[NewMusic] breathtakingly bad

[Phillip Greenlief]

-----Original Message-----
On Behalf Of David Slusser
Subject: [NewMusic] breathtakingly bad

On Jun 26, 2007, at 10:07 PM, Tom Duff wrote:
>
> It's pretty obvious that Hadju and Zorn differ fundamentally on the  
> nature
> of music and the composer's role in it.  My experience is that when  
> people
> have aesthetic disagreements and one of them gets angry (I think  
> accusing
> an artist of being "elementally corrupt" entails anger) it's usually
> because his inability to understand the other's point of view leads  
> him to
> believe that his opponent cannot really hold his stated position  
> and so
> must be insincere.

Wow.  Thanks, Tom, and the ensuing thread.
David Hajdu's biography of Strayhorn, "Lush
Life", is incredibly great, on all levels, so it
was amazing to read him tear into someone
else I'm familiar with.

PG:
Thanks, David - great post.

I was enjoying reading this thread on the road but never had time to
comment on it. Then I got out of email range and when I returned to
Slusser's comment, I found he had said many things I would have said. I
also enjoyed Hadju's book on Strayhorn, so I was also disappointed to
read the article on JZ.

Mostly I didn't enjoy reading Hadju's piece because it was so painful to
read it. Painful in that it was clear this guy was writing about
something he hated - despite his attempts at objectivity, there's venom
floating in the most innocent of his sentences in this article...

Anyway, great response Mr. Slusser. Write on.