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Rating: Masada. The last stronghold of Jewish resistance against Rome, after the Romans had razed Jerusalem to the ground. The last strongholds of resistance gathered in the city of Masada and preferred to commit suicide rather than fall into enemy hands. At least, that's how the legend goes.
Masada. A songbook of about 200 pieces, not counting book 2, "The Book of The Angels", still being published (we've already reached volume 4). The first releases were not on Tzadik, but on a Japanese label, "DIW", making them somewhat hard to find and a bit costly (but by now they're easily found second-hand on eBay and Amazon). It's absolutely worth it. Ten discs in total, each titled with a letter from the Hebrew alphabet. In particular, the first four, "Aleph", "Beit", "Gimel", and "Dalet" seem to have all been recorded in just two sessions, on February 20th and June 22nd, 1994 ("Dalet" is actually a kind of single containing only 3 tracks). Incredible virtuosity and not at all self-serving, this is music capable of gripping your guts.
Masada. In the original version a quartet, Zorn on sax, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on double bass, Joey Baron on percussion. In reality, not even very experimental, it will appeal to anyone accustomed to listening to jazz, there's very little avant-garde here. There are the influences of Klezmer and Jewish music, fused with blues and even a little free, in fact, not too much.
Where to start exploring this true genre? A good starting point in my opinion is the Volume 3 of the original series, "Gimel". It contains a lot of tracks, many of which are practically easy-listening and are a pleasure from the first listen. Probably anyway you will get passionate and grab the whole series like I'm doing. Because no jokes Masada is probably the most beautiful thing that has happened to jazz from the '90s to today.
As many as four tracks, "Abidan", "Karaim", "Sheloshim", "Tannaim" are presented again in "Bar Kokhba"; "Hazor" instead you'll find in "The Circle Maker". It's actually fun to compare the two versions, the one for quartet from "Gimel" and the one for orchestra in the two works mentioned above.
The fun thing is that you can practically whistle the themes, even though the album contains crazy arrangements. Too often, overly elaborate music has the problem of not being spontaneous, but don't worry, that's not the case here at all. You will find echoes and contaminations of all genres, but everything is fused in a way that seems natural, there isn't a nuance out of place.
A lot of people are suspicious of the fact that there are so many Masada releases and therefore assume it can't be quality stuff. Actually, even I'm amazed, even Miles Davis in his golden days didn't have this kind of productivity.
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