Sony) and as one would expect it dropped out of print
almost before it came out.
In 1990 I was asked to do a set of ten commercials for Nike's 180
campaign by the advertising firm of Weiden and Kennedy. I think only three
were finally used. Tonight we will show my work tapes of this strange
project.
Named after one of the greatest Chinese actresses of all time, this
post-Cobra game piece is the first to build longer static moments into its
structure. It increases the number of programmable memories (which can
also be erased) and specifies three narrators to read in Chinese dialects
(Ruan Lingyu spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese).
The favorite actress of legendary director King Hu, Xu Feng was one of
the biggest stars in the Chinese film industry and more recently has become
a powerful producer. Game pieces after Cobra tended to be more tangible
than abstract, more dramatic, and this piece, written directly after Cobra,
focuses in on strategic elements resulting in a fast paced competitive game
not unlike the kung fu films Xu Feng starred in. The introduction of sound
MODIFIERS and the special instrumentation (although it has been done with
six drummers) helps give the piece a distinctive identity.
Dealing with this subject matter was a very intimidating thing. It was
not just something I wanted to do, it was something I felt I had
to do. I just thank YHVH I was able to find musicians like these to work
with. This piece deals with the Jewish experience before, during and after
the Holocaust, taking us right up to today; here in NYC. (We are
Gariin -- the new settlement.) Much of this piece was generated through
the use of GEMATRIA (Jewish numerology), which functions along with pitch
matrices derived from moments of Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron, to unify the
varied styles and compositional techniques, the most eclectic I've yet used
in a single work.
John and I first got together for the Morricone project back in 1983, but
I'd been a major fan of his for years. Working with him is such an
inspiration, his feeling for the music is so deep it goes way beyond just
notes on the page. He's really living it, and that's the only way to make
real music. When he takes his solo it's "get out of the way, let the boss
man speak".
Seeing DNA live at CBGB's I said to myself, "Can't this be done with
improvisation?" Locus Solus was my first attempt to synthesize rock with
structural improvisation. Unlike GO, which puts the rock song form into a
game piece format, the Locus Solus "rules" exist as a series of hand cues
that eventually got discarded as we learned the "concept". They still
exist as a footnote in COBRA/operation 2.
Guitarist Duck Baker raved about Sonny Clark at a time when I was heavy
into Konitz and Tristano, and he gave me a copy of Cool Struttin' to check
out. It turned me around. I began searching, learning to read Japanese so
I could read the backs of all those Japanese reissues. We still play this
music because we love it.
This was my most recent soundtrack, and the band was so good I just had
to do a gig with them. This was also the first time I recorded on piano.
Comping behind a soloist is one of the great pleasures in life. My
influences on piano: Dick Twardzick, Bill Triglia, Bill Evans, early Cecil
Taylor.
I had been used to improvising sitting down (at a table with game calls)
using a liberal amount of silence when News for Lulu came along and I found
myself blowing the horn, standing up playing 100% on every tune, pushing
myself to keep up with the two geniuses I was working with. The result: I
landed in the hospital for a hernia operation. While on the table at Beth
Israel the aenesthetist says: "Hey! You're John Zorn! Last week we had
Jack Gifford! How about some music?" He puts on an Ornette Coleman tape
while the doctor tugs and pulls at my groin. "Time for some sedation..."
I drew upon everything I had learned up to that time in creating these
pieces. Film theory in particular helped define structure here, and in
many ways these kind of pieces function more like aural movies, harkening
us back to the elusive Theatre of Musical
Optics.
This band was basically a composition workshop. When I stopped
hearing/writing for the band, we broke up. Compositionally the challenge I
set for myself was to see how much I could come up with given the
limitations of the simple sax, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums format. These
are, as promised, our last live performances.
These pieces are perhaps my most misunderstood compositions. Creating
game oriented pieces for two players was always a challenge, and this set
of three dramatic narratives are my answer. These pieces deal more with
the traditional parameters of music than my other game pieces: scales,
chords and rhythms are the subject of each performer's focus, in addition
to the musical qualities of the spoken texts. The idea was to create a
kind of artificial tradition, as if these were actually bands you might see
in some southeast asian bar.
The Cobra phenomenon has exploded in the past few years, and performances
are now taking place monthly here at the Knitting Factory, as well as in
San Francisco and Tokyo. The result: I feel like the piece is already
public domain (and it's 10 years old). I've been hosed! Tonight's Cobra
has been organized by Mark Degliantoni.
The connection between free jazz and hardcore punk seemed so natural to
me, and it seems to make sense to many today, but back when we were
touring, putting this concept together people didn't know what the fuck was
going on. Drummer Ted Epstein ("Ted Bundy") helped bring the power level
up even more -- in Philly our promoter apologized to the audience before
our gig and the local critic stormed out after the first tune over-turning
a table and kicking through a glass door in the process. In Japan Spy
vs. Spy performed with two blues guitarists and Yamatsuka Eye added... so
Dresser you'd better check your sheets.
This was the first large scale game piece, and was performed up at
Columbia University with a piece by Eugene Chadbourne, "The English
Channel". The Archery album was one I waited years to make, and although
1000 copies were made, a hundred or so went up in flames when a friends car
exploded on ninth avenue. We got out unscatched."
This game piece, from 1983 brought together an improvising noise trio
with a classical trio of piano, harp and oboe, and a Locus Solus group.
This is its first performance in ten years.
I was actually commissioned to write a game piece by the University of
Wisconsin at River Falls, a school that has a history of associations with
musicians like Feldman, Cage, Earle Brown, etc. This is my quirkiest and
most complex game piece to date, and in some strange way seems to fit the
alchemical bunker generation of improvisers here in New York. The group
tonight has been chosen by David Shea.
Bezique is a card game that originated in France, and is based on games
played over 350 years ago. It became particularly popular in the
mid-nineteent century. The standard game is for two players, but there are
variants for three or more players. The popular American game of pinochle
is derived from bezique.
MICHAEL DORF, DAVE, THE STONES, KAORU, KIM SU, IKUE AND TO ALL THE
MUSICIANS FOR HELPING TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
IT'S IMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE LONG LIST OF MUSICIANS WHO FOR ONE
REASON OR ANOTHER HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS EVENT; THEIR
INFLUENCE CANNOT BE MEASURED. ALTHOUGH SOME OF THEM ARE GONE OR HAVE LEFT
THE FIELD OF MUSIC, THEY WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. WITHOUT THEIR SUPPORT
AND INSPIRATION I NEVER COULD HAVE SURVIVED. THANK YOU!
JZ
This document is maintained by edp@panix.com (Ed Price).
Last modified 18 March 1994.