Sunday,
March 2 at 8pm
Out There: Radical
Musical Cultures
JUDAISM
An
Evening Featuring John Zorn’s Masada Songbook
with
Cyro
Baptista, percussion;
Joey Baron, drums;
Trevor Dunn, bass;
Ikue Mori, electronics;
Marc Ribot, electric guitar;
Jamie Saft, keyboards;
Kenny Wollesen,
drums;
Erik
Friedlander, cello and
John Zorn, alto
saxophone
+ other
Masada ensembles to be determined
This
concert was made possible through the generous
support of the National Museum of American
Jewish History, Kehillah of Center City, and
uwishunu.com
A
lifelong New Yorker, composer and saxophonist
John Zorn made his mark as a central participant
in the fertile "Downtown" experimental music
scene beginning in the mid-1970s. In the mid-1980s
he signed to the Elektra-Nonesuch label, releasing
the critically-acclaimed breakthrough The
Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of
Ennio Morricone, which was endorsed by
Morricone, and incorporated elements of traditional
Japanese music, soul jazz, and other diverse
musical genres. Since then, he has been exceptionally
prolific, usually putting out several new
recordings each year. In 1993 Zorn began composing
and performing his 208 tunes that now comprise
his Masada songbook.
Over
the years, these compositions have been performed
by various artists including his ensembles
the Masada String Trio and Bar Kohkba, but
most frequently with his extremely popular
Ornette Coleman-influenced quartet Masada
– featuring Joey Baron, Dave Douglas and Greg
Cohen. He has also founded Painkiller, a mix
of heavy metal and free jazz, and Naked City,
an often aggressive mix of jazz, rock and
thrash metal. He has worked with musicians
such as Bill Frisell, William Parker, George
Lewis, The Boredom’s Yamatsuka Eye, Derek
Bailey, Fred Frith, Melt Banana, John Medeski,
and the Violent Femmes. He has written music
extensively for television and film, continues
to oversee his recording label, Tzadik, which
is dedicated to experimental music, and is
the principal force behind The Stone, an avant-garde
performance space in New York's Alphabet City.
In 2006, Zorn was honored with a MacArthur
Fellow.
