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real nice. relaxing music. this is jewish cowboy music. the genres, apparently, needed zorn's ear to hear similarities and blend the two of them together.
And when he's not releasing this series, he's releasing his consistently good Filmworks stuff - it's enough to convince you that you're witnessing a Golden Age in music.Now we just need the Electric Masada, Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz and Trevor Dunn/Shelley Burgon takes on Masada Book Two. This is just superb - great grooves as ever (Zorn can conjure up perfect basslines at will it seems - 'Lilin' springs immediately to mind, but the Masada Books contain so many others), intense yet always sensitive drumming and percussion, and, of course, endlessly beautiful soloing and comping from Ribot, Feldman and Friedlander. Only Zorn is coming up with music this vital, this engaging and this seriously committed, again and again.
Completely original. This is a beautiful work. Very cool. Traditional Jewish music meets surf rock meets contemporary jazz. The Bar Kokhba sextet plays Zorn's music wonderfully. Zorn's compositions on this album are great and interesting.
Personal favourites from the tenth edition in this Tzadik series includes "Zazel", "Gediel", "Rahal", "Azbugah", and "Abdiel". These tunes all reference a name from the spiritual study of angelology. Bar Kokhba play intimate chamber music that illustrates a beautiful collage of contrast and creativity; delicate and diverse music expressed with eloquence and elegance. Bar Kokhba's "Lucifer" balances musical traditions from both Ashkenazi and Sephardic klezmer styles with latin, surf, and world music. A choice selection of ten tracks from John Zorn's prolific portfolio of over three-hundred compositions for Masada Book Two: The Book of Angels.
The only real exception being Ribot's blues-drenched feature "Zechriel", where he digs deep and finds some of his more powerful blues exertions with Zorn swirling the band around him.I originally started writing reviews on Amazon because I was frustrated with the glowing fanboy commentary that every album that was released seemed to get, but really, there's been nothing but great things to say about Zorn's most recent output, and "Lucifer" is no exception. Along the way, we get a series of staggering performances on all instruments, although Feldman seems to steal the show pretty much consistently-- from his frantic performances on the opener and closer ("Abdiel") to his Nashville strains on "Rahal". The disc provides some great moments of sound and contrast, recalling old western themes ("Zazel"), high cinematic drama ("Mehalalel") and a playfulness not often found on Zorn records until recently (the sing-song "Azbugah", which evolves quickly into a brush feature for Baron, who creates a gentle, playful and understatedly brilliant performance).
19: The Rain Horse and The Dreamers are superb records, and likewise "Lucifer", the latest entry in Zorn's Masada Book II: The Book of Angels is no exception. But Masada is less about themes and more about being a springboard for improvisation like any great jazz composition and we get there fast-- Feldman takes an extended, powerful, and fierce solo, completely on fire and nudged along by Ribot. 2008 has been an embarrassment of riches for John Zorn fans, with pretty much everything Zorn has put out thus far this year being of stunningly high quality-- both Film Works, Vol.
And really, these are the keys to what makes this record fantastic-- great playing and great support as a band whose level of interaction is a mix between near psychic response and Zorn's unique exertions over them (everything from switching accompaniment from arco to pizzicato to not at all to conducting triangle strikes and extending brilliant solos). Highly recommended. Performed by his Bar Kokhba sextet-- the Masada String Trio (violinist Mark Feldman, cellist Erik Friedlander and bassist Greg Cohen) augmented by guitarist Marc Ribot, drummer Joy Baron and percussionist Cyro Bapista, Zorn presents ten new Masada compositions.Zorn's stated goal with the new Masada songbook was not to make a band the focus of the project but rather the music and in this he really succeeds-- covering a range of moods and influences while being both uniquely Jewish and uniquely John Zorn (and readily identifiable as Masada).
I haven't really touched on this much in discussing the other Book of Angels records, but the level of diversity of this material is fairly staggering, and this volume is just another illustration of this.The album hits the ground running-- opener "Sother" splits the theme between pizzicato strings and arco ones supporting guitar.
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