|
Post by aghemomehga on Feb 6, 2008 5:27:08 GMT -5
martinonitram! ;D
|
|
|
Post by Sordel on Feb 6, 2008 8:36:24 GMT -5
Hmmm ... I see that the Bar Kokhba Sextet thrown into the mix ... I think that I would rather have seen the Trio and Acoustic Quartet without the Sextet, but we're certainly getting value for money in terms of the acts on offer!
|
|
|
Post by aghemomehga on Feb 6, 2008 10:26:57 GMT -5
I was getting bored lately by BK tunes-nothing to say about the extraordinaire qualities of musicians-, but now we have to expect a lot more, I hope, with book two material...
|
|
|
Post by zornfan on Mar 28, 2008 11:09:24 GMT -5
Bar Kokhba sextet as bonus for the masada night I'm really happy !!!
When I think that I buy ticket for -Six litanies and now it's painkiller and Frith/Zorn duo - surprise concert with rumour of Cobra and it's the dreamers...
Will the programm stay like that ??
Or a new surprise...
I've to say that I pray for a Lou Reed John Zorn ("Shir Ha-Shirim" piece) friday evening... Lou Reed will play Berlin in Paris the saturday evening...
|
|
|
Post by slntwtchr on Mar 28, 2008 15:36:30 GMT -5
Can anyone say me the groupname from the ensemble on this picture?[/quote] This was Painkiller vs. Method of Defiance. Laswell, Enduser, Submerged, Zorn, Baptiste, Patton, Otomo, Guy Licata and Tatsuya [sic]?....fairly certain that's who the second drummer was....Absolutely amazing show. Sometime back in late 2005/early 2006 if I recall. Poor old Tonic........ Dave
|
|
|
Post by HolgerregloH on Mar 28, 2008 17:05:54 GMT -5
... Lou Reed will play Berlin in Paris the saturday evening... I go to his "Berlin" gig in Zürich (CH). Very cool! @dave: big thanks for the information, sounds really like a unique show
|
|
|
Post by slntwtchr on Mar 29, 2008 22:11:52 GMT -5
from what i remember, it was quite good...for the amount of people playing it came together rather well. for what it's worth, Method of Defiance is proving to be an interesting project. I don't know that 'Inamorata' (with Zorn on one track) was quite a success, but their first album and their live shows are really very good.
Dave
|
|
|
Post by blackmud on Apr 1, 2008 21:42:04 GMT -5
ma guarda chi si vede su questo forum..... ahh, finalmente si sente un po' aria di casa
|
|
|
Post by HolgerregloH on Apr 10, 2008 13:30:55 GMT -5
News about the last day June 27 in Paris, I´m very happy about the Gri-Gri part with William Winant ( williamwinant.com/biography.html )! MAGICK '777' (2007) = 3 celli with Fred Sherry, Mike Nicolas, Erik Friedlander GRI-GRI (2000) - a very challenging and very difficult polyrhythmic piece of 13 tuned drums - virtuoso voodo! Performed by William Winant (13 runed drums) 'SORTILEGE' (2002) Witchcraft and sorcery....a spell, featuring perhaps the most difficult music yet written for the bass clarinet = 2 bass clarinetts with Mike Lowenstern, Anthony Burr .. . 'fay çe que vouldras' (2005) = piano solo with Stephen Drury Explores the Rabelais/ Crowley axiom of "do what thou wilt" through an eclectic language of tone clusters and colors both inside the piano and at the keyboard. 'NECRONOMICON' (2003) A five movement tour de force of Black Magic and Alchemy = CROWLEY QUARTET with Jenny Choi/violin, Jesse Mills/violin, Lily Francis/viola, Fred Sherry/cello btw: who goes to the ZornFest in Paris and where is a good/cheap place to sleep?
|
|
|
Post by rodrigo on Apr 10, 2008 16:56:44 GMT -5
Well, I had expected to see Orphee live, but it does look good... When will Zorn release another cd of classical pieces? there's quite a lot unreleased still: www.hipsroadedition.com
|
|
|
Post by HolgerregloH on Jun 2, 2008 10:01:54 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Sordel on Jun 24, 2008 1:44:01 GMT -5
I'll be in Paris for the shows tonight, Wednesday and Thursday. Do come up and say hello if you recognise me: big guy, beard, spectacles, 40 years old. Tonight I'll be wearing a Grateful Dead "In Sync" Tee.
|
|
|
Post by Offering on Jun 25, 2008 4:39:56 GMT -5
Not in Paris, but I believe they did something similar there - www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z33DYtKG_bg...couldnt resist posting it, great stuff. Masada purists may be in dismay, however.....!
|
|
|
Post by Sordel on Jun 27, 2008 15:30:10 GMT -5
Just back home to the UK after three days in Paris, during which I saw my first (three) Zorn concerts. Not being able to write down any notes at the time, I’ll have to give impressions, but here goes:
24 June: The Dreamers
The first and second concerts were at the Cité de la Musique, which is a comparatively new arts development like London’s South Bank. The acoustics are pretty good, but there is a prominent reflection off the back wall that produced a delayed echo on the percussion.
