Masada (band)

Masada is not so much a band as a musical project that John Zorn embarked upon in the early '90s. It is a collection of more than 200 short tunes that have been written in accordance with a number of rules. These include the maximum number of staves, the modes or scales that are used and the fact that they must be playable by any small group of instruments. Given the historical associations of the project's name (see Masada), the Hebrew titles of the compositions, and the Jewish imagery on the covers of the associated albums, Zorn was clearly exploring his Jewish roots. "The idea with Masada is to produce a sort of radical Jewish music, a new Jewish music which is not the traditional one in a different arrangement, but music for the Jews of today. The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together." http://www.omnology.com/zorn02.html

Related Topics:
John Zorn - Masada - Ornette Coleman

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Zorn formed the group Masada in order to record and perform this set of tunes. The personnel is John Zorn, alto saxophone, Dave Douglas, trumpet, Greg Cohen, bass, and Joey Baron, drums. A number of different drummers have performed with Masada over the years, most regularly Kenny Wollesen. Masada recorded the music on a series of ten CDs on the Japanese DIW label and a number of live recordings on Zorn's Tzadik label.

Related Topics:
Dave Douglas - Greg Cohen - Joey Baron - Kenny Wollesen - Tzadik

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the last few months of 2004, Zorn wrote over 300 new tunes for the Masada songbook. Some of the new tunes were debuted at Tonic, NYC in December of 2004, as a mini festival.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~