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footnotes

John Zorn's
Masada
John Zorn's jazz band

 

In the summer of 1993, John Zorn was writing the soundtrack for a low-budget move called Thieves Quartet.

Zorn: The movie was created in the mold of a modern film noir, and it seemed a perfect opportunity to put a band together for a jazz score in the tradition of Miles Davis' soundtrack Escalator to the Scaffold. Little did I realize that this band was to go on to become one of the most exciting musical groupings I've ever had the privilege of being associated with: Masada.

He called in Joey Baron (drums), Greg Cohen (bass), and Dave Douglas (trumpet). Zorn joined them on saxophone. They had an instant chemistry, so he gave them a name and started composing songs for a series of albums.

The songs comprise The Masada Book, a collection of over 200 songs that can be played straight, re-interpretted, or re-arranged. The new arrangements feature a wide range of instruments, including clarinet, guitar, piano, violin, and cello.

Zorn [in April 1994]: I am working on some pieces having to do with Jewish culture, and Masada continues what was begun in Kristallnacht. On Kristallnacht a different use was made of Jewish tradition and it had precise references to contemporary music. In Masada I'm using another set of references.

The band recorded ten albums, from February 1994 to September 1997. A series of live albums followed, starting with Taipei 1995, released in October 1998.

Masada lifted Zorn's reputation a little higher. Before Masada, he could have been accused of being a fringe player and a gimmicky composer — the guy who conducts chaotic "game pieces," or the guy who abuses his saxophone instead of actually playing it.

After Masada, it was obvious that he could play, compose, and lead a band just like a traditional jazz musician. He contributed to the development of jazz, as well, by combining ethnic music with small ensemble improvisation.

By the late 1990s, Masada was regarded as one of the most important jazz bands of the decade.

Zorn: The idea with Masada is to produce a sort of radical Jewish music, a new Jewish music which is not the traditional one in a different arrangement, but music for the Jews of today. The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together.

In early 2003, Zorn celebrated the tenth anniversary of the band with three new arrangement albums: Masada Guitars, Voices in the Wilderness, and The Unknown Masada.

He recorded additional Masada albums in September 2003, when the Tonic club hosted a month-long celebration of his music (and his 50th birthday). The Masada String Trio, Electric Masada, and the original four-piece band played live sets. These performances were released in 2004.

[ COMMENTS? ]

You can divide the albums into three groups. The 10 studio albums . . .
The live albums . . .

The new arrangements . . .

Some of the albums pictured above are reviewed on this page. (Click on the cover.) As the months go by, I'll add more reviews.

Interview from The Bomb:

Michael Goldberg: I was really impressed with the Masada group's first recording of Alef, how you were involved with melody. I hadn't heard that in your music before.

Zorn: That was a major exploration of melody, to see if I could write a book of songs like Gershwin or Thelonious Monk.

MG: Exactly. You can whistle them.

Zorn: That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year.

I wrote 50 in a second year, 25 or 30 in a third year, and the fourth year another 25, and then I just stopped. It was basically a four-year project, I wrote about 200 tunes.

Masada is part of the Radical Jewish Culture project, a series of albums by dozens of artists exploring Jewish musical themes.



The songs from The Masada Book have been used for a few of Zorn's soundtracks — Filmworks 8, 9, and 11. The Thieves Quartet music is on Filmworks 3.



Dalet (Four)

recorded February 20, 1994
released 1995
ONE DISC:   three tracks, 19 minutes

The fourth Masada album is an EP of just three songs. It's not wildly different from any of the other albums. In fact, its length is the only thing that sets it apart.

The first track, Midbar, is a typical Masada song. A theme is established at the start — a simple melody and tempo. The band runs with it, playing solos that stretch the theme until it's about to break. Just before they lose it, the theme comes charging back, sometimes in modified form. (In many Masada songs, Greg Cohen's bass is the secret anchor. No matter how far off the other three guys play, he plays the bass line steadily.)

The second track, Mahlah, is slower and quieter. It sounds like a "cool jazz" version of Midbar. Dave Douglas plays beautifully, Joey Baron breaks out the brushes, and Greg Cohen plays a bass solo.

Zenan is a compact, four-minute stomp. It starts off with some sort of Jewish belly-dancing theme. Then Joey Baron takes over, playing a drum solo that would make Neil Peart proud. The belly-dancing theme comes back, played simultaneously by Zorn and Douglas.

If you want a taste of Masada, this is a good album to start with. My copy cost fifteen bucks, which is a lot to pay for three songs, but if you can borrow it from a friend, do it.




