Pitchfork

If you've ever seen John Zorn at a gig with his Masada quartet, you might have noticed him flipping through a thick sheath of music as he picks the next tune. That pile of paper holds the 208 compositions that he's written for the band. The tunes cross the style of the early Ornette Coleman Quartet with themes from Jewish folk music, and they can sound as slow and exotic as a nightcrawl through the desert, or whiz past with knotty themes and quick changes played at breakneck speed.

That's the Masada songbook. Zorn arranged it for a band that included himself on alto, Dave Douglas on trumpet, bassist Greg Cohen, and the inimitable Joey Baron on drums. Arguably his best ensemble, he also made it one of the most recorded groups in jazz, cutting almost 20 studio and live albums in under a decade-- so many records that unless you're one of their mothers, you're unlikely to have heard them all. Zorn even farmed out some of those 200+ tunes to his chamber ensemble Bar Kokhba, and collected others on his 1998 release, The Circle Maker.

And it doesn't stop. This year Zorn and his label, Tzadik "Never Say Glut" Records, has kicked off a new series for the 10th anniversary of Masada. It starts with Masada Guitars, which features solo recitals by three of Zorn's favorite guitarists: Marc Ribot and Bill Frisell, his main axemen of the 90s and 80s respectively, and the classically trained Tim Sparks, who has recorded for Tzadik's Radical Jewish Culture series.

This disc is almost indulgently long, crammed with 21 similar pieces that get dignified, mid-tempo readings. That's a lot of samey acoustic guitar to wade through, and the fact that it's all pretty doesn't justify the length. But the upside is that Zorn knows where he's going, and he knows what he wants from these guitarists; he's just willing to give them a lot of chances to hit it.

Take Tim Sparks, whose classical approach-- treating the songs like the lost works of Segovia-- is rigorous and exciting. His bright, ringing tone and refined ornamentation beautifully embellish "Kodashim" and "Sippur"; and his measured exploration of "Kedushah" heightens the richness of its ethnic themes. By contrast, Marc Ribot is the most plain-spoken of the three. He makes no extra gestures: He thumps and strikes out the rhythms, as on the tango-like "Kivah", and his harsh attack tangles the melody of "Galgalim" in his strings. His steady, dry progression across "Sansanah" best demonstrates the patience and effort in his readings.

This makes Bill Frisell the maverick. Instead of sticking to acoustic guitar, he unpacks his electric and all of his gizmos: On "Katzatz", he takes the fast melody and warps, loops and splinters it around itself, nicely invoking the Masada quartet's spastic catchiness. And yet Frisell's finest moments happen on the acoustic, in the ballads "Abidan" and "Avelut". More than most high-powered guitarists, Frisell loves to surrender to a good melody: In his hands these ballads' stately themes achieve a hushed beauty, with pauses that hang like the quiet moments of a ceremony.

The only problem is Zorn's need to cram in so many of his songs. Zorn is a solid composer, but in his best music, the compositions are no more critical than his choice of performers, his skill as a band leader, and the room he leaves for improvisation. Which is all critic-speak for saying that few of these pieces hit it out of the park. But maybe the point isn't to nail any one song, and instead to interpret the spirit behind the entire Masada project. Each guitarist has brought out a different aspect: In the richness of Sparks' technique, the rigor and labor from Ribot, and the grace in Frisell's ballads, they approach the truth and purity of its themes-- ethnic, historical, and spiritual.

In fact, the best parts are so great that they make me stop worrying about how this is the start of a new deluge-- that Zorn probably has another dozen Masada discs in the works, plus half a dozen "essential" live albums, and worst of all, the inevitable leftovers discs that'll scoop up every scrap of the songbook that hasn't been committed to plastic. What's Hebrew for "b-sides?"