Oy! Back from what seems to be the last vacation of this summer. Let’s end the one week drought with one of the best albums of 2008, from the powerhouse sextet of the downtown scene (which I’ve been holding back since April). The second Masada songbook releases this year were impressive with fab albums from Bar Kokhba, Secret Chiefs 3 and finally Medeski Martin and Wood!

There’s not much to say about Bar Kokhba; with an unsurpassed line up from the downtown contemporary jazz circle: the foundation of the original Masada line-up Greg Cohen on bass and Joey Baron on drums, the iconic Marc Ribot on guitar, Mark Feldman on violin, Erik Friedlander on cello and the percussion wiz Cyro Baptista, who cements the Bar Kokhba sound.

Lucifer Book of Angels, the 10th installment of the second Masada series and their first album in 12 years (if you don’t count the 3CD live) has similarities with The Dreamers and 2001’s The Gift; traditional Sephardic music meets, surf music meets jazz meets cinema. I’m such a fool for this sound and I’m confident that the world will be a better place if everyone listened to this, yet I think it might be out of touch with the young indie crowd who happen to frequent here time and time again.

This is a mature album (perhaps a bit too much with Mr. John Zorn seemingly leaving all the edgy bits out for this one) as expected from a 6 piece chamber trio + a composer who’re all past 50 years of age. Yet it’s timeless and as opposed to other Zorn stuff pretty easy to get into at the same time (yes even for your elderly neighbour) and if you don’t have a disdain against non-western musical scales, you might be marveling at the otherworldly blend of romantic melodies and cinematic ambience - which I feel I have to stress once again, comes singlehandedly from the brilliant Cyro Baptista.

Lovely photo of a young John Zorn playing sax by A23H

Bar Kokhba Sextet - Sother
Bar Kokhba Sextet - Zazel

Another day another Tzadik release, this time by the eccentric percussion guru Cyro Baptista. I’ve known him from the Electric Masada ensemble and also I’ve listened to his track Matan on the wonderful Dichotomy of Epiphany mp3blog a few months ago. His percussion and dance ensemble released their second album on Tzadik in 2005. Cyro has been an eclectic performer who has a revolutionary vision and this is one of the most challenging and innovative percussion and rhythm albums I’ve ever listened to.

No wonder the man has worked with artists including (My God look at this list) John Zorn, James Taylor, Brian Eno, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, Medeski Martin & Wood, Spyro Gyra, Melissa Etheridge, Yo-Yo Ma, Santana, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and countless more.

This album has world music and brasil rhythms, a touch of middle east, africa, violins, electro guitars and even megaphones and dance & performance art, as the band is supposedly a great act live, which is compared to Stomp!, (but imo musically far superior). It’s not doing any justice to choose 2 songs from this album because all the songs are unique and wonderfully crafted. You can sense the enthusiasm and fun listening to the album, because the live act is captured really well by Jamie Saft, which will be the subject of tomorrow’s post, with the Jamie Saft Trio plays Bob Dylan, which is released once again on Tzadik very recently. If you think you like the avantgarde percussion world music feeling from these 2 songs, you should definitely get the album, because there’s lots of hidden humor and surprises and strange rhythms and different instruments in all songs (akin to the genrebreaking Mr. Bungle, or the feeling you’d get out of a Les Claypool album with a percussion and vocal ensemble.)

Here’s a short writeup by the guy himself for All about Jazz, telling an inspiring anecdote about a past experience, it was nice to read it, he seems to be an eccentric down to earth genius who seems to be translating his feelings and thoughts into his music to with extreme accuracy.

and finally Cyro Baptista making a guest appearance on a Wnyston Marsalis concert, 10 minutes of youtube wonder.

[youtube 8To_nY4dEb4]

Cyro Baptista - American Constitution
Cyro Baptista - Annarrie