)This was apparently the world premiere of John Zorn's The Gift Live. In short it was an amazing gig, incredibly enjoyable. Last year I had the pleasure of seeing Zorn with Dave Lombardo, Fred Frith and Bill Laswell. This year the line up was that of the CD
Dave Douglas turned up for the track he does on the CD, and for the encore him and Zorn played, the only time Zorn picked up his Sax.
The gig was amazing, there's little point in comparing it to last year, since that was more in the Metal/Jazz crossover like much of Taboo and Exile rather than the laid back exotic sounds of The Gift.
As much of a fan I am of John Zorn's music, I don't really know the technical side of things, I just know what I like, and I really liked this, the CD is very good, but seeing it performed live was incredible. Zorn said he didn't like doing this sort of music live, which seemed strange because him (and the rest of the band) seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot, especially when him and Cyro Baptista were doing bird calls at each other during a song!
It was very interesting to see how some of the noises on the CD were made and
the wide variety of instruments/objects used! Cyro Baptista's arsenal included
those fluorescent flexi tubes which make a whirring noise when you twirl them
round your head, what looks likes lots of wooden blocks attached to a net, some
gongs, and what I've been informed is a Berimbau, a one string Afro-Brazilian
bow. It looks like a large bow, with a bowl at the bottom, and he plays the
one string using a pick which is like a large toothpick! (Thanks to William
W. Schonbein and Harry Hulsizer for telling me what it is from my original vague description!)
It was good to see Zorn use a theramin live, I've seen them played on TV before but never live, looks very interesting..
As I said I'm not aware of all the technical terms one should use to describe this type of music, I'll let someone else talk about the various techniques and things, what matters to me was that it was a great evening out.
On a side note, Stuart Lee (comedian of Lee and Herring's Fist of Fun fame) was sat in front of me!