Misplaced Pages

#872127

34-590: Masada was the first ensemble to perform Zorn's compositions inspired by Radical Jewish Culture and written to be performed by small groups of musicians. Initially envisioned as a set of 100 "songs" notated within a limited number of staves and confined to specific modes or scales , Zorn's Masada project would eventually total 613 compositions divided into three specific "books". Zorn used Hebrew titles for these compositions along with melodic themes and musical structures reminiscent of klezmer music, and Jewish imagery on album covers to explore Jewish identity within

68-493: A pentagram , is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch or in the case of a percussion staff , different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending on the intended effect, are placed on the staff according to their corresponding pitch or function. Musical notes are placed by pitch, percussion notes are placed by instrument, and rests and other symbols are placed by convention. The absolute pitch of each line of

102-406: A brace is used for this purpose. When more than one system appears on a page, often two parallel diagonal strokes are placed on the left side of the score to separate them. Four-part SATB vocal settings, especially in hymnals , use a divisi notation on a two-staff system with soprano and alto voices sharing the upper staff and tenor and bass voices on the lower staff. Confusingly,

136-445: A center alto as this creates confusion). When playing the piano or harp, the upper staff is normally played with the right hand and the lower staff with the left hand. In music intended for organ with pedalboard , a grand staff normally comprises three staves, one for each hand on the manuals and one for the feet on the pedalboard. Early Western medieval notation was written with neumes , which did not specify exact pitches but only

170-444: A clef, the notes represented by the positions on the staff can be modified by the key signature or accidentals on individual notes. A clefless staff may be used to represent a set of percussion sounds; each line typically represents a different instrument. A vertical line drawn to the left of multiple staves creates a system , indicating that the music on all the staves is to be played simultaneously. A brace (curly bracket)

204-529: A double bill with Cecil Taylor 's New AHA 3." Nevertheless, they were scheduled to perform as the original quartet on a concert in Antwerp in Cultural Center Luchtbal on June 22, 2008 - the bill later changed with the addition of pianist Uri Caine , who performed with them the entire set, except for one song. Baron, Cohen and Douglas also joined the duo of Mike Patton and John Zorn the evening before, at

238-607: A mini festival. Tzadik has released a series of CDs of these songs played by various ensembles, including the Masada String Trio , Marc Ribot , Koby Israelite , Erik Friedlander and others as the "Masada Book 2: The Book of Angels" collection. As of early 2007, according to the Tzadik website, "Together for close to fifteen years, John Zorn's Masada Quartet is officially breaking up and will be performing two of their last live concerts ever at Lincoln Center March 9th and 10th on

272-426: A non-percussive staff is indicated by the placement of a clef symbol at the appropriate vertical position on the left-hand side of the staff (possibly modified by conventions for specific instruments ). For example, the treble clef , also known as the G clef, is placed on the second line (counting upward), fixing that line as the pitch first G above " middle C ". The lines and spaces are numbered from bottom to top;

306-547: Is Electric Masada. Drawing on Zorn's wide-ranging stylistic influences, the band takes the Masada songbook into a whole new direction, reminiscent of jazz fusion and noise rock . The group, which includes Baron, Ribot, Wollesen, and Cyro Baptista, from previous Masada groups, as well as Trevor Dunn on bass, Jamie Saft on keyboards and Ikue Mori on laptop/electronics, continue to take the Masada themes and transform them into something entirely new. Zorn uses hand signals to conduct

340-493: Is an American drummer best-known for working in avant-garde jazz with Bill Frisell and John Zorn . Baron, who is of Jewish heritage, was born on June 26, 1955, in Richmond, Virginia. When he was nine, he taught himself how to play the drums. As a teenager, he played in rock bands and dixieland jazz groups and was given his first gig opportunity at the age of 13 when pianist BJ Doyle's regular drummer took ill and she knew he

374-585: Is attributed to Guido d'Arezzo (990–1050), whose four-line staff is still used (though without the red and yellow coloring he recommended) in Gregorian chant publications today. Five-line staves appeared in Italy in the 13th century and it was promoted by Ugolino da Forlì ; staves with four, five, and six lines were used as late as 1600. Joey Baron Bernard Joseph Baron (born June 26, 1955 in Richmond, Virginia )