The first concert that I attended was The Dreamers, and I made sure that I sat far forward on the left so that I could watch Zorn’s conducting. Not being a massive fan of the album (I booked long ago, when it was initially billed here as a performance of Cobra) I wasn’t overly optimistic about the music itself.
The band played the album pretty much straight through, except for (I think) “Exodus”, which Zorn called out for them to skip (maybe reminding them about a prior agreement) and which they played pretty much at the end of the set. There was one bonus (recognised by the audience but not by me, so it could well have been something from The Gift, which I don’t own). Otherwise the album was played straight: Zorn only played on “Toys”, and the trio played on “A Ride to Cottonfair”, necessitating a grand piano to be on stage for one track only. I was surprised that there was so little variation in configuration from the album.
My first main impression was how much Zorn himself was enjoying the performance. I had expected him to be fairly aggressive, but most of the time he was just smiling and firing off small cues to Cyro or Joey, both of whom were watching carefully (except when Cyro was turned to the gong). Kenny took direction on when to solo or provide noise by bowing the vibraphone or sweeping his hammer across it. To be honest, his presence was textural, as for the most part was Jamie’s, although seeing him play gave me greater appreciation of his Rhodes technique. Trevor seemed to be in a world of his own: visibly putting in lots of work which was not heard to good effect in the house mix. Marc and the percussionists were really the focus of attention.
Musically, the concert was an improvement on the album, with “Anulikwutsayl” being less infuriatingly repetitive than the album version, and both “Raksasa” and “Exodus” bringing the house down with a higher energy performance. Zorn made good use of what, for want of a better term, I’ll call the “Baron Button”: when he lifts his fists in the air and pulls them abruptly into his body to signal a beat from Joey like a rifle shot accompanying a dramatic change in the texture of the music. This never failed to have its effect on the crowd. Overall, though it was very short (eighty minutes), this concert was impressive thanks to twenty or so minutes of really top quality music.
25 June: Essential Cinema/Electric Masada
My second concert was Essential Cinema/Electric Masada. I sat further back for this concert so I could see the screen but had overlooked the fact that in any case the performers would be in total darkness for this part of the concert (other than Ikue Mori, who was always illuminated by her laptop screen.)
“Rose Hobart” was, I thought, a pleasant but rather unremarkable piece of music for a film that managed to bring a haunting intensity to its images of the actress; it could well have been an outtake from The Dreamers, and the only obvious/naive correspondence with the film (other than its exotic style) were a few percussion effects during an on-screen fight.
“Aleph” was at the opposite extreme: all frantic overblowing and discord in an attempt to match up to the violent, rapid-cut nature of the film itself. This was something you had to see live in order for the volume and energy to become as overwhelming as it was intended to be. The film was pretty awful really, but Zorn’s soundtrack is as good a case in its favour as there will ever be.
“The Tin Woodman’s Dream” was just Ikue, with Zorn sitting at her shoulder. For all I know he was checking his Facebook, because the music sounded very pre-planned: magical bell-tones over the animation, followed by what sounded like another Dreamers-style percussive piece over a long kaleidoscope sequence (which was almost certainly another film, although not I think the billed one: “By Night With Torch and Spear.”)
“Ritual In Transfigured Time” was probably saved for last because it was the most satisfactory combination of film and music. The film - once probably a fairly disturbing surreal fantasy – was not especially unsettling to a modern audience, but the music supported it well and closed out the film session satisfactorily.
As with the first night, the second concert closed out very strongly, with Electric Masada taking – IIRC – three encores, of which the last was certainly unplanned since the house lights had already come up by then. Kenny moved to drums, and seemed confused or tentative when Zorn mouthed at him to “Go Wild!”: just another example of the way in which not all members of the band take conducting equally well. (By contrast, Joey always seems to assume that what he wants to play next is what Zorn wants to hear next ... not necessarily a mistaken assumption.)