Definitions of the song titles:

1. Midbar — wilderness
2. Mahlah — disease
3. Zenan — pointed weapon ?

Midbar, translated as "wilderness," "badlands" or the arid hills around a village, can also mean "the mouth" or "an organ used for speech."

In Exodus, a journey into the desert is typically accompanied by a major pronouncement from God or Moses. In chapter five, for example, Moses says to Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness."

Zenan is also "coldness," "target," and a town in the low country of Judah.

(All definitions courtesy of the studylight.org web site.)




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Bar Kokhba

recorded August 1994, December 1995, March 1996
released 1996
DISC ONE:   thirteen tracks, 63 minutes
DISC TWO:   twelve tracks, 65 minutes

While he recorded the ten Masada albums, Zorn wrote new arrangements for 22 of the songs, adding cello, violin, guitar, piano, clarinet, and organ. The result is a double album of painfully beautiful music. This is a favorite among Zorn/Masada fans, with good reason.

This album shows just how simple the Masada songs are. The originals take off quickly into wild improvisation, but these arrangements are far more subtle — and better. It takes some effort for me to get through a normal Masada album (especially the live ones). The beautiful melodies descend into chaos too fast and for too long. Bar Kokhba reverses that, playing out so gently you almost get bored.

The high points are Abidan (one of the best Masada songs, played here on piano and clarinet), Sansanah (three musicians trade the melody back and forth, with haunting keyboard work by John Medeski), and Shear-Jashub (Erik Friedlander and Mark Feldman play fast and aggressive on violin and cello).

Disc two has a 13-minute rendition of Mochin on solo gutiar by Marc Ribot. This is a 4-minute song with a 9-minute introduction, played so slow it almost falls apart.

From the CD booklet:

Some of this music was originally recorded for The Art of Remembrance: Simon Wiesenthal, a feature documentary film by Johanna Heer and Werner Schmiedel

According to the River Lights Pictures web site, the documentary premiered at the Human Rights International Film Festival in New York, and was shown on public television in April 1998. "Using a color scheme that provides symbolic and psychological dimensions and with an original soundtrack by renown composer John Zorn," the documentary "creates a vivid testimony of the legacy of the Holocaust in a world still plagued by ethnic and racial conflicts."


From The Essential Klezmer:

Zorn writes for and conducts the Masada Chamber Ensembles, an array of duos, trios, quartets, sextets, and other pairings of strings, keyboards, and clarinets, ensembles sometimes referred to collectively as Bar Kokhba, after the quasi-messianic leader of the final Jewish revolt against the Romans in 132-35 C.E.

Their work, contained on two excellent double CDs, includes some of Zorn's most accessible jazz- and classical-styled Jewish compositions in a range of styles, from "Gevurah," a Latin-jazz version of the Yiddish theater tune "Vus du Vilst, Dus Vill Ich Oich," to "Nezikin," a highly percussive, dissonant, contemporary- classical workout for string trio.

"Mashav," an alternately poignant and lighthearted melodic piano-clarinet duet, could sit comfortably on any album of traditional klezmer.




In addition to the great players and the subtle composition, the recording quality is special — on headphones, you can just barely hear the musicians breathing between the notes, fingers brushing against guitar strings, and toes counting time.



The songs are drawn from almost every one of the ten original Masada albums. Six of them come from #3, and three are from #7.

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The Circle Maker

recorded 1997
released 1998
DISC ONE:   eleven tracks, 55 minutes (Zevulun)
DISC TWO:   eighteen tracks, 67 minutes (Issachar)

Picking up where Bar Kokhba left off, Zorn took twenty-nine of the songs from the Masada songbook and rearranged them for two chamber music ensembles. He removed the horns — Dave Douglas' trumpet and his own saxophone — and added cello, violin, guitar, and percussion. The "free jazz" improvisation is gone.

The first disc, Zevulun, is played by the Bar Kokhba Sextet: Mark Feldman (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello), Greg Cohen (bass), Marc Ribot (guitar), Cyro Baptista (percussion), and Joey Baron (drums).

Genesis 49: Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea. And he shall be for a haven of ships. And his border shall be upon Sidon.

 The second disc, Issachar, is played by the Masada String Trio: Mark Feldman (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello), Greg Cohen (bass).

Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between the sheepfolds. And he saw a resting-place that it was good. And he bowed his shoulder to bear. And became a servant under taskwork.

