Now released on its own – this recording was part of a 4-CD box set issued in 2021 – there’s a concision and huge focus on this remarkably intact and purposeful rendering of tunes from John Zorn’s mega work of hundreds of his pieces called The Bagatelles.
It’s an exciting, very unclinical blend that involves two guitarists – Mary Halvorson, who has one of the most distinctive microtonal guitar sounds in jazz, and the M-BASE & Monk inspired Miles Okazaki, known for his work with Steve Coleman.
Plenty of pace and contrapuntal interpolation
There’s plenty of flow and pace thanks to Tomas Fujiwara‘s attentive drumming.
The all-U.S. ensemble is completed by top double bassist Drew Gress who is also with Robin Verheyen and Billy Hart on the just out Lift-Off.
You might think of a bagatelle in classical terms or even figuratively as a non-consequential piece of music written for fun – something of a party piece. Zorn re-writes the rules.
Exhilarating life force
Zorn, born 1953, as both a classical, jazz composer and ferocious improviser on saxophone himself, knows how to turn such thinking of mere-ness on its head.
Come here instead for fiercely intense intersecting guitar lines, rampaging bass and more on ‘165’ for instance that allows space and room to roam for a certain contrapuntal guitar frenzy that is very appealing exquisitely contextualised.
This fine small group of musicians brings his ideas to life that ignite into a punkish, avant squall that is an exhilarating life force. The quartet scale detailed ideas up to find places that only Zorn’s compositional mind really knows.
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