Rabble Without A Cause
Wednesday December 19th, 2012 with Bernard Stepien
John Zorn’s A Dreamers Christmas

John Zorn is known to be a fierce Free Jazz New York alto saxophonist. To that effect he is even the producer of the famous Tzadik record label that is specialized in recording lots of Free Jazz artists including definitely the great non-commercialist Evan Parker. This time, he decided to produce what he calls an accessible Christmas CD on that same label. He doesn’t play on it but wrote all the arrangements for a very straight ahead band but also composed a couple Christmas carols of his own: Santa’s Workshop and Magical Sleigh Ride. John Zorn entering the lucrative commercial Christmas carols market? May be this is the weird thing about it! John Zorn declared in an NPR interview: “This is one of my most user-friendly projects ever” “My message is joy to the world” “This is a record to play while you’re trimming the tree” So, what’s going on here? Well, if you listen really closely to this music you will see that Zorn did a kind of fusion project between textures for which he is famous and straight ahead caroling. This is more leaning towards Disney’s world rather than Masada, but if you are a Free Jazz and more specifically a John Zorn aficionado, it will certainly make you think… In the mean time you can prepare yourself for this show by reading this excellent review from Jake Marmer: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/music/86724/spirited-holiday