SECTION 10

#1732876692873

408-464: Is created. Typically, the upper staff uses a treble clef and the lower staff has a bass clef . In this instance, middle C is centered between the two staffs, and it can be written on the first ledger line below the upper staff or the first ledger line above the lower staff. Very rarely, a centered line with a small C clef is written, and usually used to indicate that B, C, or D on the line can be played with either hand (ledger lines are not used from

442-515: Is more common than stave in both American English and British English , with the latter being, in fact, a back-formation from the plural staves . The plural staffs also exists for staff in both American and British English, alongside the traditional plural staves . In addition to the pronunciations expected from the spellings, both plural forms are also pronounced / s t æ v z / in American English. The vertical position of

476-434: Is used to join multiple staves that represent an instrument, such as a piano, organ, harp, or marimba. A bracket is an additional vertical line joining staves to show groupings of instruments that function as a unit, such as the string section of an orchestra. Sometimes a second bracket is used to show instruments grouped in pairs, such as the first and second oboes or first and second violins in an orchestra. In some cases,

510-510: The Knitting Factory (1993) and at Tonic (2001) . The quartet released a live DVD in 1999, another recording from Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Series and a double CD of unreleased studio recordings, Sanhedrin 1994–1997 in 2005. By the end of 2004, Zorn had composed over 300 new tunes for the "second" Masada songbook. Some of the new tunes were debuted at Tonic in December 2004, as

544-580: The Secret Chiefs 3 the Bar Kokhba Sextet, Medeski Martin & Wood , Pat Metheny , 'The Spike Orchestra' (a big band) arranged by Sam Eastmond & Nikki Franklin, and most recently in 2016, Flaga (a piano trio) On March 19, 2014, the first 20 compositions of a third Masada book were performed live at The Town Hall in New York . The total number of compositions in the third book is 92, which brings

578-708: The German System (often in the combined forms Liniensystem or Notensystem ) may refer to a single staff as well as to the Akkolade (from the French) or system in the English sense; the Italian term is accollatura . When music on two staves is joined by a brace , or is intended to be played at once by a single performer (usually a keyboard instrument or harp ), a grand staff ( American English ) or great stave ( British English )

612-702: The Masada songbook and groups. He stated: "The idea with Masada is to produce a sort of radical Jewish music, a new Jewish music which is not the traditional one in a different arrangement , but music for the Jews of today. The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together." In 1993 Zorn first worked with Dave Douglas (trumpet), Greg Cohen (double bass), and Joey Baron (drums) to provide musical cues for Joe Chappelle 's first film Thieves Quartet (later collected on Filmworks III: 1990–1995 ) and established them as Masada to perform his recent compositions using

646-439: The Masada songbook in a classical - chamber jazz form. Personnel include Mark Feldman (violin), Erik Friedlander (cello), and Cohen (bass). With the addition of Marc Ribot (guitar), Cyro Baptista (percussion) and Joey Baron (drums), this same group has performed as the "Bar Kokhba Sextet". The performing style of both groups is characterised by the use of improvisation (sometimes conducted by Zorn himself) and its use of

680-886: The New Masada Quartet with Julian Lage (guitar), Jorge Roeder (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums). 2003 saw the 10th Anniversary of Masada and Tzadik released five new CD sets in commemoration. The first release, Masada Guitars , has three guitarists, Bill Frisell , Marc Ribot and Tim Sparks , playing the tunes, mainly acoustically. Volume 2, Voices in the Wilderness , has a huge range of groups and individuals playing and Volume 3, The Unknown Masada , has yet more new groups, together with some familiar faces playing Masada tunes never before performed in public. A fourth volume, Masada Recital , performed by Sylvie Courvoisier on piano and Mark Feldman on violin, followed in 2004. The fifth and final volume Masada Rock features

714-479: The band Rashanim and was released in August 2005. From 2003 Zorn has written a range of new Masada compositions which have been released on a series of albums under the banner of Masada Book 2: The Book of Angels . Musicians contributing to the series include Jamie Saft , Masada String Trio, Mark Feldman and Sylvie Courvoisier , Koby Israelite , The Cracow Klezmer Band , Uri Caine , Marc Ribot , Erik Friedlander ,

SECTION 20

#1732876692873

748-606: The band, allowing for him to make up different arrangements on the spot. During Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration at Tonic in September 2003, Electric Masada was recorded live. Released in May 2004, 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 4 became the group's first official recording. This was followed by At the Mountains of Madness recorded in 2004 in Moscow and Ljubljana . In 2019, Zorn formed

