John Zorn - Ganryu Island
|
Music CD Cover Artist: John Zorn Brand: ZORN,JOHN Edition: Music CD CD Release Date: 1998-09-15 Music Label: Tzadik Soundtracks:
|
| New | New Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $9.99 | ||
| Used | Used Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $3.95 |
Your purchase is protected by the A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee. Amazon.com automatically transfers your payment to the merchant so you'll never need to pay a merchant directly. Amazon.com A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee covers both the delivery of your item and its condition upon receipt.
Free Music Notes for Ganryu Island Album
Free Music Review: 2 1/2 stars-- The shape of Zorn to come.
Hit: 2 Stars
"Ganryu Island" is a recording that, along with The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone, would set the stage for much of the next 20+ years of John Zorn's career. While The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone shows Zorn as arranger and genre bender, "Ganryu Island" shows Zorn the performer, Zorn the improviser, and Zorn the fearless, where the structured free improvisation of the Game Pieces recess into the background and a more responsive and associative performance comes to the fore.
A duet with Sato Michihiro on shamisen (a plucked, 3-stringed, Japanese instrument), the recording, made in late 1984, consists of the original record plus five bonus tracks, all pretty much in the same vein. Sato lays down a backdrop, usually of a gently strummed and propulsive rhythm over which Zorn squaks, grunts, and occasionally riffs on his sax and various game calls. None of the pieces really grab me, but it's all a reasonable listen. I think, however, that with the addition of five further tracks, the recording's sameness of form starts to drag and after 70+ minutes of listening, my interest started to wane.
That said, the recording has its weight in the historical narrative of Zorn's work, and is in many ways a missing link from the likes of Archery and Yankees, where Zorn was either providing structure in the case of the former or somewhat recessed in the case of the latter, to a point where Zorn as a personality of performer is up front.