Customer Reviews

Masada 1

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I take some silly kind of pride in the fact that, at this time, the only two reviews for this excellent album are written by Croats. This is the first in the series of John Zorn 10 Masada quartet albums (plus one live recording released by Jazz DCOR and few more released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik). The four musicians of Masada quartet (John Zorn - alto sax, Dave Douglas - trumpet, Joey Baron - drums, Greg Cohen - bass) are all masters of their instruments. They have recorded the ten albums in only a few studio sessions, all of which feature very, very passionate and inspired playing. All of the albums are beautifully played, with exquisite sense for measure and taste, the musicians bringing their instruments to the edge of possible (and beyond, as it often seems, it's awesome!) but their virtuosity never being self-serving. Many compositions sound like folk themes, there are a lot of emotions, a lot of melancholy or sense of longing, but also some 'smoking', joyous faster tracks. Ornette Coleman comes to mind in some slipped music references or in the general feeling of some tunes. "Alef", the title of this album, is the first letter of the Hebrew (and ancient Phoenician) language, and it has its numerical value: one. The second and the third album follow this pattern in their names. The entire series is so elaborately produced (with beautiful covers etc.) and just so breath-taking, that in preparation for a 1996 CD presentation at the local radio station (Radio Velika Gorica) I actually went to the Jewish Community Center in Zagreb and asked the Rabbi who was so kind to help me (thank you, Rabbi Moshe) try to decipher the concept behind it. I knew that Masada was a rock fortress on the shore of the Dead Sea, which served as the final outpost for the Jews against the invading Romans in the first century, but what about all these titles? That is not an easy task (not for me), but apparently they are derived from the Talmud and are a cross between Hebrew, Chaldeic and Aramaic words. The fact is that I do not know for sure, but fuelled with music I follow the most attractive of numerous historical references. Okay, "Tzofeh" may be an observer, "Ashnah" may have something to do with "this year", but what about Kanah, for example. It could be a town in Galilee (today: Kefr Kennah), close to the Nazareth, where Jesus made his first miracle turning water into wine, it could be Kànaan, the promised land - today's Israel (it could be both?). The entire series is dedicated to Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Ha'am), founding father of Cultural Zionism, and the beautiful quote from Gershom Scholem printed at the back of CDs makes perfect sense: "There is a life of tradition that does not merely consist of conservative preservation, the constant continuation of the spiritual and cultural possessions of a community. There is such a thing as a treasure hunt within tradition, which creates a living relationship to tradition and to which much of what is best in current Jewish consciousness is indebted, even where it was -- and is - expressed outside the framework of orthodoxy."

And if you EVER feel tempted to think that the compositions on 10 Masada albums get a bit repetitive, then try Zorn's Masada Chamber Ensembles and you will hear these beautiful songs rearranged and reinvented in the most impressive way (check out the Bar Kokhba, Zevulun and Issachar CDs).

"Alef" is a masterpiece.

Masada's debut is pretty heady. A lot of free jazz stylings, more, perhaps, than any other Masada release. This album is technically amazing of course and very groundbreaking in its time, but it lacks some of the soul and heart of subsequent releases (particularly Vol. 2 and Vol. 4). Since all of the aforementioned albums were recorded on the same day(!), it boggles my mind why Zorn would release this particular collection first. I'm sure there's some rhyme or reason to it; I just can't find any. If it hadn't been fort the next three albums, I would like this one a lot more and that would be reflected in its rating. A good album.

John Zorn's Masada is arguably the project for which he has received the most recognition and found success. Conceptually, its quite simple, an exploration of his roots in Judaism and jazz and an attempt at composing a songbook like Monk and other musicians had, with the restrictions that the pieces had to use the "Jewish" scales. With such a strong limitation, its quite amazing that Zorn manages to capture such a great level of diversity in the writing, and he composed somewhere around 200 pieces, performed originally by this quartet of master musicians (Zorn on alto, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass and Joey Baron on drums) but later expanded to performance by other ensembles. The original Masada band has released ten studio albums, with a further host of live records. This is the band's debut, and one of four albums recorded on February 20, 1994.

Musically, Masada is a bit more than Ornette Coleman Quartet meets klezmer, though its often reduced to that by lazy critiques. Its strength lies in the simplicity of the themes and the ability of the musicians to really get behind them and intertwine their parts-- Douglas and Zorn will often simultaneously solo, and it seems that whenever anyone is soloing independently, someone behind them is doing something more interesting-- Baron's drum fills behind the duo-leads on "Zebdi" is probably the best of example of this-- Zorn and Douglas are ferocious, covering a ton of ground, but behind it all, Baron is stealing the show.

The album opens in an aggressive mode-- "Jair" features some fantastic soloing from Zorn, but quickly settles into the dark and meditative "Bith Aneth". This is really the strength of the Masada ensemble, the ability to express in such diversity of forms, and the piece's opening cries and squeals give way to the hypnotic theme. If you're not sold by this point on the record, you're never going to be sold on Masada.

The remainder of the album maintains this high quality, with more aggressive material including a piece with monster drum solo ("Tzofeh"), a haunting, and dark piece that three minutes in deconstructs into quiet screeches ("Ashnah") and an early classic in the Masada catalog and one of the endearing themes, the forceful and swinging "Tahah". The problem is, all these pieces I point out are on the firswt half of the record, and the material on the second half, while its certainly quite good, isn't nearly as strong (bass feature "Idalah-Abal" being the exception-- with Cohen all over the place and Baron supporting him brilliantly and gently before the horns enter, wrapping themselves way up in a theme filled with such longing as to almost be hard to listen to). The album really sort of loses steam halfway through.

Nonetheless, Masada having lost steam is quite a bit superior to almost anything else out there. While I think the live albums make a better introduction to the project, this is certainly as good a place to any to dive into the studio material. Its a fine album and well worth the investment, recommended.

This remains my favorite of the Masada albums, although I love them all to varying degrees (and I have a real fondness for four and six). The tunes here are beautiful and the playing is probably the group's most inspired.