During the last couple of weeks I was a happy man. Not only Dave Douglas performed for free in Brussels, but I also saw a stunning concert of the Electric Masada. Yesterday I heard Dave Douglas again with Ikue Mori and DJ Olive performing together with a chamber music ensemble. But as this is the Zorn list I'll start with Electric Masada. The Blue Note Festival in Ghent Belgium is a very young festival but due to his name it already managed to have a full house. The Festival is held in an historical environment, so everything has to be kept in the original state. As a result six trees are in the inside of the tent what really is an unusual view. Last Saturday Bill Frisell, Flat Earth Society and Electric Masada were on the list. The set of Bill Frisell with his world music ensemble was boaring. Flat Earth Society is a kind of Willem Breuker Kollektief big-band, that performed Louis Armstrong tunes. They completely reworked the music of LA and presented a full hour of wonderful music and nice solos. Before the set of Electric Masada the announcer asked not to take photographs of the group. When they arrived on stage, Zorn saw two photographers doing their job, he went to them and was very angry. The audience boo-ed at him and someone shouted out very loudly "Go home". I thought that this would go wrong but JZ picked up his saxophone and started as if nothing had happened. It was the start of a stunning set with wild music all directed by JZ. He turned always his back to the audience a bit like Miles Davis did. As already mentionned in the other reviews of Electric Masada, they played 6 tunes and one encore. One could feel that this band played together for quite a long time because everything was perfect. The two occasions on which I attented a Dave Douglas performance were very different. The first one was with his New Quintet in the center of Brussels. As this was a free concert not everyone was there to listen to the music of DD. The result was a noisy set and the musicians had difficulties in concentrating and finding their usual drive. After a message of DD in which he apologised for his own government and told us that the upcoming tune was in his head shortly after 9/11 but only came out recently, he played an astonishing solo. Thereafter everyone picked up at the same level and the rest of the concert was very nice. Yesterday DD was a member of a group of six musicians with a completely different background. Three members are of the Belgian Ictus Ensemble, mostly performing contemporary classical music: Piet Van Bockstael on hobo, Igor Semenoff on violin and Thomas Dieltjes on piano. The others were Dave Douglas on trumpet of course, Ikue Mori on electronical percussion and DJ Olive on turntables. Also two dancers were part of the group. It was rather unusual to have DD as a member and not as the conductor of the group. They played two sets of 35 minutes each containing sheets of music of Dave Douglas, Luciano Berio, Robert Schumann a.o. Each set contained parts of notated music and improvisations. The result was a perfect mix of two types of modern music. Breath taking solos on trumpet, hobo and a Sanctuary-like piece were the highlights for me. I can tell you that last year DD was in Belgium for a piece he performed with the whole Ictus Ensemble (that I didn't like as much as the performance of yesterday). I don't know if some recordings of these projects are available. Kind regards Chris Verborgt np Anthony Braxton Solo (Köln) 1978