Karaim

It is meditation time. Karaim is a piece written by John Zorn as part of his Masada project, which apparently is him exploring his Jewish heritage in a jazz setting. My journey of discovery that landed me with John Zorn really started from two separate directions - and they actually converge here. In 1989, I was starting to explore music outside the realm of the hard rock I mainly had been listening to throughout most of the 80s. Actually, the term we used back then was heavy metal, but with the evolution of that term, most of the bands that used to be called heavy metal are not necessarily called that anymore. 

Anyway, in 1989, I was exploring forms of music that were new to me - such as the brilliant genius Tom Waits. On his records, I started seeing a couple of names: Greg Cohen playing the bass and Marc Ribot on electric guitar. Throughout the 90s I listened over and over again to a tape of Big Time, the concert album - and I eventually got to watch the video as well. Once again, there were Greg Cohen and Marc Ribot. I fell in love with Marc Ribot's sound first and foremost, and I have never been disappointed in anything I have heard from him yet. 

However, I was also still listening to my hard rock (and I still am, which will become more and more apparent as time goes on with this blog), and in 1989 I, along with the rest of the world, discovered Faith No More. Their album The Real Thing was like nothing I had ever heard before, mixing some rap influences with hard rock - but more than that it had an aggression as well as a heaviness that was unprecedented. From there, the road took me to Mr. Bungle, which was the singer Mike Patton's original band. Their eponymous debut album was produced by none other than John Zorn. 

I kept an eye on John Zorn for a while, listening to his Naked City project, which I found to be part virtuoso and part unlistenable. Then, just a couple of years back, I was searching on YouTube, and I discovered both Masada and Electric Masada. Masada has John Zorn on saxophone, Greg Cohen on Bass, Joey Baron on drums, and Dave Douglas on trumpet. Electric Masada includes Trevor Dunn, who played bass for Mr. Bungle, and Marc Ribot as well as Ikue Mori, whom I had heard of through my love for Sonic Youth (check out SYR 5 for more information). Both these bands have performed versions of Karaim, which is a favorite of mine. I should probably warn you that I always have loved songs that stretch and stretch and appear to go on forever, and Karaim is no exception.

The central theme in Karaim is fairly straightforward, but it takes about a minute before it appears in the Masada version - and a little more than seven minutes before it appears on the Electric Masada version. The underlying chords are simple, and the scale used for the theme is pretty straightforward - but the directions they are able to take it in are stellar. 

This is an excellent accoustic version. The interplay between Zorn and Douglas is excellent - and so is the rhythm section of Baron and Cohen. I like the sounds Baron gets out of his kit using his hands rather than sticks - it provides a softness, yet the edge comes through by the use of dynamics throughout the performance:

On another note, I still remember putting Electric Masada At The Mountains Of Madness in the car CD player and turning it up on a sunny spring day - I could have driven forever listening to it. In this clip, which is in the same vein as the At The Mountains Of Madness version, you can watch Zorn directing the group of musicians, controlling the dynamics - they rise, rise, rise and then - bang! - they take it all the way down again. The electric version is divided in two - make sure you listen to the second part as well - that's where Mark Ribot comes in (but Jamie Saft on keyboards has some extremely tasteful moments in the first half - and Zorn himself is on fire!). 

Part 1:

Part 2: