Account of The Gift show

15 Sep 2003

      Well, I've only seen one show so far, the first set of The Gift.  I haven't heard the album, but the show was phenomenal.  Sorry I can't provide much contextual analysis, and I imagine that they mainly played the album, so pardon me if any of this is obvious to those who know it...  I'd seen most of the musicians play with Electric Masada in June at Tonic, but Marc Ribot wasn't there, having been replaced by Jon Madof.  Madof is a novice, of course, compared to Marc Ribot (though it's probably not fair to judge him sitting in for Ribot).  No one here needs convincing of Ribot's talent.  But I'd never seen him before, nor heard that much of his recordings, and he astounded me.  Dave Douglas was on the written line-up, but didn't appear at all.  Zorn played keyboards and of course conducted.  Jamie Saft also played keyboards.  The keyboards/organ/piano were almost always rhythm instruments, along with Baron's drums, and Cyro Baptista and Richard Rodriguez's percussion.  Ribot w
as the melody instrument (apart from the one atonal moment provided in "Bridge to the Beyond," the most exotica number, in which Zorn played a funny theremin solo using raised eyebrows, crossed eyes and tongue-flicking on the antenna).  Cyro Baptista was one of the stars of the show; he deployed an even larger arsenal of instruments than with E. Masada when I saw them, his wacky stage presence fit wonderfully with the partly campy, mostly outright luscious music.  Overall the sound and style of the music, apart from the instrumentation, was of course in another realm from the jewish melodies, 70s fusion sounds and hand-signal improv that constitutes the latter.  Joey Baron was beaming with delight the whole time, Saft was taciturn as usual, Zorn seemed to enjoy his time on the keyboards, with Saft aiding him at one point to turn the right timbre on and even correcting him once on the number of measures to count before the bridge of one song.  Ribot looked tired but performed 
perfectly.  He was the only one reading music.  Oh, and Trevor Dunn--unrelenting, humble repetition of rhythm with maybe once a solo-ish two or three bars.  His facial expression looks like mildly drugged ecstatic trance, his spirit seemingly floating above the endless cadences his hands quietly extracted from the bass.  But Ribot, as the only lead instrumentalist (apart from one, maybe two short solos by Saft), destroyed my mind and then put it back together behind my back.  If Zorn is a mad scientist, Ribot's a shaman.
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Yeah, I thought for sure we'd get multiple daily reviews.  Steve Smith, where 
are you?

Wishing he lived in NYC,
Tom

In a message dated 9/15/03 10:06:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
a_gadney@hotmail.com writes:
...
How's the Zorn month going? Any good shows?? It's surprisingly quiet here 
on 
the list about it... :-(
______________________________________________________
Discs I'm playing at work
Johnny Cash -- American Recordings
Johnny Cash -- Unchained
Johnny Cash -- American III: Solitary Man
Johnny Cash -- American IV: The Man Comes Around
Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson -- VH1 Storytellers

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<HTML>Yeah, I thought for sure=20=
we'd get multiple daily reviews.  Steve Smith, where are you? 
 
Wishing he lived in NYC, 
Tom 
 
In a message dated 9/15/03 10:06:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time, a_gadney@hotma=
il.com writes: 
 
 
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=3DCITE style=3D"BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT=
: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">How's the Zorn month going? Any=
 good shows?? It's surprisingly quiet here on 
the list about it... :-( 
 
</BLOCKQUOTE> 
 
 
______________________________________________________ 
Discs I'm playing at work 
Johnny Cash -- American Recordings 
Johnny Cash -- Unchained 
Johnny Cash -- American III: Solitary Man 
Johnny Cash -- American IV: The Man Comes Around 
Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson -- VH1 Storytellers</HTML>

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Paul Michael Sager

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