JOHN ZORN - Electric Masada: 50th Birthday Celebration Volume Four

Composer, saxophonist, producer, founder and owner of the independent record label Tzadik, as well as a renowned talent-scout, John Zorn celebrated his fiftieth birthday just last year.

Zorn is without doubt one of the key figures of contemporary music: his relentless activity as a musician, backed by a deep curiosity for everything "new", by an eclecticism bordering on the bulimic, and by an uncontrollable discographic prolificacy that would make even a Zappa or a Jandek blush with shame, has led him to pursue the most disparate artistic paths with remarkable ease, even at the cost of the occasional misfire.

It's a truly arduous, if not impossible, task to try and reduce Zorn's musical output to a single definition: chamber music, contemporary classical, noise avant-garde, jazz, film scores, hardcore and laptop music are just some of the elements underpinning a dense, constantly evolving discography (the man has hundreds of records to his name, either under his own name or under monikers traceable back to him). Just as notable are the projects he regularly collaborates on, alongside his solo work: Locus Solus (with Arto Lindsay, Peter Blegvad, Christian Marclay and Anton Fier), Naked City (Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Wayne Horvitz, Joey Baron and, occasionally, the unhinged Yamatzuka Eye of Boredoms), Painkiller (Bill Laswell and Mick Harris, of Napalm Death) and Masada (a truly endless list of names: it would be quicker to name who hasn't taken part...), genuine supergroups made up of the very best the musical intelligentsia of the late twentieth century had to offer to the contemporary scene.

Fifty years, as we said. Yes, because such a milestone couldn't go unnoticed, especially for anyone with a sharp entrepreneurial streak. So why not celebrate it by scheduling fifty evenings with as many different lineups? The venue, needless to say, would be the Tonic (the prestigious temple of the avant-garde located in Manhattan's picturesque Lower East Side), and the whole thing would of course be recorded, documented on CD, packaged (in colorful digipacks designed by Chinese designer Heung-Heung Chin, aka Chippy) and distributed worldwide. An ambitious project with no precedent in the history of music: even the most die-hard fan of the New York artist will find themselves overwhelmed by such a vast array of recordings which, judging by the first six chapters released so far (roughly one a month since February 2004), boast an immeasurable artistic quality.

It all begins, then, with the Masada String Trio (Zorn directing and composing, Marc Feldman on violin, Eric Friedlander on cello and Greg Cohen on double bass: eleven memorable tracks set ablaze by the performances of three of the finest acoustic musicians alive!), and continues with the duo of John Zorn and Milford Graves, with Locus Solus as a trio, with the Electric Masada group, with another duo, this time made up of Zorn and Fred Frith, and with the trio Hemophiliac.

Among these tantalizing first releases, the one destined to leave a lasting mark on the annals of contemporary music is the fourth, entrusted to the Electric Masada ensemble ("Masada" is the name of the project Zorn created in the early Nineties, with the aim of bringing back to light, reinterpreting and breathing new life into the Jewish musical tradition): this is a wonderful work of synthesis, ranging from electric jazz (the first references that come to mind are Davis's "Bitches Brew" and "Jack Johnson") to no wave, by way of King Crimson's prog and hard rock. The seven compositions (nothing is left to improvisation!) on this superbly crafted work are wildly different from one another, yet they share a common thread in the expressive potential and performing skill of the musicians involved.

The lineup is literally enough to give you a coronary: John Zorn (alto saxophone), Marc Ribot (electric guitar), Jamie Saft (Fender Rhodes), Ikue Mori (laptop), Trevor Dunn (bass), Joey Baron and Kenny Wollesen (drums), Cyro Baptista (percussion). The first track, titled "Tekufa", opens with an incipit built on lysergic Fender Rhodes phrasing (Saft) and hypnotic tribal percussion (Baptista); "Idalah-Abal", introduced by the power of Ribot's electric guitar and the thunderous drive of a breathtaking rhythm section (Dunn, Baron and Wollesen), is a sequence of explosions and plot twists; next comes "Hadasha", thirteen minutes and forty-eight seconds of emotional crescendo that begins with the unusual pairing of the excellent Baptista's percussion and Ikue Mori's sublime laptop touch (never a note out of place, never a frequency there for its own sake); when Ribot's guitar comes in, drenched in "wah-wah" effect and more "bluesy" than ever, you can't help but tap your foot in time and think back to those old crime thrillers that, in the Seventies, made the fortune of "B-movie" cinemas; Zorn's alto saxophone erupts in a violent delirium of passion that, as it gradually settles, reveals an emotional background drawing heavily on Fifties cool.

The structure of "Hath-Arob" consists of schizophrenic rhythmic chases steeped in atonality, which would delight Ornette Coleman as much as the Ruins. Then there are "Yatzar", "Lilin" and "Kisofim", the summa of Zorn-ian lyricism as well as a showcase for Ribot's guitar virtuosity, repeatedly paying homage to the desert sound of Ry Cooder. What's striking about this recording is the perfect balance, the rapport and the cohesion of the musicians, who sound as if they've been playing together forever and who draw the listener in to the point of making them believe they're right there, on stage, alongside them.

Electric Masada: 50th Birthday Celebration Volume Four sits at the pinnacle of Zorn's output and stands as one of the first great landmarks of music tout-court of the new millennium. Unmissable.

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13/12/2006