I am sitting in a café. The people to the left of me are talking about real estate. The people to the right of me are talking about salary sacrificing. I am thinking about John Zorn. It's an awkward fit: I feel like a couple of blasts from his saxophone would shake things up a little.
But for now we're still on the Filmworks series. To be precise, Vols XI to XIII. These three discs all came out in 2002, a seemingly busy year for Zorn, as there was also quite a lot of Masada activity happening. Another example of the "bleed" I was talking about earlier: "Filmworks XI: 2002 Volume One - Secret Lives", which might be considered the Rosetta Stone of the Filmworks series, is performed by the Masada String Trio, a group which, if you ask me, Zorn uses better than any other of the many combinations of musicians at his disposal (which, obviously, is not intended as a slight to any of the others). This is lovely, lovely music. It doesn't need a film to go with it. One of the themes reminds me, curiously, of "Nights In White Satin". At one point Jamie Saft wanders in with his piano and they fall into the most unlikely jazz group, in the style of Stéphane Grappelli, and it works brilliantly.
On the other hand, "Filmworks XII: 2002 Volume Two - Three Documentaries", a collection of tracks from three different soundtracks, doesn't quite hang together as an album in its own right. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with any of it - it starts off with a fascinating piece for human voice, an instrument Zorn doesn't use very often - but I can't quite get it to obtain traction when listened to from start to end. The middle section of it, admittedly, would make a good disc on its own, but even in the age of burn-your-own, it still doesn't feel right to do that sort of thing. This disc marks the return of the pipa (or "biwa"), and what Zorn does with it this time around is create what might be described as Ennio Morricone Goes To Old Beijing.
Much better, I think, as a single listening experience is "Filmworks XII: 2002 Volume Three - Invitation To A Suicide". Accordion makes a rare, but welcome, appearance, and Marc Ribot puts in a fine performance. In fact, there are places here where he sounds like he is reprising his work with Tom Waits. In a good way. (One piece might as well be, if heard from a distance, "Yesterday Is Here".) There is also a recurring theme that puts me in mind of "Astral Weeks", which is almost never a bad thing, and another one, for accordion, cello and vibraphone (or is it marimba?), that sounds like the kind of music you might hear in the background to a piece of investigative journalism on television (if television was still capable of showing investigative journalism). And it ends with a good old-fashioned Punk Rock three-chord thrash. All in all, one of my favourite Filmworks.
So here we are, two-thirds of the way through the series so far. My feeling, without having listened to very much of the volumes yet to be dealt with, is that we may have heard the best of them. Let's hope not.
