Wadada Leo Smith/Susie Ibarra/John Zorn - 50th Birthday Celebration, Vol. 8

This eighth volume in the John Zorn 50th Birthday Celebration series on Tzadik is most of all a blowing session with a ton of surprises. Recorded impeccably during the monthlong series at Tonic in New York, this bunch appears in both duo and trio configurations and the sparks fly throughout. There are two sets of music contained here. The first, a series of duets between Zorn and Susie Ibarra, runs the gamut improvisationally from the knotty skitter and skate of "Meridian" and the Eastern motif in "Rising Sun" to the spacious tonal inquiries of "Spirit Writing," where Ibarra's elongated brush work provides a stunning backdrop texture to Zorn's melodic modal inquiry. Read More