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Saturday, May 9, 2009

Vicenza Jazz Festival 2009 - John Zorn & Uri Caine




Wikipedia on John Zorn


... yesterday evening, the first evening of 2009 edition of Vicenza Jazz Festival... a cool beginning beyond the thresholds of standards and jazz... the great, great John Zorn, born Sept. 2nd 1953, seems a rapper, younger than ever, never tired of his decades-long musical career, his Tzadik record label, Masada Acoustic and Electric projects exploring his Jewish roots, the recent projects with fellow Newyorkers Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed... a true volcano.

Uri Caine, beside being a very nice piano player, sounds sometimes second-listen, echoing some Jarrett/De Hartman/Tsabropoulos' Gurdjieff's hinted melodies alternating stormy piano sonic wrecks with mid-eastern flavoured melodies...

John Zorn's solo on alto sax - simply said, on a class itself - pays hommage to the noblest tradition of solo sax explorations of Ornette Coleman, Lol Coxhill, Evan Parker, and Anthony Braxton (the greatest of all, as John said during a too short conversation, after the concert...) hinting to whales, penguins and, broadening comparison, birds singing, snorting, puffing, farting, whistling, scaling, overtoning, playing in a sonic Picasso's version of (free) jazz, Terry Riley and LaMonte Young and Steve Reich in the shadow of timeless Teatro Olimpico's landscape, so misterious and appropriate to this weird music, with their blessing spirits...

The duo with Uri Caine, finally presented as a third, duo-act, after solos, showed a Zorn's Masada project-related revisitation... interesting, pleasing... but so much more normal than the sax-solo performance, quite rare and unseen & unheard by definition, left myself and others, still mouth-watering and missing the Zorn's previous stellar performance... beyond the limits of music and sound... to the VERY limits of the instrument itself.

... on next Sunday May 10th, Jan Garbarek and Hilliard Ensemble playing Arvo Part "Officium"...

Thanks to Riccardo Brazzale for the GREAT music program. Bravo and braveheart;-)

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