Masada Live In Jerusalem 1994 [Live]

John Zorn (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 20, 1999)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Live
• Label: Tzadik
• ASIN: B00000IITS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,027 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #90 in Music > Indie Music > Jazz > Avant-Garde

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly emotional, December 5, 1999

By 

jake (u.s.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Masada Live In Jerusalem 1994 (Audio CD)

Zorn's playing is the most sublime thing here-- he really plays his patookus off. I've never heard him solo with such restraint and yet so much passion! The song list is great, too... all the catchiest masada tunes. Be forewarned though... the audio is kinda squirrely. Although mixed by the same guy who did all the other Masada albums, the overall sound is REALLY bright and dynamic. It doesn't have the "brown sound" of the other recordings. Still, this difference kind of adds to the charm of it. The audience, by the way, is clearly loving this performance and seem to applaud constantly. It's a little bizarre but, again, nicely quirky. If you've never heard Masada before, this isn't perhaps the place to start, but it's definitely the most Masada for your buck, and if you love their other albums and want to hear what they'd sound like in a live setting with an adoring crowd, this is your golden egg. Personally, I'd rather listen to Masada in the studio, where you can hear every nuance of what they're playing. Aside from that, this is really cool and different. Four stars.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masada, Israel, March 7, 2000

By 

ptitchitza (Leiden, Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Masada Live In Jerusalem 1994 (Audio CD)

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 <program> and <repeat> 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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a fine live performance-- 4 1/2 stars., December 27, 2005

By 

Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Masada Live In Jerusalem 1994 (Audio CD)

In the early 1990s, John Zorn put together the Masada songbook-- what ended up being about 200 songs composed over a few years of jazz melodies written using the "Jewish scales", lending that familiar Eastern-European-meets-Middle-Eastern sound to the music. Zorn assembled a quartet that's pretty much without peer to record the music-- himself on alto sax, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass, and Joey Baron on drums, a quartet modelled after Ornette Coleman's famed quartet. "Live in Jerusalem", recorded in 1994, finds this quartet in full flight. They'd been in the studio, recording the better part of three albums and an EP (the first four Masada releases, from whence all the material on this recording was drawn), but the band and project on the road was always something more than it was in the studio, and this release is a perfect example of that.

The key to the material on this is building tension. The second piece on the first disc, "Bith-Aneth", is a good example of it. It opens delicately, almost gently, with Baron muted and Cohen deep in a groove. Zorn and Douglas flutter and freely associate on top before settling into the theme, stated like an afterthought. The two horns solo, first indepedently then together, with Zorn encouraging and pushing Douglas higher and higher.

It sounds a bit like hyperbole, admittedly, but that's pretty much a good summary of just about any of the pieces on here-- superb interaction, fantastic performances, and one member pushing the others higher and higher. The only complaint is sonic, the bass is a bit quieter than I'd like, but the performance is top notch. For a first exposure to Masada, I'm hard pressed to recommend anything other than "50th Birthday Celebration Volume 7", but to hear the band in their early days in full flight, "Live in Jerusalem" is a fine pick. Recommended.