Zappa.com

Ok folks. FZ's been gone 20 years. We're all familiar with the usual 'Zappa-orientated' cliches (from last century-Berg, Webern Stravinsky, Pendereck, Bartok, Boulez etc).

What is happening with contemporary music?

I must confess, most of the music I listen to lags behind what is really contemporary by a few years at least (apart from the heavy rock/metal stuff that I really like.)

Who is pushing the boundaries these days?

Are we all stuck in a Zappa-prescribed old-fashioned paradigm?

I need some new inspiration.

Polydigm? Buffalo? Let's hear it!

I'm a huge fan of DAAU. Who have been making original music since 1996, no two albums the same. Give them a try!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzce9VrJTYM

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It all sucks. Don't bother.

(calvin2hikers, saving people's time since 1989)

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Wow! I listened to that song and immediately went to amazon and found a used copy of We Need New Animals for $.35! Can't wait to hear it. Thanks for suggesting.

That's a neat, rare find, but this track is from their first self-titled album. Look for Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung.
Of that album, there are two versions available: the home-spun release with photos of commando style band members, but after the band decided to get on Sony Classical's label, the album was re-released: with the photos replaced by a picture of maggots.

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Well, the David Byrne/St. Vincent album is current, and has some very cool horn arrangements.

There are also many guitarists putting out perfectly good albums (Oz Noy, Scott Henderson, etc.).

Some of the alternative bands are pretty good.

Tin Hat and Carla Kilstadt and their offshoots (spelling?) have put out consistently good stuff.

Granted, it's slim pickings, but if you look you'll find some nice stuff. If we don't battle the natural complacence in ourselves, we'll become dinosaurs. But if anyone is hoping to find an equivalent to Frank, well, I don't really think it can happen twice in a lifetime....

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Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

Try Ed Palermo, or the Standard Orbit Quartet, Brubeck Brothers, Diana krall, David Benoit, the Gadd gang.... lots of jazz.

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I think I was wondering more about 'contemporary classical' music (I know that is almost a contradiction in terms).

well i've been listening to a lot of john adams lately, including this 2012 release:



also this a lot, even though it's from 1996:



if you're interested, there's a radio station in princeton,nj, wprb, where every wednesday morning is devoted largely to 20th-21st century music.
the show is called classical discoveries with marvin rosen, from 5:30am to 11:30 am est, and then classical discoveries goes avant-garde from 11:30am-1pm est. links are below. the shows can be streamed.

he plays a lot of great stuff, by "modern-day composers".

http://www.classicaldiscoveries.org/

http://www.wprb.com/index.html

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I can't tell when you're telling the truth.
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Thanks 'Jar. I'll check that out.

One of my John Adams CD's came with the wrong disc in the cover...Johnny Adams..blues artist heh
I didn''t bother going back to the shop..it was a throwout bin deal in the 80's

Hey Quilt, there's probably little point in asking me. If you remember FZ, fairly early in his career, said he'd stopped listening to much other music because he wanted to develop his own voice. Well, I'm no FZ, but I'm a composer and I take my own music seriously and I don't have much time any more to investigate other music. Most of the time I have spare for music I spend working on my own compositions. I'm aiming to get a band together and playing gigs before 2013 is finished and that's just step one if I can manage it.

Watch this space! (or not if you don't like my music)

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

If it's modern classical you are looking for, I don't know much, but I do enjoy Elvis Costello's Il Sogno, with Tilson-Thomas. If you like that, you might want to check out his Juliet Letters with the Brodsky Quartet.

The 'contemporary classical' music I sample sounds like "movie music" or "television music" or "music made for commercials.
Maybe I too am jaded by FZ's styles but I just haven't found a "breakthrough" composer.
Somebody needs to find the notes that haven't been played yet!

Hey, I'm listening to John Adams now, bought Short Ride In A Fast Machine / Chairman Dances / Harmonium today.

Oh, other recent composers I love are Luciano Berio and Peter Maxwell Davies's Resurrection.

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hey
F.Natural

check out some ERNST KRENEK

Ever heard about sound painting?
I participated in such an improvised orchestra, this was an amazing experience.

Hey polydigm, looking forward to hearing your music! good stuff!
I feel the same...wanna get serious this year...look out!

John Zorn continues to put out a large amount of brilliant new music -- he's definitely my favorite modern composer.

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Good writing is clear writing.

If you've never heard any before try geoffpointer.com. I finally got around to tidying up that site so that the focus is only on music.
Any examples anywhere?

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

FYI, this was taken from the classical discoveries facebook page:

[Where]

WPRB 103.3FM Princeton NJ, or on the Internet at: http://www.wprb/
[Description]

Classical Discoveries will present the 10th Annual program and the 6th 24-Hour Marathon totally devoted to music composed in the 21st century.

VIVA 21ST CENTURY - INTERNATIONAL EDITION

24-HOUR LIVE WPRB RADIO BROADCAST with Marvin Rosen

starts: Friday, December 28, 2012 - 2:00pm Eastern Standard Time
ends: Saturday, December 29, 2012 - 2:00pm.

Approximately 80 composers will have their works aired during this marathon.
Milosz Bembinow, Thomas Blomenkamp, Sylvie Bodorova,Christian Carey, Jennifer Castellano, Daniel Dorff, Hugues Dufourt, Rosemary Duxbury, Ivan Erod, Vladimir Godar, Ola Gjeilo, Jennifer Higdon, Matthew Hindson, Mary Ann Joyce-Walter, Lei Liang, Michel Lysight, Peter Machajdik, Franco Antonio Mirenzi, Andrew Rudin, Carl Ruttl, Somei Satoh, Ravi Shankar, Ylva Skog, Allan Stephenson, John Tavener, Giel Vleggaar, Joelle Wallach and many, many others.

For Internet listeners link to excellent Time Zone Converter: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

Please sign the guest list and feel free to spread the word by inviting your friends to attend this very exciting event.

Thank you

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I can't tell when you're telling the truth.
>I'm not.
How do I know anything you've said to me is...
>You don't.

Try Stabat Akish - "Nebulos" ... avant / progressive / jazz on John Zorn's label. Lots of wild sax twists and turns and electronic effects. Highly recommended.

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Come check out my brand new Prog-Blog, The Bearded Blog, where I review Progressive rock and related records and shows... http://zombywoofblog.wordpress.com/

I see between 40-50 concerts a year, the vast majority of them are with bands that came out within the past 5-12 years. So anyone claiming "There's no good music anymore," while hiding their head in a '1964-1977 hole in the sand,' is just plain lazy.

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I may be wrong, but I understood Quilt's initial message differently, because he was talking about someone "pushing the boundaries".
Methinks he meant that it was more and more difficult to find unanimously recognized key composers that were experimenting real structural evolutions and influencing their future (such as Bach, Beethoven, Ligeti, Zappa (although not unanimously recognized whatever), etc).
So I suspect he was looking for something different than 3 minutes 20 seconds calibrated industrial radio music in 4/4 and C major ... although this is not at all a criteria for bad music.
Maybe we do not focus on the structure of music anymore and are more interested in inventing new processes or instruments to produce and share music.

"blsabob23 wrote:
So anyone claiming "There's no good music anymore," while hiding their head in a '1964-1977 hole in the sand,' is just plain lazy."


No.... I believe this proves that most people's taste today is in their asses.