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March 02, 2010
A few notes are worth a thousand words
It is impossible to categorise a track by John Zorn. You're likely to hear fragments of everything from classical masterpieces to thrash metal, from jazz licks to film music soundscapes. This music is the soundtrack of postmodernism, the aural equivalent of surrealist collage. "I've got an incredibly short attention span," Zorn says. "My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast."That quote is from a Tom Service article and it does make John Zorn's music sound rather daunting. Which is a pity, because like many composers a few notes of John Zorn's music is worth a thousand words. You could do a lot worse than start with Uri Caine plays Zorn's Masada Book Two on the composer's own Tzadik label. Lots of music but few words on the CD which is seen below. It comes with the very post-modern documentation of absolutely no explanatory text, a blank label and the most obscure sleeve typography ever. If you insist on a description of the music on the disc I'll assay abbreviated Keith Jarrett meets mellow Conlon Nanacarrow with Kabbalistic undertones.
But don't take my inadequate words. Buy the CD or download, or if you are lucky enough to live in Ireland get along to hear the equally unclassifiable Uri Caine playing John Zorn on March 5 in a concert promoted by the Louth Contemporary Music Society. They are the freethinkers who prompted me to write If I were CEO of a major record label ... Some very different Jewish influenced piano music here.
Louth Contemporary Music Society's nice poster has been reformatted by me to fit the blog. The Uri Caine CD was bought online. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Originally from On An Overgrown Path, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 2, 2010 at 02:12 PM