The Concert Crypt

John Zorn's Electric Masada, Tonic, New York, NY, April 2, 2003

The line-up:

John Zorn - alto sax
Marc Ribot - guitar
John Medeski - organ
Jamie Saft - electric piano
Trevor Dunn - bass
Ben Perowsky - drums
Cyro Baptista - percussion

The music:

Swinging, free, electric, electronic. In the tradition of early 70s electric Miles Davis, by way of Ellis Island...

I am a huge fan of Zorn's Masada songbooks, but not a student, so amongst the 300+ songs currently making up the two books I cannot tell you many by name. These songs use traditional Sephardic Jewish musical themes as the melodic basis for group improvisations. There are many interpretations of the Masada material: acoustic jazz quartets, string trios, chamber groups, guitar works, etc...but Electric Masada always floats my boat.

Here are two tracks, totalling about 40 minutes of music, live in 2003.

John Zorn's Electric Masada, live MP3s
from Tonic, New York, NY, April 2, 2003