Zorn's Masada

Masada: Bith Aneth
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

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"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

Give the Drummer Some

Sonny Rollins: Strode Rode
From Saxophone Colossus (1956)
Sonny Rollins - tenor sax
Tommy Flanagan - piano
Doug Watkins - bass
Max Roach - drums

Max Roach: Effi
From Members, Don't Git Weary (1968)
Max Roach - drums
Gary Bartz - alto sax
Charles Tolliver - trumpet
Stanley Cowell - piano
Jymie Merritt - electric bass

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“Max Roach, cymbals socking
Bass drum talking, snare drum rocking
Restructuring – the metaphysics
of a jazz thing”
~ Gang Starr (“Jazz Thing”)



Max Roach - R.I.P.
January 10, 1924 - August 16, 2007

Hear more about Max Roach:
NPR: Jazz Legend Max Roach Dies at 83

Wistful Thinking

Bill Evans & Jim Hall: Dream Gypsy
From Undercurrent (1963)
Bill Evans - piano
Jim Hall – guitar

Paul Bley Trio: Ida Lupino
From Closer (1965)
Paul Bley - piano
Barry Altschul - drums
Steve Swallow - bass

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Miles Davis once described Bill Evans’ sound as being "like crystal notes or sparking water cascading down from some clear waterfall" and I’d say that pretty much captures the essence of his tone. But I have to admit that no matter how many jazz giants have gone apeshit over his style, and despite the fact that I’ve always admired his ability to imbue even the jauntiest of tunes with a sense of melancholy, I was never really able to get with that tinkley piano sound. I know this reflects some lack of sophistication on my part – I’ve never developed a proper appreciation of white wine either. Fortunately for me, I’m a sucker for compelling cover art, which is what initially lead me to pick up Undercurrent, the record that finally opened my ears to Mr. Evans’ sound.

Undercurrent is an album of duets with guitarist Jim Hall and it’s easy to hear why many jazzbos consider it to be the pinnacle of instrumental duet recordings. The sympathy with which the two accompany each other makes a good case for extra sensory perception. Listen to how Jim Hall makes his introduction on this tune, that quiet ringing tone followed by a subtle loping line. And then the way they seamlessly change hands, as the piano bubbles to the top and Mr. Hall lays barely perceptible chords underneath the raindrops Bill Evans sprinkles down over the tune. The whole thing coalesces into the sort of impressionistic nocturne that would make Debussy weep.

Palu Bley replaced Jim Hall in the chamber jazz ensemble The Jimmy Guifrey 3, helping to move that group further into free jazz territory. And while this track is not very typical of Paul Bley’s style, it does fit nicely alongside the Evans/Hall track; it sounds to my ears like it could have been an outtake from one of Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts specials.

As a side note, Ida Lupino was one of the first female film directors, and the first to direct a noir, The Hitch-Hiker (1953). She also co-stared with Humphrey Bogart in the excellent heist film High Sierra.

Read more about Bill Evans:
Wikipedia: Bill Evans
John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) waxes poetic about Mr. Evans’ “Moonbeams”:
Moonbeams MP3 Download
Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson romanticizes Mr. Evans’ depression and addiction, er… I mean reviews the pianist’s 1968 solo album “Alone”:
Column: Resonant Frequency #47
Read more about Jim Hall:
Jim Hall
Read more about Paul Bley:
Paul Bley Home Page
Read more about Ida Lupino:
TCMDB: Ida Lupino

Bacchanal Szabo

Gabor Szabo: The Divided City; Three King Fishers; Bacchanal
From Bacchanal (1968)
Gabor Szabo - guitar
Jim Stewart - guitar
Hal Gordon - percussion
Jimmy Keltner - drums
Louis Kabok - bass

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“One of the most original, sweepingly lyrical guitarists… a singular phenomenon.”
~ Nat Hentoff

“More exotic and kinetic than any other flury in the past decade… he blends the sound of jazz guitar with echoes of Liverpool and images of India.”
~ Leonard Feathers

Gabor Szabo began his jazz career in 1961 by playing alongside Charles Lloyd in what was arguably Chico Hamilton's finest quintet. It was Chico who urged the young Szabo to incorporate more of his Hungarian heritage into his playing and helped him to begin crafting a distinctive sound that would eventually contain a potpourri of jazz, rhythm & blues, Gypsy and other Eastern influences.

In 1965 he left Hamilton’s group to play in Charles Lloyd's seriously underrated quartet, which, in addition to Gabor, featured Ron Carter and Tony Williams. A year later, Mr. Szabo began his own solo career with the album Gypsy Queen. The title track became something of a hit for him, after Santana appended it to his version of Fleetwood Mac’s blues-rocker “Black Magic Woman” four years later.

Gabor’s new band included the classically trained guitarist Jimmy Stewart who proved to be his perfect foil. Stewart’s guitar provided a sort of Middle Eastern drone, not unlike what John Cale did for the Velvet Underground or even more like Art Davis’ bowed bass on Coltrane’s “Ole”, but with a much more pronounced groove and a distinct psych flavor. At times Stewart uses feedback to create an almost theremin-sounding ambience on which Gabor can lay out his hypnotic, trance-inducing spell. And with the addition of a conga player, the band positively percolates funk.

Gabor Szabo was fully capable of the kind of cross-over fusion schmaltz that was endemic to this era. But, as these tracks will attest, he was equally capable of uncorking some of the most inventive and beguiling music of any era.

