Jazz Articles about Electric Masada

About Electric Masada

Album Review

Electric Masada: At the Mountains of Madness

Read "At the Mountains of Madness" reviewed by Kurt Gottschalk

by Kurt Gottschalk
March 30, 2007

There's a reason that Masada has been around for some thirteen-and-a-half years (officially coming to--or at least nearing--an end with two concerts this month at New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center), one that Zorn has offered more than once: the band is just so much fun. Whether or not he likes the term, the quartet with Dave Douglas, Greg Cohen and Joey Baron has been Zorn's best outlet as a remarkable jazz saxophonist since News for Lulu. And the octet ...

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Album Review

Electric Masada: At The Mountains of Madness

Read "At The Mountains of Madness" reviewed by Michael McCaw

by Michael McCaw
January 9, 2006

You could come close to identifying the music on this incredibly lively and vibrant, yet draining release by imagining Buckethead's Monsters and Robots combined with John Zorn's Bar Kokhba Sextet. Identified by Zorn's Tzadik label as an amalgamation of the agitated pacing of Naked City, the immediacy and “improvisational edge of Cobra, and the lyrical qualities of the Masada songbook, Electric Masada is a hulking beast of an octet, adept and pliable with firepower and grace. And where Volume 4 ...