782-401: The bottom line is the first line and the top line is the fifth line . The musical staff is analogous to a mathematical graph of pitch with respect to time . Pitches of notes are given by their vertical position on the staff and notes are played from left to right. Unlike a graph, however, the number of semitones represented by a vertical step from a line to an adjacent space depends on

816-555: The inflections of Jewish music that are part of the compositional language of Zorn's "Masada" themes. Two different projects in the Masada family share this name. Prior to the creation of the Bar Kokhba Sextet , the Bar Kokhba album was released, featuring a cast of regular Zorn collaborators performing Masada material in a variety of different small ensemble configurations. One of Zorn's most active Masada projects of recent years

850-615: The instrumental lineup and improvisational approach of Ornette Coleman 's pioneering free jazz quartet. From 1994 the group released ten studio albums on the Japanese DIW label, each titled after a letter of the Hebrew alphabet . Further releases by Masada on Tzadik highlighted live performances recorded in Jerusalem (1994) , Taipei (1995) , Middelheim (1999) , Seville (2000) and in New York at

884-403: The key, and the exact timing of the beginning of each note is not directly proportional to its horizontal position; rather, exact timing is encoded by the musical symbol chosen for each note in addition to the tempo . A time signature to the right of the clef indicates the relationship between timing counts and note symbols, while bar lines group notes on the staff into measures . Staff

918-517: The late 1980s, he became a bigger part of the avant-garde jazz scene when he played regularly at the Knitting Factory , recorded with singer Laurie Anderson , and began a long association with John Zorn . For several years he participated in Zorn's projects Naked City and Masada. Baron contributed to David Bowie 's Outside (1995). Bowie would later praise Baron, stating: " Metronomes shake in fear, he's so steady." With John Abercrombie With

952-404: The notehead on the staff indicates which note to play: higher-pitched notes are marked higher on the staff. The notehead can be placed with its center intersecting a line ( on a line ) or in between the lines touching the lines above and below ( in a space ). Notes outside the range of the staff are placed on or between ledger lines —lines the width of the note they need to hold—added above or below

986-435: The same venue, and the quartet also performed one song as an encore. The quartet performed together at Yoshi's San Francisco jazz club on March 12, 2008. The 8pm show featured music from the original Masada songbook and the 10pm performance featured songs from Masada Book 2: The Book of Angels . Since the mid-1990s a number of new projects have arisen under the Masada banner. The Masada String Trio performs selections from

1020-457: The shape of the melodies, i.e. indicating when the musical line went up or down; presumably these were intended as mnemonics for melodies which had been taught by rote. During the 9th through 11th centuries a number of systems were developed to specify pitch more precisely, including diastematic neumes whose height on the page corresponded with their absolute pitch level (Longobardian and Beneventan manuscripts from Italy show this technique around

1054-418: The staff. Which staff positions represent which notes is determined by a clef placed at the beginning of the staff. The clef identifies a particular line as a specific note, and all other notes are determined relative to that line. For example, the treble clef puts the G above middle C on the second line. The interval between adjacent staff positions is one step in the diatonic scale . Once fixed by

Masada (band) - Misplaced Pages Continue

1088-448: The total number of Masada compositions at 613, the same as the number of mitsvah or commandments in the Torah . Musical group compositions range from loud avant-garde rock to string quartet. Studio Recordings Live Recordings Musical staff In Western musical notation , the staff ( UK also stave ; plural : staffs or staves ), also occasionally referred to as

1122-409: The year 1000). Digraphic notation, using letter names similar to modern note names in conjunction with the neumes, made a brief appearance in a few manuscripts, but a number of manuscripts used one or more horizontal lines to indicate particular pitches. The treatise Musica enchiriadis ( c.  900 ) uses Daseian notation for indicating specific pitches, but the modern use of staff lines

1156-654: Was a keeper after just minutes. After high school, he spent a year at the Berklee College of Music . He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s and embarked on a professional career, playing with Carmen McRae and Al Jarreau . He worked as a freelance drummer and session musician with Chet Baker , Stan Getz , Dizzy Gillespie , and Hampton Hawes . In 1982 he moved to New York City and joined guitarist Bill Frisell , with whom he would play often throughout his career. He also played in groups with Red Rodney , Fred Hersch , Enrico Pieranunzi , and Marc Johnson . Starting in

#872127