JOHN ZORN STRATEGY VOL.2 LP FREE IMPROVISATION-FREE JAZZ-EVAN PARKER-BRAXTON

$

80

JOHN ZORN

 THE CLASSIC GUIDE TO STRATEGY VOL.TWO LP

Lumina Records 

Excellent original from mastermind John Zorn following the paths of Evan Parker and Anthony Braxton.

Some info on the release:  Rare original issue, released in Germany sometime in the mid-80's on the great Lumina Records label (Ned Rothenberg, Dary John Mizelle, Robert Dick, Richard Teitelbaum, John Fonville, etc.).  Featuring a variety of manipulated saxophones, clarinets, and duck calls, the album plays at the edges of sounds traditionally associated with reed instruments. However, when a line is drawn through Zorn's previous work, it ends up here -- the playfulness of sound, the variety of textures, the use of silence and space as part of the composition -- if the listener approaches this album expecting to find musical genius, he or she will not have to look too far. Zorn manufactures the sounds of animals, voices, squeaks, scraps of melodic lines, drowning (or at least dampened) beasts, and cartoon worlds with his reeds, paying homage to the work of Carl Stalling, as well as the sounds of Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker. The second volume containing less spacial breaks than Volume 1 between the musical bursts and each song paying tribute to avant-garde Japanese artists like Mori Ikue, Enoken, Kondo Toshinori, Katsumi Shigeru, Aoyama Michi, and Togawa Jun.

From allmusic: "The one word virtually everyone can agree on in any discussion of the work of composer John Zorn is "prolific," in the strictest sense of the definition. Though he didn't begin making records until 1980, the recordings under his own name number well over 100, and the sheer number of works he has performed on, composed, or produced easily doubles that number. Though now an internationally renowned musician and the founder and owner of the wildly successful and equally prolific Tzadik imprint, Zorn is a cornerstone of New York's fabled and influential downtown scene. In addition, he has played with musicians of every stripe. He is also a musical gadfly: genre purity, and pursuing the ends by which it is defined, is meaningless in Zorn's sound world, hence making him a quintessential mirror for 21st century culture. He has mentored countless musicians in the U.S., Europe, and Asia and has given exposure stateside via his Tzadik label to many others. His compositions have been performed by hundreds of artists, including the Kronos Quartet and Medeski, Martin & Wood. In addition, he has composed literally dozens of film scores. He has been the subject of books and documentary films as well.

Zorn was born in New York in 1953. His parents and brother were avid music fans all; from an early age he was exposed to jazz, classical music, doo wop, country, and rock & roll. In addition, being a child of the 1950s, he was exposed to the music of television via its various program themes and especially cartoon music, which influenced him early, and continues to. Zorn's musical education began in adolescence, studying guitar and flute. He was exposed to European and American vanguard classical music in adolescence and was affected deeply by it. He also reportedly played bass in a surf band in his teens. He studied composition at Webster College in St. Louis, where he was exposed to the music of free jazz, and claims he picked up the alto saxophone after hearing Anthony Braxton's seminal recording For Alto in 1969. Zorn's early influences and experiments in integrating free jazz, improvisation, 20th century classical, and cartoon musics can be heard on the album First Recordings 1973, released by Tzadik in 1995.

The first larger public acclaim for Zorn's work occurred when he signed with the Warner Bros. Nonesuch imprint in 1984, and released The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone. He later issued two similar tribute recordings, Spillane (in tribute to the crime author) and Spy vs. Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman, where he performed Coleman's works in thrashing, hardcore punk style (most pieces lasted only a minute or two) in a quintet with Tim Berne playing the other alto, drummers Joey Baron and Michael Vatcher, and bassist Mark Dresser. The album was praised by some and raised howls of often vicious criticism, ironically mirroring, of course, the same kind of treatment given Coleman himself when he appeared on the scene in the 1950s. Zorn followed this with the self-titled recording by a new band he put together called Naked City with guitarist Bill Frisell, Baron, bassist Fred Frith, and keyboardist Wayne Horvitz. This band combined everything form punk and jazz to funk and improvisation in a unit that could play beautifully articulated and complex melodies composed by Zorn and let loose with fury and reckless abandon. Only this debut appeared on Nonesuch; four.

During this period, Zorn was releasing albums on various European and Japanese imprints, including Avant and DIW. These include Ganryu Island and his vanguard jazz-metal group Pain Killer with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Mick Harris. Zorn continued releasing records of many stripes in the 1990s, including the harrowing Kristallnacht, his first engagement with his Jewish heritage on record that later became part of the Radical Jewish Culture series on Tzadik, a musical and cultural movement Zorn helped to found and steer. It radicalized him and prepared the way for Masada, a jazz quartet modeled after Coleman's original quartet. The band included Zorn's alto, Dave Douglas on trumpet, Baron on drums, and bassist Greg Cohen. The group issued ten limited-edition studio recordings beginning with Alef (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, though they didn't follow consecutively). They also released a handful of live dates from various places on their groundbreaking and widely acclaimed world tour. Zorn's compositions by this time had begun to incorporate Coleman's ideas of melody with Jewish folk music and improvisation. Several Naked City recordings were released through the Avant label as well as many others on which Zorn featured downtown musicians including Derek Bailey, Buckethead, Eugene Chadbourne, Dave Douglas, Erik Friedlander, Wayne Horvitz, Ikue Mori, Bobby Previte, Zeena Parkins and Marc Ribot.

Condition: Vinyl lies in mint- condition, looks super clean and plays perfectly, while cover lies in very good++ shape, with yellowing and light age wear (see picture).

Tracklist

• Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Wind [Game Calls], Producer – John Zorn
• Engineer – Don Hünerberg
• Graphics [Calligraphy Of The Character "Walter"] – Dr. K. Itoh
• Mastered By [DMM] – Jim Shelton
• Producer – Ned Rothenberg
• ~

SHIPPING & PAYMENT

Shipping: Shipping for this LP is 10$ airmail in Europe / 12$ for the rest of the world
Registered mail: +5$
Insurance: optional
Combined shipping: BIG discounts
Payment: Paypal 
Packaging: I am a collector too and i know