Even if you aren't interested in John Zorn's music, you'll like this album. It never gets old. It's a perfect blend of chamber music, traditional Jewish melodies, and jazz — three different styles that you can hear simultaneously in every song.


From the Pitchforkmedia web site:

The Circle Maker is a departure of sorts, in that Zorn does not offer his saxophone talents to the performance. For this record, Zorn chose to offer his composition and directional skills, while allowing an impressive array of musicians to interpret his work.

The discs showcase Zorn's obsession with his Jewish heritage, effortlessly blending klezmer tonal structures, atonal noise outbursts and classically tinged jazz rhythms.

Throughout, the music fills a room with wonderfully cinematic music. It is an effect that emphasizes how Zorn is as much a historian and storyteller as he is a prodigal musical talent. Even with a complete lack of knowledge about Zorn's lineage, one can't help but feel an undefinable sense of cultural weight behind the work.




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Live in Jerusalem

recorded in 1994
released April 1999
DISC ONE:   nine tracks, 61 minutes
DISC TWO:   nine tracks, 51 minutes

Live in Jerusalem is a two-disc concert packed with high-pitched squeals and bad improvisation. It sounds like Masada pretending to be Painkiller.

All of the standard Masada elements are here: the great klezmer melodies, the wild solos, and the balance between slow and fast paces. But on this album, the band is out of ideas. Every solo is weak, boring, or (in Zorn's case) the same old screech he's played a hundred times before.

Take Piram, the first song on the first disc. It starts off with a tight fusion of melody and rhythm. Then Zorn squeals for a moment, the band members play some awkward and uneven improvisation, and Greg Cohen plays a bass solo that's quieter than the round of applause he receives for playing it. It starts well, but then it falls off fast.

On the whole album, there's one good song: Ravayah.

The CD booklet has a cryptic list of impressions from the Holy Land. I assume these are the memorable moments from the band's visit: food, places, and brief adventures among the locals.

the wailing wall - teens with AK47s - salt baked fish - stations of the cross - the snake path - lying on the dead sea - the checkpoint at jericho - ancient glass - pistachio pastries - kosher fruitshakes at midnight - masada at dusk - dry heat of the sinai - the arab quarter - jean-claude jones' broken bridge- the old city - dome of the rock - mea shearim - ancient mosaics - the torah cave - felafel - jazz club jams - the cistern - chassid hangouts

From the Amazon web site:

The blueprint behind John Zorn's Masada is simple enough. Take the instrumentation of Ornette Coleman's quartet at their prime, add Zorn's soul-filled touches of klezmer, and allow each player to improvise as he sees fit. It's a fearsome recipe that has delivered a dozen or so great recordings, most of which were recorded over a few days in 1994.

Live in Jerusalem catches the band at the Jerusalem Festival (also back in 1994), and it's perhaps the best documentation of the group's magical, swinging, yet always wild chemistry. Tunes such as "Idalah-Abal" begin as funeral marches and launch into power blowing.

Others, such as "Ravayah," never slow down. Masada on disc can be a curse of over- abundance. Masada live can be a magical thing. Thankfully, this disc combines the best of both worlds, with great sonics and a strong setlist. —Jason Verlinde





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Live in Sevilla

recorded March 18, 2000
released July 2000
ONE DISC:   nine tracks, 79 minutes

Live in Sevilla is one of the single-disc live Masada albums. In this concert, the band concentrates on some of the slower songs in The Masada Book.

Half of the concert is taken up by solos. On six of the nine tracks, Zorn plays a solo, followed by Dave Douglas. Douglas' style is classy but a little dull — his trumpet is beautiful, but he never surprises you.

Zorn, on the other hand, is all over this album. On the first track (Ne'eman), he plays for almost six minutes, climaxing in a series of squeals and grunts (from his saxophone). The crowd cheers, Douglas takes over, and the band races to the finish.

They continue with a five-minute excursion into cartoony sound effects and improvsation (Katzatz), a seven-minute drum solo by Joey Baron (Beeroth), a couple of polite songs with understated Greg Cohen solos (Yoreh and Hazor), a second five-minute song of cartoony sound effects (Lakom), and a gentle encore (Bith Aneth).

If you ever wanted to hear John Zorn really play, this is the album. He carries the songs, he plows through his solos, and he even shouts down Joey Baron's drums twice (on Nashon). (It sounds like a playful rivalry.)

Although I don't care very much for this album, the reviews are good. There's one in the sidebar, and another on the notes page.





