Zorn's Masada
From Alef (1994)
John Zorn - alto saxophone
Dave Douglas - trumpet
Greg Cohen - double bass
Joey Baron - drums
Masada String Trio: Tahah
From The Circle Maker - Issachar (1998)
Mark Feldman – violin
Erik Friedlander – cello
Greg Cohen – double bass
"The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together." ~ John Zorn
I’ll probably always associate John Zorn’s Masada with Hong Kong action flicks. I guess because I discovered them at around the same time, in the early 1990’s. I should be embarrassed about how many hours I spent in half-darkened Chinatown movie theaters wishing I could fly with Brigitte Lin through some kung fu psychodrama, but I’m not. Back then Masada (and the Beastie Boys) almost always provided the soundtrack to my post double-feature daydreams of flying guillotines, evil Siamese twins and witches with mile-long tongues.
Bith Aneth is one of those Masada tunes that’s perfumed with the exoticism of the not-quite East. And even now, it’s easy for me to imagine Joey Wong and Maggie Chung as a pair of enchanted snake sisters, slithering around each other in a misty subterranean pool when I hear it. The song has everything I love about the Masada quartet: the energy, the sinewy bass line, the way the horns bump up and slide across each other. Just listen to how Zorn and Douglas slowly build tension before a tart trading of fours at 3:55 – and then the release… it’s fucking pornographic.
Of all the groups that have performed from the Masada songbook, perhaps the most popular are the chamber ensembles. “Tahah” is performed by one of those ensembles, the Masada String Trio, and they really boil the song down to its core, quickly establishing the melody and then, while Greg Cohen holds down the rhythm, Mark Feldman and Erik Friedlander whirl around each other like Wong Fei-Hung in a stick fight, improvising furiously. And when the whole thing is over – which is always way too soon – I can only sit back, slack-jawed in wonder at what I just witnessed.
“What a Rip” – Stephen Colbert on Zorn’s stealing his “genius” grant:
Comedy Central: Videos
posted by Mr. Blank at 8:14 PM
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