John Zorn's Masada - Live in Jerusalem

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John Zorn's Masada - Live in Jerusalem

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John Zorn's Masada - Live in Jerusalem [1994]
APE & MP3 + CUE + LOG | TT 112:01 | Full artwork @ 300dpi
APE = 608 mb | MP3 (vbr lame "–preset standard") = 160 mb
Jazz / Avant-Garde / World Fusion / Jewish music / 'Tzadik' stuff

When Tzadik started releasing Masada live recordings, I thought there's no particular rush to get them. I know most of the material, and -- after all -- how different can all these concerts be? Well... they can and they are. I was fortunate to see Masada in concert relatively early, in October 1995, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. They dashed out on stage -- no 'Good evening', no 'Hello', nothing -- grabbed their instruments and.... BANG! they've hit us with a couple of fast ones, instantly grabbing our attention and not letting go until the end. Zorn was wearing some washed out, out of shape T-shirt and camouflage trousers, they all appeared like some jazz guerrilla, elite assault jazz unit! Their breathtaking command of instruments, music heavily saturated in the folk motives of the Middle East... I remember being dazed, almost like in a trance of a kind, throughout the concert. Afterwards, I felt like I could walk on water. Live in Jerusalem 1994 presents Masada's first concert in Israel. No doubt, this must have been a very special occasion. 1994 was when they just started, having recorded material for the first four Masada studio CDs (Alef, Beit, Gimel and Dalet). Perhaps because of the awareness of the venue and the occasion (and the audience, of course), the music played on this concert "grabs" you in a different, dare I say: more subtle, way. If the tracks appear on the two CDs in order they were played (as they appear to be), it shows quite a different dynamic of the concert. Having different experiences myself, I appreciate this even more. This too, was a very memorable concert. It's impressive to hear (again) how well they hear and inspire each other, always finding some new and unexpected turn in their improvisations, constantly taking music higher and higher. Every time I listen to these CDs I seem to find another song to "lock" on. I've just hit and on the player to play Hekhal repeatedly, the last song of the first CD, upbeat, fast and oriental song with Joey Baron playing like a pair of castanets. I am sure you will do the same with some of the 18 tracks providing almost two hours of music.
(amazon.com customer review)