From a review by Derek Taylor:

Taped before a fortunate Spanish audience, this sheaf from the group's ever-expanding concert scrapbook tests the capacities of current compact disc duration limits — clocking in just shy of eighty minutes. Further tipping the cost/benefit ratio in favor of immediate purchase are two fully formed (and by the sounds of it fully appreciated) encores, which append the set.

Opening with the loping "Ne'eman," first Zorn, then Douglas dig into the Hasidic theme. Zorn's solo is a tattered, totally electrifying patchwork of influences from the cool-toned musings of Konitz to the altissimo squeals of Ayler. Douglas follows suit with a staccato shower of smeared notes over the throbbing clip-clop rhythm of Cohen and Baron.

One fact's for certain when the dust finally settles. Writing this group off as a simple marriage of Old World and improvisatory influences is a grievous error any uninitiated listener should avoid committing like the plague.





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Masada Guitars

recorded 2002
released January 2003
ONE DISC:   twenty-one tracks, 75 minutes

On Bar Kokhba, Marc Ribot plays a 13-minute version of Mochin. There's no one else on the track. It's just one guy working out the song on his own.

Five years after the last "new arrangement" album, celebrating the 10th anniversary of Masada, Zorn has put together an entire CD based on Bar Kokhba's Mochin. He's split 21 Masada songs between three guitarists: Bill Frisell, Tim Sparks, and (back for more) Marc Ribot. There's no percussion, no bass by Greg Cohen — nothing except the guitar and the song.

Bill Frisell stands out. He takes on Katzatz, a spastic collection of cartoon klezmer themes. Somehow, he makes it work. On other tracks, he uses the echoing loop effect from his solo albums.

The songs come from almost every Masada album. Three come from Beit, two from Gimel, and three from Tet.. Four of the songs are not on the original ten albums — Bikkurim can be found on Bar Kokhba, and Hodaah, Sippur, and Kisofim are on The Circle Maker. You don't have to know the originals to enjoy these versions. In fact, it might be best to hear them on this album first.


Zorn: Over the past twenty years I've worked with some of the greatest modern guitar innovators: Eugene Chadbourne, Duck Baker, Henry Kaiser, Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, Arto Lindsay, Bill Frisell, Haino Keiji, Robert Quine, Marc Ribot, and Buckethead.

Marc Ribot is one of the true revolutionaries of the guitar. It's not that he can do just about everything that's possible (and many things considered impossible) — he's completely rethought the guitar — its role, what it does, what it sounds like. Ribot is one of those rare musicians you can recognize from the first note. A twsited man with a musical vision to match.




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Voices in the Wilderness

recorded August 2002 to January 2003
released April 2003
DISC ONE:   twelve tracks, 61 minutes
DISC TWO:   twelve tracks, 63 minutes

When I buy a new Zorn album, I'm always taking a chance. Will it be experimental and bad, or experimental and good? Will it be an indulgent waste of time, a head-scratcher, or my new favorite album?

Voices in the Wilderness is an exception. It's a sure thing.

The last three "new arrangement" albums were great, so how could this one go wrong? You've got amazing songs, brilliant musicians, and two CDs to stretch out and do whatever you want.

There are over 80 musicians, grouped in trios and quartets. Most of their arrangements are classy and subtle. Instead of turning the Masada songs into experimental noise, they've gone in the other direction, making the music more accessible than ever.

Although Zorn wrote the songs and he produced the album, the music is out of his control this time. It's a welcome change of pace. The booklet lists a dozen different engineers, giving you the impression that the musicians were in charge of their own recording, as well as their own arrangements. Out of his grasp, Voices in the Wilderness doesn't have the intensity of a typical Zorn album, but there's more variety in the tempo and interplay between musicians.

The best track is Tirzah, played by Pachora (Chris Speed, Brad Shepik, Skuli Sverrisson, Jim Black, and Jamie Saft). They sound like Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor — dramatic and patient, with a lot of tension.

Featuring...

Medeski Martin and Wood
Rova Saxophone Quartet
Jamie and Vanessa Saft
Cracow Klezmer Band
Lemon Juice Quartet
Pharoah’s Daughter
Ben Perowsky Trio
Jenny Scheinman
Peter Apfelbaum
Steven Bernstein
Jewlia Eisenberg
Naftule’s Dream
The Wollesens
Professionales
Ben Goldberg
Tin Hat Trio
Mike Patton
Rashanim
Zony Mash
Mephista
Kramer
Pachora
Satlah
Davka




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The Unknown Masada

recorded January to May 2003
released July 2003
ONE DISC:   twelve tracks, 59 minutes

Some of John Zorn's 200+ Masada songs were never recorded by the band. To get them on a CD, he could have made an eleventh studio album. Instead, he created another "new arrangement" album. This time, you can't compare the new arrangements to the originals because there are no originals.