Marc tends to turn away from Zorn during his solos: it may be a purely natural or unconscious gesture, but it looks as though he is concentrating on what he is doing rather than on the course of the improv. This led to a strange moment that I interpret as follows: Zorn wanted to cue up the end of the piece, but Marc wasn’t looking, so he got everyone to repeat the same phrase multiple times in an effort to get Marc’s attention; when Marc didn’t look around, Zorn kicked over his music stand, at which Marc looked around, looking rather confused, and the piece came to an end.
I think that the pieces for the encore were all familiar book 1 pieces (one was a game piece, maybe “Hath-Arob”) except for “Yezriel” which was similar to the Asmodeus version (no saxophone presence) but which benefitted from the battery of percussion. Overall, the second concert was a great experience but definitely left me wanting more: ninety minutes was certainly not enough when the Electric Masada set was providing the most interesting musical fireworks.
26 June: Masada String Trio/Bar Kokhba Sextet/Acoustic Masada
The third concert was the one for which I made the journey: the enticing prospect of Masada String Trio, Bar Kokhba Sextet and (Acoustic) Masada all on the same bill, at the Salle Pleyel. This was the first time that I had seen a concert at this venue and I was sitting centre in the first balcony: the sound was absolutely perfect ... possibly the best venue that I’ve yet experienced (as exemplified by Keith Jarrett’s Paris Concert CD).
The MS3 did very much what they always do: the playing was exquisite, but like listening to the Book 2 album played on a superior hi-fi. Zorn’s conducting, seen from a distance, seemed restricted to indicating whether Mark, Eric or both should play at any given time. Zorn occasionally “conducted” Greg’s playing as though indicating that he should punch up the syncopation, which seemed strangely patronising, but perhaps it made sense to the performers. All the pieces were familiar to me other than one which seemed new: a very lovely piece with muted strings and a lot of harmonics in the violin especially.
The BK6 is a configuration that hadn’t interested me much until this latest release. The first thing to say about their performance is that Marc was absolutely on fire for the entire set; his phrasing and tone (until he switched to what appeared to be e-Bow for the encore) was quintessentially “Ribotic”: so much so, that I had to check his biog when I got home to check that he wasn’t just grandstanding for a home audience. The band played all tracks from the new album until the final, unscheduled encore (which, if IIRC rightly, was “Lilin”.)
One minor footnote about the BK6 set: the album is mixed with Mark left and Eric right, but on stage they are both left. I presume that the albums are mixed in “MS3 listening position” to define the strings better, but was anal enough to spot the discrepancy live.
Given that the material for earlier in the evening had all been Book 2, I was especially excited by the prospect of the Acoustic Masada set, not least because this is my favourite configuration for the Masada material. I don’t have all the Acoustic Masada recordings by any means, but I’m going to assume that everything that they played until the encore (one of the Masada game pieces) was from Book 2. Some of the pieces, to be honest, sounded like anagrams of previous pieces, but there was a very interesting piece (I made a mental note: “Kurt Weill in New Orleans”) which was a very slow ballad played unison by the front line before an extended feature solo for Greg: some of it played completely unaccompanied as Joey dropped out for a few bars. There was also what I think is a new game piece very like “Acharei Mot”.
The playing was amazing to a novice. I’ve heard the Tzadik hype about “telepathic” playing, but the interplay between Zorn and Dave was amazing, and while the trumpet performance was fairly conservative, the sax was a tour de force. Yes, all the old tricks (muting with the knee, overblowing, various cunning mouthpiece techniques) but the switch between Zornian idiosyncrasies and mainstream technique was extraordinary, and there was a demonstration of circular breathing that literally had to be seen to be believed. (I’m no specialist in picking out these effects on recordings, but in the flesh Zorn was absolutely convincing as a master of the instrument.)
By the time that the Masada set was over, the concert was running towards the end of its third hour and was long past the advertised stopping time. The Paris audience seem to be much better than their London cousins at getting their money’s worth in extras, and the short encore hadn’t sated its enthusiasm, but all the musicians had now returned to the stage, and it seemed unlikely that Acoustic Masada would take the stage again. So how to end?
I don’t know whether this was planned in advance, but the way that Zorn greeted him after he had finished suggested that it was a spontaneous moment of sheer programming genius. Eric took the stage and played “Harhaziel”: a performance that even exceeded the fine one that opens Volac.
It was a supremely classy end to a concert that goes straight into the very short list of my favourite ever.
|
|
|
Post by Offering on Jun 27, 2008 16:18:30 GMT -5
Nice review Sordel, thanks!
|
|