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Sunday, May 12, 2013

John Zorn's Book Of Angels Volume Three(Masada Book Two) - Malphas - Mark Feldman & Sylvie Courvoisier (USA 2006)

Masada Book Two



This third volume kinda blurs the line a little between Jazz and classical or chamber music. Mark Feldman appears on his second Book of Angles along with pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and this combination of instruments doesn't quite impress me as much, perhaps I miss the bass to get things swinging. Sylvie is a talented player but after the Jamie Shaft volume I am slightly under whelmed by the playing here. Again a mix of melodic pieces mixed with more atonal moments as is usual on these releases. It is still an enjoyable volume but lust lacks the intensity and passion of the first two volumes.Rating 3/5.

3 comments:

Sarah V. said...

Malphas just blew me away when I first heard it (six years ago now?). Still one of my very favorites. I love Courvoisier's playing especially. There's certainly no "swing" to it, but I think about it as an avant-classical album rather than jazz...

Funny how tastes can differ, eh? The Jamie Saft one is not really one of my favorites in the Book of Angels... even though I like him a lot.

Roddus said...

Avant-classical is a good description.

Thanks for your comment. I am interested to hear what you think of some of the other volumes as I review then.

Oh how I sometimes wish I lived in New York to see some great live music, we are almost starved here and even more so since the big earthquakes and I really cant afford to be jetsetting up north to see the concerts they have up there.

Sarah V. said...

Cyro Baptista has a Masada Marathon listed on his website in 2014 in Adelaide, so maybe they are planning some stuff in your neighborhood (I realize that is a really expansive definition of "neighborhood"!).

Masada is my favorite Zorn work also, there is so much great stuff in the Book of Angels series...