TexAvery/MarquisDeSade

[WKLJAZZ at aol.com]

The John Zorn/Pynchon comparison holds at least a little water, you bet.  I
am a jazz nut, and I have always felt that TRP's writing can be powerfully
compared to jazz, especially in the way it effortlessly embodies some
apparent contradictions -- funny but highly serious, fleet and effortless yet
of incredible complexity, ugly beauty, spontaeous but intensely researched,
and on and on.

The analogy to the music of John Zorn (often -- but not exclusively --
considered a jazz musician) is particularly appropriate for a few reasons not
mentioned in the first post.  First, Zorn is seen by fans, music store
employees and critics as either a jazz musician, a "thrash" artist, a film
composer or a kind of performance artist.  He wears many hats successfully
and integrates these different musical roles more completely than many of his
"one-dimensional" fans may know.  Pynchon is also certainly more than the sum
of his parts -- sometime modernist, post-modernist, political novelist,
science fiction writer, poet, parodist, etc.  In the case of both Zorn and
TRP, the trick is to see it all and to stop categorizing them, to let the
body of work become its own category.

The second parallel of interest is each man's connection to film and movies.
 Like Pynchon, Zorn has been drawn to film and the techniques associated with
movies in constructing his own art.  Zorn's interpretations of movie music
(see his album "Spillane") are among his best work, and he has written scores
for many independent films (see, if you can find it, "Thieves Quartet," a
somewhat arty caper film featuring Zorn's Ornette Coleman-esque quartet
music).  More importantly (and as the first post noted), Zorn has adopted the
concept of "cutting" between scenes to his music.  The appropriate Pynchon
parallel would be to the last portion of GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, where TRP breaks
the narrative into brief and seemingly disconnected "scenes" that ring off of
eachother in jarring and wonderful ways.  On his album "Naked City" (and
others featuring the "Naked City" band, featuring the guitar of Bill
Frisell), Zorn uses this technique to hilarious and sometimes profound
advantage.  Several of the "clips" of music he uses, of course, are melodies
or moods specifically associated with movies.

Incidentally, Zorn is extremely interested in Japanese culture, including the
film-related forms of Japanese monster movies and Japanese animation.  I know
I'm getting pretty far afield here, but VINELAND's giant paw print, Takeshi
and Fumimota and the rumors of The Next Book have all brought Zorn to mind.

Finally, it's worth noting that, whenever a jazz critic writes about John
Zorn, the critic will note Zorn's link to Ornette Coleman, the great
composer, alto player and avant-gardist of the early '60s (and still going, I
might add) on whom McClintock Sphere was largely based.  Second, the critic
will note the boppish, Charlie Parker sound of Zorn's alto.  From this jazz
fan's point of view, Charlie Parker -- in his brief appearance in the
Roseland Ballroom, harmonica down the toilet scene -- is one of GR's most
memorable characters because his American, blues-based music is one of the
novel's "ways out" -- the solution to the Beethoven/Rossini controversy and
the ultimate guide to "bending the notes away from official wavelengths" as
Tyrone will eventually learn on his harmonica as he, like Parker, slowly
disintegrates into the culture.

-- Will Layman