Spy Vs Spy

John Zorn | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: August 22, 1989
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000002H6W
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,290 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #22 in Music > Jazz > Avant Garde & Free Jazz

Track Listings

1. WRU

2. Chronology

3. Word for Bird

4. Good Old Days

5. The Disguise

6. Enfant

7. Rejoicing

8. Blues Connotation

9. C. & D.

10. Chippie

11. Peace Warriors

12. Ecars

13. Feet Music

14. Broad Way Blues

15. Space Church

16. Zig Zag

17. Mob Job

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It shouldn't work, but it does, June 20, 2000

By 

N. Dorward "obsessive reviewer" (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spy Vs Spy (Audio CD)

It's been a while since I listened intensely to Zorn--used to listen a lot to albums like _Spillane_ but have been less excited by them than before. However, I just dug out _Spy Vs Spy_ again, & think it remains a fine disc. Thrashy, ultra-loud, ultra-fast versions of Ornette Coleman tunes...sounds like it should be a travesty, but it actually works phenomenally well. The album is split into two halves (the original A and B sides): the first consists of the bluntest & fastest renditions of tunes, each about one to two minutes in length. A highlight is "Chippie"--if you listen carefully at the end of the cut after the smoke clears you can hear someone breathe a sigh of relief! It's intense & funny--Joey Baron & Michael Vatcher pounding away, Mark Dresser calmly doing his thing, Tim Berne & John Zorn squalling madly. Part two (side B) has more varied & considered interpretations (some as long as 5 minutes), which often move farther from the source material. I recommend "Ecars", a terrifically swinging rendition of a tune Ornette recorded for _Ornette on Tenor_; and the final "Mob Job", which Zorn turns into a yearning, pained and painful blues, is a stunning conclusion.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not all thrash jazz., April 29, 2005

By 

Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Spy Vs Spy (Audio CD)

The avant-garde jazz movements have their share of detractors, and they have their share of fanatics. And to many in the latter category, touching this music in a fashion other than originally intended is often akin to the greatest acts of travisty-- loving music that is so decidingly unpopular tends to have the effect of defensiveness-- as a result, its often the case that anyone who covers a piece from the avant-garde without doing a reading in a similar form often comes under harsh criticism from both the fanatics and the detractors-- even when Ornette Coleman got his band plugged in and changed some elements of his style, he came under harsh criticism. I suppose its often the case that its only acceptable to be different in the right ways.

It is, of course, in this context that John Zorn has recorded an album that is universally unpopular on both sides of the fence and unfairly criticisized for its most overt elements. Zorn (on alto sax), with support from Tim Berne (also alto sax), Mark Dresser (bass), Joey Baron (drums) and Michael Vatcher (drums) put together an album of Ornette Coleman songs-- often played in a proto-Naked City hardcore "thrash jazz" style-- at least on the first half of the album, the second side is a different story altogether, and any criticism of this as an album of all the same breakneck hardcore thrash jazz shows the record was not listened to all the way through.

Zorn was heavily influenced by hardcore bands and apparanetly saw no reason to keep this idiom separate from jazz (and later he'd let his take of his critics known on the sublimely titled Naked City track, "Jazz Snob- Eat S***").

So quite a bit on this record is aggressive, and angry, and relentless ("Good Old Days"), but there's a lot more to it than that, a lot of contrast can be made in the sing-song theme statements vs. the cartoon/hardcore influenced solos ("Blues Connotation"), and while the record has been criticized as a screech fest, it is more often the case that one or both sax players will play melodic lines ("Rejoicing", "C&D"), and it does pre-sage both Naked City and Masada to some degree-- check out the dual soloing throughout on pieces like "The Disguise".

The second side is a different story altogether, although somewhat muddy in its sound (the first side is too, but it seems less important), we get some great riffing and fantastic, swinging playing-- check out "Ecars", "Feet Music", or one of my favorites, the stunning "Broadway Blues" take. Its still pretty outside, but I think its a lot easier to deal with than the first side.

Truth to be told, what I really think is that the album is in severe need of remastering-- the sound is muddy and the mix is kind of odd, and this definitely detracts from the album, but nonetheless, its a great record. Recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars hardcorebaroquethrashjazz, December 11, 2006

By 

Mr. Richard K. Weems "emperor_weems" (Fair Lawn, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spy Vs Spy (Audio CD)

Ornette Coleman's music is such an enigma because of its inability to fit to any one style of music...or because of its amorphous nature that lets it connect to so many other styles of music. This disc takes some acclimation, but its severe bombasity (even in the 'slower' tracks of the second half) is rewarding if your ears can live through the initial assault.

But that IS John Zorn's way, isn't it? At least in some of these early recordings...he slaps you upside the head with quick changes and Napalm Death speed and an onslaught that he used to carpet bomb himself an area of music that he could then go back to and refine a little. In the end, I think Zorn overevolved a bit and became a dinosaur whose carapace was too thorny to lift, but these earlier recordings have an intense sense of exploration about them, of wanting to find out where he could go and, I think, how far up the wall he could drive others.

And all this is why Coleman's music is so fitting to this spirit. Ornette Coleman has branched out his own music into multimedia explorations and different combinations, including orchestra. But it took Zorn to bring this music into a mosh pit to ironically bring out the baroque elements of the music--the precision of the cascades and the sudden, but fitting endings. This disc is worth a few listens, even if those around you are cursing their names under their breath.