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Rating: Among Zorn's more distinctly jazz adventures, this trio stands out, featuring not only our trusty saxophonist but also George Lewis on trombone and Bill Frisell on guitar. There's no rhythm section or bass, just two brass instruments and a guitar in the background, which for a hard bop trio sounds at the very least a bit peculiar.
This is because this is a hard bop trio, which on this occasion dusts off the compositions of four "obscure" jazz artists (welcome anyone who tells me they are not obscure at all but well-known, but at least for me they were obscure). Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Sonny Clark, and Freddie Redd. All from the Blue Note catalog of the late '50s, the original records from which the pieces are taken are cited in the booklet.
The result is 20 rather short tracks, around three to four minutes each, which for '50s jazz is short (in this sense, the interpretation perhaps resembles early bebop by Charlie Parker more than later jazz). But the influential approach lies elsewhere, at least if you read the CD booklet where Agnostic Front and Husker Du are sincerely thanked. Indeed, the idea seems to be to play bop with a hardcore punk approach, two kinds of music that surely share a common trait in speed.
In the end, it all sounds rather respectful of the original melodies while being quite different in the improvisational spirit. The improvisations are fairly short and somewhat detached from the traditional harmonic structure typical of bop. We are obviously facing a tribute that is not a mere reproduction of a past style; and it's evident that our three musicians, although still young (the record is from 1987), already have plenty of style.
If we like, this is a preview of what we will hear with Naked City and with Masada. Zorn had not yet composed much and was dedicating himself to tributes to his favorite musicians (Morricone, Ornette Coleman, and so on). This "News for Lulu" is probably one of his best-executed tributes. The same trio also recorded a live album ("More News for Lulu"), unfortunately, with rather poor audio quality.
On the cover, we find the enchanting Louise Brooks, as both a perverse and childish muse. And what more could we want from a jazz record?
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