Zorn/Masada fest

Last week was a intense week of live music. While I still go to a fair amount of shows, these days it's rare for me to be at something this involved. Just Edgefest every October. Years ago, I would often travel to extended festivals in New York or Victoriaville, Quebec. Life is very different these days.

New York composer/musician John Zorn did a five night residency at Yoshi's in San Francisco starting last wednesday. Each night was a different group, two sets per night. As soon as I heard about this last fall, I became terribly excited. I LOVE Zorn's Masada groups, especially The Masada String Trio and the sextet known as Bar Kokhba. Both groups have Erik Friedlander playing cello. He's something of a hero to me and is the main reason I starting playing cello years ago. Over the years, every time I've read about the Masada groups playing somewhere, always in New York or Europe, I try to figure out if I can fly out for it. It's that amazing to me. Finally, they do their first US Masada festival outside of NY and it's in my city! Wheee!

I knew that I definitely wanted to see the first three nights and bought tickets as soon as they went on sale. I figured I would see how things went with the last two nights. While interested, I figured it was a long stretch of time to go out and leave Stella & Jeffrey to their own devices. Who knows what trouble they could stir up without me looking over them!

A Brief History of Masada: Four of the five bands play tunes from Zorn's "Masada" book. His first Masada group was just called "Masada" and consisted of Zorn on alto sax, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The music was jazz heavily influenced by sephartic Jewish musical traditions and other eastern and klezmer influences. It went so well that he ended up writing over 100 pieces. Masada recorded 10 studio cds and a number of live cds. He then created The Masada String Trio, The Bar Kokhba Sextet and Electric Masada to also explore the compositions. This was all in the mid to late 90's. More recently he wrote a whole second book of compositions called "Book II: Book of Angels" and invented even more groups to play the music.

Wednesday night was the String Trio; Erik Friedlander on cello, Mark Feldman on violin and Greg Cohen on bass. Zorn sat on the floor in front of them conducting. The first set was pieces from Book I, the second from Book II. I bought tickets for both sets. It was absolutely amazing. All three musicians are virtuosos and master improvisers. Listening to the recordings is one thing, hearing and seeing it unfold before mes was a whole other thing. Watching Zorn conduct them... deciding who improvises when and for how long, dynamics, whether to bow or play pizzicato, whether to improvise melodically or just freak on their instruments... it was amazing to behold.

Thursday night was the Masada quartet. I had seen them in Columbus, Ohio years ago. I had a ticket to the first set and met a new friend at the club. The set was amazing, of course. Zorn and Douglas have been playing these tunes together for so long that they could really do amazing and things with them. My favorite parts where when the two of them improvised together, weaving a spell-binding conversation.

I decided not to stay for the second set... I had to work the next day and was already pretty tired. I should have stayed to see how they did with the Book II pieces.

Friday night was Bar Kokhba and my expectations and excitement were high. I was not let down. This was the String Trio plus Marc Ribot on guitar, Joey Baron on drums and Cyro Baptista on percussion. Ribot is mindblowingly amazing. They all are, really. Again, I stayed for both sets and had a near religious experience. It was one of the best shows I've seen in my life. If you ever get a chance to see Bar Kokhba live, GO!!!! Even if you think you won't like it, you will. I promise.

As Saturday night approached, it became clear that Stella was still way too busy with work to even want me around to distract her. So I headed off to Yoshi's again to catch the first set of The Dreamers, the only non-Masada project of the Zorn residency. The Dreamers is a recent creation, put together for a new cd a year ago. With Marc Ribot (guitar), Jamie Saft (piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3), Kenny Wollesen (vibes) Trevor Dunn (bass), Joey Baron (drums), Cyro Baptista (percussion) and Zorn directing and playing alto sax, this group plays music exploring a bunch of Zorn's influences in more "popular" music traditions - exotica, surf, film music, etc. The structures were fairly straight-forward but interestingly arranged with complex rhythms. But it was the soloing and group interplay that was most amazing. It times it was almost like listening to jam band, but much more focused. I loved it, but it wasn't on the same level for me as the previous three nights. I declined to pay for the second set and was home by 10pm.

Finally, as Sunday evening rolled around, and Jeffrey was in bed and Stella busy with grading again, I decided to head back to Yoshi's to hear the final set of Eletric Masada. This was the group I was least familiar with, not owning any of their cds (as opposed to many cds by the other bands). What little I had heard of them didn't impress me all that much, but I figured live it would be a different experience.

I arrived at Yoshi's at 9:35, expecting to get a good seat and wait for the next set. Instead I learned that Sunday's showtimes were at 7pm and 9pm. I talked my way in for half price and it turns out they started late, at 9:15, so I only missed 20 minutes or so. It was just as well; i still heard over an hour of music for half price and what I heard did not thrill me on the level of the other nights. While the lineup was much the same as The Dreamers (adding Ikue Mori on electronics and switching Kenny Wollesen from vibes to a second drum kit), the music was very different. Loud, bombastic, structurally simple, noisy in-elegant solos. Ribot sounded great, and Saft had some great solos, but much of it I could have done without. Maybe, isolated from the other nights, I would have enjoyed it more, but compared to the first 4 nights, this was a bit of a let down. The crowd loved it, of course. Zorn has a devoted cultish following that worships every scrap he produces.

Overall, I am immensely gratified that I had the opportunity to witness such a wonderful series of events. Next week I'll be heading over to Yoshi's in Oakland for a double bill of Myra Melford's Be Bread and Alex Cline's group.