John Zorn's TZADIK Label

[PHILLYQ]

This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but "coming soon" is a Braxton, Milford Graves, William Parker trio CD.

When is that released?

Sooner every day!

I think it's out.

It is out- Iordered it yesterday along with the hooves disc.

Edited August 21, 2008 by PHILLYQ

[papsrus]

This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but "coming soon" is a Braxton, Milford Graves, William Parker trio CD.

When is that released?

Sooner every day!

I think it's out.

It is out- Iordered it yesterday along with the hooves disc.

Yup yup yup. On order here, too. Looking forward to it mightily. Here's a mention in the Braxton thread.

[Aggie87]

Gave a couple of spins to John Zorn's newest release, O'o. It's mostly the same lineup as played on The Gift and The Dreamers, and has that same sort of loungy exotica feel to it. Ribot's nice on this one, as is Jamie Saft. Worth checking out if you like this particular style of Zorn music.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

That 'O'o' is very nice - my recent favorite & right up there with the three MMW Radiolarians. While some melodies seem to fall in love with themselves after a couple minutes I think this is maybe the most cohesive of the Tzotica trifecta. Kenny Wolleson's vibes really hold it all together and Baptista is thankfully more tempered with the dog toys. And a beautiful package!

Do check out Rob Burger's trio on the previous release 'Alhambra: Songs of Love' ... some have a nice B-side feel to the Gift, Dreamers, O'o thing.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

High recs for the "Dreamers: Ipos" ... Ribot going all Beach Blanket Bar Mitzvah.

[7/4]

First Listen: John Zorn, 'A Dreamer's Christmas'

[Joe Bip]

Earlier in the year, I enjoyed this feature on the Tzadik site. They had over 50 artists choose a favorite disc from the back catalog and write up a short review/recommendation of it.

[Rabshakeh]

In honour of the return of Tzadik to wider availability, what records do you most like on the label and / or are most looking forward to listening to?

Bonus points on the scorecard for later era Zorn, non-Zorn and more recent records that might have got missed.

[Niko]

Mount Analogue is my go-to Zorn album... there are other albums w a similar lineup from that time which are great... Great Jewish Music Bacharach was the first thing I played today... tomorrow I'll be revisiting the Book of angels series

and Nova Express is great, classical Jazz in the vib/p/b/dr lineup

[jlhoots]

Don't overlook the Masada CDs.

[Rabshakeh]

6 minutes ago, jlhoots said:

Don't overlook the Masada CDs.

Those don't seem to be uploaded yet. Or at least most aren't. Seville, my favourite, is.

23 minutes ago, Niko said:

tomorrow I'll be revisiting the Book of angels series

What're your favourites? I have never really dug them, but interested to try again now they're out there to suck and see.

[mjazzg]

Masada Quartet

Bar Kokhba

The 50th Birthday series, especially Graves and Wadada

The Dreamers

Dreamachine

The more recent William Blake inspired albums the names of which escape me at the moment

[Rabshakeh]

9 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

 

The more recent William Blake inspired albums the names of which escape me at the moment

In Lambeth?

[mjazzg]

7 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

In Lambeth?

That's the one.

I think there's another but I haven't got access to my downloads at the moment 

[Rabshakeh]

4 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

That's the one.

I think there's another but I haven't got access to my downloads at the moment 

There are probably hundreds...

[Rabshakeh]

My own mentions are:

Steven Bernstein's Diaspora Soul - My favourite of all the Jewish-themed Tzadik releases. All the old tunes but they are all so swampy and horny. For some reason I didn't click with the rest of the series.

Susie Ibarra's Folkloriko - Some many different types of music all working together. The amount of time and energy that must have gone into composing this one...

Masada's Live in Sevilla - Just seems to me to be head and shoulders over much of the groups generally strong early output.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[Д.Д.]

I like Massacre (Frith / Laswell / Hayward) albums a lot. A loose guitar power trio. 

[T.D.]

I recall some quite good Tzadik releases in the (admittedly vague) "contemporary classical" and "microtonal" categories. Not sure there's enough interest here to merit putting together a list.

[romualdo]

big shout out for the live Masadas

Also Derek Bailey (includes Joseph Holbrooke Trio & Tony Oxley) & of course any Milford Graves

[Guy Berger]

The Steve Coleman solo album, Invisible Paths, is excellent, one of my favorites of his.

Also, the album It’s In the Twilight by Paul Shapiro is patchy but the opening track (“Light Rolls Away the Darkness”) is a classic.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

The rest of the album doesn't do that much for me but this piece is beautiful.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Stompin at the Savoy

[Д.Д.]

10 hours ago, T.D. said:

I recall some quite good Tzadik releases in the (admittedly vague) "contemporary classical" and "microtonal" categories. Not sure there's enough interest here to merit putting together a list.

Yes, absolutely.

I remember liking this one a lot:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2653364-José-Maceda-Drone-And-Melody

This one is mesmerizing:

 https://www.discogs.com/release/669503-Richard-Crandell-Mbira-Magic 

It's funny that Spotify lists John Zorn as an "artist" here on many non-Zorn Tzadik releases. He's merely an executive producer. I wonder if there is any particular intent behind this. I doubt that Zorn is after someone else's micro-pennies Spotify pays for streams. Maybe he tries to lure Zornofans to other people's works?       

Edited September 29, 2023 by Д.Д.

[Rabshakeh]

17 minutes ago, Д.Д. said:

 

It's funny that Spotify lists John Zorn as an "artist" here on many non-Zorn Tzadik releases. He's merely an executive producer. I wonder if there is any particular intent behind this. I doubt that Zorn is after someone else's micro-pennies Spotify pays for streams. Maybe he tries to lure Zornofans to other people's works?       

I wondered at that. It might just be a dump of files with intent to sort out later.

Interesting what isn't up yet. For some reason the Masada live records are all there, but not the studio records.

I got very excited about this last night. So much good music suddenly available. I don't tend to buy albums unless I've listened to them and like them already, so this is like a sudden explosion of new music for me.

[Niko]

some random stuff seems to be missing, like Book of Angels Vol 10 Lucifer, which was up on Spotify in the old days of Tzadik on Spotify... most of the other Book of Angels or Bar Kokhba Sextet albums are online...   and, indeed, artist names seem to be a bit random and not well-curated (Beyond Quantum is another example, it's credited to a single artist "Anthony Braxton, Milford Graves & William Parker" instead of to all three, making it pretty hard to find)

[Rabshakeh]

14 hours ago, Niko said:

 tomorrow I'll be revisiting the Book of angels series

I haven't heard any of these. On my list to try are Alastor, Astaroth, Ipos, Stolas and Xaphan. Any other great ones that I have missed.

Also on the list is Hod from the Book Beri'ah. Any recommendations for that "Book" also welcome.

I really find the names of these things contrived. For anyone not familiar with Judaism, they're just a random assortment of names and technical terms. A mainstream Western equivalent to a Masada setlist would be "First", "Salvation", "Tort Law", "Vespers", "Leviticus", "Purgatory", "Augustine", "Baltimore", "The Divine Comedy", "Catechism", "Quietude", etc etc etc and on and on.