Masada Volume 9 is at first glance exactly what you’d expect from John
Zorn, Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen and Joey Baron, with the Middle Eastern sounding
Ornette quartet cooking up a brew and rising to a storm in fine style. It is
though surprisingly the first real Masada effort where everyone involved gets
to contribute as equal members.
It’s a two-way effect, with Cohen and Baron really pushing forward, but
also with Zorn and Douglas being careful to create more space and ease off the
accererator a little bit too. The effect created is that there are a
significantly greater number of slower more bluesy pieces than expected – the
winningly sad‘Kedushah’ being a great example, while ‘Moshav’ benefits both from
being yearningly melancholich and possessing a superior opening solo from Cohen
that ranks alongside his finest contributions to the quartet.
Baron plays at a new peak too, with his powerful tom-toms making a
welcome return, and creating a powerful riot on the excellent ‘Meholalot’,
which also gets a great Latinesque bass and drums break down. He cooks up a
riot on ‘Leshem’ too, which also gets a new career highlight solo from Douglas’
trumpet.
In fact the most notable contribution here is that of Zorn, in an
inverse kind of way, who creates a less dominant presence than usual. Not to
say he’s not good here – he is – but the four men here create a distinctly
different type of Masada than before. Not necessarily a better or worse group,
but perhaps a more unified and cohesive yet moe varied one, that creates arguably
one of the most unique entries in the quartets catalogue.
****
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