Read more about Gabor Szabo:
Gabor Szabo Biography

Folk Baroque

Bert Jansch and John Renbourn: East Wind
From Bert and John (1966)
Bert Jansch - guitar
John Renbourn - guitar

Bert Jansch: Smokey River
From Bert Jansch (1965)
Bert Jansch - guitar

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"As much of a great guitar player as Jimi [Hendrix] was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar...and my favorite."
~ Neil Young

“I was absolutely obsessed with Bert Jansch."
~ Jimmy Page

Bert Jansch is perhaps best known as the innovative acoustic guitarist for the British folk-rock band Pentangle, whose playing has influenced such artists as Jimmy Page (who pinched Mr. Jansch’s arrangement of the traditional “Blackwater Side” and recorded it as “Black Mountain Side” on Led Zeppelin’s debut) and Neil Young.

Interest in Bert Jansch has been piqued since the release of his well-received recent album so I thought I’d post a few track from a couple of his earlier recordings. Jansch frequently played with guitarist John Renbourn, and “Eastern Wind” offers an excellent example of their intricate style of interplay, often referred to as Folk Baroque. And “Smokey River” is a beautiful rendition of one of my favorite Jimmy Giuffre tunes, The Train and the River.*

Read more about Bert Jansch:
Bert Jansch | Official Website

Read more about Jimmy Giuffre:
Wikipedia: Jimmy Giuffre



*From Jimmy Giuffre 3 (1957)
Jimmy Giuffre - baritone sax, clarinet and tenor sax
Jim Hall - guitar
Ralph Pena - bass

Broken Flowers

Mulatu Astatke: Sabye
From Ethio Jazz (1974)
Mulatu Astatke - claviers/keyboards
Fekade Amnde Maskal - tenor sax and flute
Mogus Habte - tenor sax
Yohannes Tekolla - trumpet
Andrew Wilson - guitar
Giovanni Rico - bass
Temare Haregu - drums

Mulatu Astatke: Munaye
From Ethiopian Modern Instrumental Hits (197?)
Mulatu Astatke - claviers/keyboards
Fekade Amnde Maskal - tenor sax and flute
Mogus Habte - tenor sax
Yohannes Tekolla - trumpet
Andrew Wilson - guitar
Giovanni Rico - bass
Temare Haregu - drums

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In the late 1990s the French label Buda Musique released Volume Four of it’s Ethiopiques series; a series that focused attention on the fertile but overlooked musical era of Ethiopian popular music (1968 to 1974), for which band-leader/composer/arranger/musician Mulatu Astatke was a pivotal figure. This volume was the first in the series to focus on an individual artist, as well as the first to be made up entirely of instrumentals.

What Mr. Astatke created during that era was a unique amalgamation of musical ideas -- successfully integrating the melodies of Ethiopia with the jazz and Latin music he fell in love with while performing and studying abroad -- that comes across as something like what the house band at Rick’s Place might have sounded like had Booker T. Jones been the musical director. His compositions, beautiful in their simplicity, have a smoky late-night vibe; while his arrangements combine percolating Latin percussion, choruses of swirling Middle Eastern horns, Hendrix style guitar sounds and his own liquid organ and vibe playing to form a dense and intoxicating groove.

Read more about Mulatu Astatke:
NPR: Jazz from the Horn of Africa: 'Ethiopiques'

Pieces of Silver

Horace Silver: Que Pasa?
From Song For My Father (1964)
Horace Silver - piano
Eugene Taylor - bass
Roy Brooks - drums

Horace Silver: Sayonara Blues
From The Tokyo Blues (1962)
Horace Silver - piano
Blue Mitchell - trumpet
Junior Cook - tenor sax
Gene Taylor - bass
Joe Harris (listed as John Harris, Jr.) - drums

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Horace Silver pretty much owns the last golden era of jazz. He was the principal pioneer of Hard Bop, a form of jazz that brought greasy R&B, soul and the sanctified sounds of gospel music back into jazz. His place in that pantheon is similar to the place Ray Charles holds in soul or James Brown in funk. He's the Godfather of what is now considered straight-ahead mainstream jazz (i.e. when people talk about the Blue Note sound, they are in essence referring to Horace Silver’s sound).

From the late nineteen fifties through the mid sixties he and his bands recorded a string of albums that are remarkable for the consistency of the top-notch song writing, sophisticated arrangements and funky playing.

“Que Pasa?” comes from Mr. Silver’s most popular album Song for My Father. This trio version beautifully illustrates his warm and accessible piano styling. Like many of his songs, it incorporates the Cape Verdean rhythms that his father introduced him to as a child and swings as effortlessly as Basie at his best.

The second tune “Sayonara Blues” comes from another gem in his discography, my personal favorite of his recordings, The Tokyo Blues. This song offers an excellent example of his ability to arrange for a small jazz ensemble -- one of the things he’s most famous for. His band coaxes new variations out of Silver’s melody at each turn, brining it from simmer to boil and back repeatedly while remaining funky for the song's entire twelve minutes.

On a closing note, I’d like to add that I first came to jazz through the post-punk filter of No Wave; reading magazines like Forced Exposure and writers like Richard Meltzer. I entered into the music at the extreme end of the avant-garde and it was many years before a record store clerk friend, Roger, introduced me to Horace Silver, and in doing so, to straight-ahead jazz. That was over fifteen years ago, that I became infected with the jazz virus, and I hope that this blog might act as a meme to help infect others as well. Enjoy!

Read more about Horace Silver:
NPR's Jazz Profiles: Horace Silver