Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and John Zorn faced a furious crowd on Friday night, playing cacophonous music to a cacophony of boos at the Montreal International Jazz festival. Fans expecting Sweet Jane or Walk On the Wild Side were instead met by the skronk and skree of Reed’s more recent free-jazz work, infuriating sections of the crowd. As audience members hollered their complaints, Zorn responded. “If you don’t think it’s music, then get the fuck outta here.” Then the walk-outs began. [Guardian UK] (via)
More than 1,000 people turned out for a night of Reed/Anderson/Zorn improv on July 2nd (a week ago today). Some booed, heckled, walked out, asked (and got) a refund, and went home to complain about it on the internet (other people stayed, some maybe even enjoyed it). A very short clip of the concert is below.
Hey Montreal – Fuck you!
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‘How are you doing?” That’s normally an innocuous question, except when you happen to be asking a 94-year-old violinist who is probably the oldest currently active major jazz musician in the world. “I do very well,” answers Svend Asmussen, speaking by phone from his home in a Danish fishing village outside of Copenhagen, “considering my extremely advanced age.”
Very well indeed. Mr. Asmussen has played on two albums in the past few years—on his own “Making Whoopee!” (Arborsjazz.com) and as a special guest on the Jacob Fischer Trio’s self-titled album (www.jacobfischer.dk). He is also the subject of an excellent new documentary, “Svend Asmussen—The Extraordinary Life and Music of a Jazz Legend” (Shanachie.com). In his 10th decade, Mr. Asmussen is not only one of the major survivors of the swing era and the prewar European jazz scene, but probably the only living musician who played, whether formally or just jamming after hours, with Fats Waller, Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli and Duke Ellington.
He’s also the jazz musician whom Adolf Hitler failed to silence: In 1940, the German army marched into Denmark, and three years later Mr. Asmussen was arrested by the Gestapo. The Nazis had no love of jazz, with its overt black and Jewish influences, but this seems to have been a random round-up of prominent citizens from all walks of life, intended to instill a fear of Hitler into the Danes. Fortunately, Mr. Asmussen, incarcerated in a small cell in Berlin, was released before the war was over.
Svend Asmussen: The Extraordinary Life and Music of a Jazz Legend
