GBlog

John Zorn recorded Kristallnacht in November 1992, his premiere work of radical Jewish culture, featuring a suite of seven compositions reflecting the infamous Night of Broken Glass in late 1938 where Jews were targets of violence and destruction in Germany and Austria. The experience prompted Zorn to further explore his Jewish heritage and composing using Jewish musical styles. Zorn then set himself the task of writing 100 compositions within a year incorporating klezmer styles with his already broad musical palette. Within three years, the number of compositions had grown to 200 and became known as the first Masada book. Zorn has stated:

• The project for Masada was to create something positive in the Jewish tradition something that maybe takes the idea of Jewish music into the 21st century the way jazz developed from the teens and 1920s into the '40s, the '50s, the '60s and on...
  
  ... My initial plan was to write 100 tunes in a year that touched upon the Jewish tradition and that was an interesting challenge. It was really fun as a composer to come home and write a something that could be finished sometimes in 10 minutes, sometimes in an hour or sometimes an evening...
  
  ... The Masada songbook was really something that was like the Irving Berlin songbook or the Burt Bacharach songbook or the Thelonious Monk songbook. Here's another lifetime for me. So when I look at what's been accomplished in the world of Masada, it's kind of unbelievable. Of course I had no idea at the times I started. My initial idea was to write a hundred tunes. And then I ended up writing over 200 for the first book and then performed it countless time for years.

In 2004, Zorn began composing the second Masada Book, 'The Book of Angels', resulting in an additional 300 compositions. Zorn has stated:

• After 10 years of performing the first book, I thought 'Maybe it'd be nice to write some more tunes.' And I wrote 300 more tunes. When I started writing those it was 'Let's see if I can write a hundred songs in a month this time.' I've been working on these scales and playing these tunes all this time. In the back of my head somewhere are lodged all kinds of new ideas. Let's see if I can come up with 100 tunes in a month instead of in a yr. So in the first month, I popped out a hundred tunes; the second month, another hundred; in the third month, a third 100 tunes. I had no idea that was going to happen.

Ipos: Book of Angels, Vol. 14 with the Dreamers (a much newer group with Marc Ribot, electric guitar; Kenny Wolleson, vibes; Jamie Saft, keyboards; Trevor Dunn, bass; Joey Baron, drums; Cyro Baptista, percussion).

Galizur ist übrigens im Talmud der Engel, vor welchem Moses zitterte, als er im Himmel war, um das Gesetz zu empfangen. Ich will nicht religiös werden, aber : Möge Galizur doch Firguren wie neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy, David of Arabia Cameron oder Nobel Peace Prize winner and multiple war developer Barack Obama und anderen erscheinen, um das Gesetz zu verkünden, auf dass sie zittern ...