But you can imagine the originals if you listen closely. Unlike the previous new arrangement albums, which featured jazz musicians playing in creative but polite ways, The Unknown Masada is dominated by hard rock bands and fast tempos. There's even an electric guitar solo or two. It sounds like Mr. Bungle's contribution to the Radical Jewish Culture series. (And that's a good thing.)

On track #4, Shofetim, Yoshida Tutsuya plays all the instruments. Yoshida Tutsuya is one of the two guys in Ruins, a great Japanese prog-rock band. Ruins plays in the style of Primus, with an emphasis on complex time changes and virtuoso bass riffs. Shofetim is fast and fun, combining three or four different musical styles at once.

Track #10, Zemaraim, is played by Fantomas, the heavy metal supergroup. Two members are from Mr. Bungle (Mike Patton and Trevor Dunn), one from the Melvins (Buzz Osbourne), and one from Slayer (Dave Lombardo). The band takes a relatively simple melody and hammers away at it with abandon. At the end, they do their impression of Black Sabbath, playing the melody slow and loud, then cranking up the speed for the finale (just like Iron Man and Sweet Leaf). So if you've never heard a speed metal band do their impression of Black Sabbath playing klezmer, now you can.

Not all of the songs are fast and loud. Zorn plays with Dave Douglas on the third track, Vehuel. It's a busy, classy song. You can hear Zorn and Douglas having fun playing off of each other, just like they do on the "normal" Masada albums. Wadada Leo Smith and Ikue Mori get the same effect on Demai, near the end of the album. Demai is slow and spare, with quite a few experimental flourishes along the way. The musicians play together and against each other in interesting ways. The song is a gentle compliment to the harder stuff on the rest of the CD.

From the CD booklet:

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.

        —Albert Einstein

Judaism is the faith of those who are dissatisfied with the society around them and have a critical sense of the hollowness of worldly success — and only through such people can Judaism survive, or have reason for survival.

        —Arthur Hertzberg




 From the Tzadik web site:

The third installment in the Masada Tenth Year celebration is the most exciting yet. Fourteen tunes from Zorn’s legendary Masada songbook that have never been heard before. Performed and arranged by an incredible lineup of musicians, the music here touches upon hard rock, world beat, klezmer and jazz, often all in the same arrangement!

Highlights include a lyrical ballad by Wadada Leo Smith, two explosive rock tracks by the powerful Japanese duo the Ruins and Mike Patton’s Fantomas, and a gorgeous solo performance by Ukrainian bandura virtuoso Julian Kytasty.




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The Masada String Trio, Live

recorded September 4, 2003 (at 8 pm)
released February 2004
ONE DISC:   eleven tracks, 63 minutes

The Masada String trio formed in 1996 for Bar Kokhba. They played on eight of Bar Kokhba's twenty-five tracks. Two years later, Zorn gave them an entire album of new arrangements, The Circle Maker. On one disc, they played by themselves. On the other, Zorn added three more musicians: percussion, guitar, and piano. At that point, it was obvious that The Masada String Trio was one of Zorn's best groups, just as dynamic and creative as Naked City and the original Masada quartet.

Zorn used them on three different albums over the next four years — the first half of Filmworks VIII (in 1997), a few tracks on Taboo & Exile (1999), and the Secret Lives soundtrack (Filmworks XI, 2002).

When the second Zornfest was staged at Tonic in Septmber 2003 — celebrating Zorn's music and his 50th birthday — the Masada String Trio performed live. This concert was the first release in a series of CDs from the 50th birthday Zornfest.

All of the songs on this CD can be found on other Masada albums.

Tahah. Alef, Issachar, Middelheim, Voices
Abidan. Gimel, B.K., Jerusalem, Guitars, Voices
Lachish. Beit, Issachar, Jerusalem, Taipei
Sippur. Issachar, Guitars
Malkut. Issachar, Voices
Meholalot. Tet, Voices
Kedushah. Tet, Middelheim, Guitars
Ner Tamid. Tet, Zevulun
Karet. Tet, Issachar, Middelheim
Moshav. Tet, Issachar, Guitars
Khebar. Het, Zevulun, Voices









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© 2004 Scott Maykrantz
except the quotes and the artwork