Kristallnacht (album)
| Kristallnacht | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1993 | |||
| Recorded | November 9 & 10, 1992 | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde | |||
| Length | 42:44 | |||
| Label | Eva, Tzadik | |||
| Producer | John Zorn | |||
| John Zorn chronology | ||||
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Kristallnacht is the seventh studio album by John Zorn first released in 1993 on the Japanese Eva label and subsequently in 1995 on Zorn's own Tzadik Records label.[1]
Background
[edit]Zorn's compositions for the album were based around the events before, during, and following the infamous Night of Broken Glass and represented his first musical exploration of his Jewish cultural heritage.[2]
Zorn has stated:
It’s tied together with passion and research. Every Jew has to come to grips with the holocaust in some kind of way and that was my statement, that’s how I did it. I do not need to do it again (…) it meant a lot to me. It was like a whole lifetime of denying my Jewish heritage coming out in one piece -- "John Zorn on BBC Jazz File," July 2000.
Reception
[edit]| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [4] |
| The Penguin Guide to Jazz | ()[5] |
The AllMusic review by Joslyn Layne stated: "John Zorn has created a musical work that powerfully represents the different stages of this historical event... Zorn's forceful undertaking is realized through the expert and passionate musicianship".[4] The Penguin Guide to Jazz said "Here are the seeds of what was to be a wholesale engagement - or re-engagement - with Jewish musical culture, most clearly represented in the Masada project of future years, but retroactively evident throughout the work of the previous decade and more. A key moment, even if the man himself wasn't playing".[5]
Track listing
[edit]| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Shtetl (Ghetto Life)" | 5:55 |
| 2. | "Never Again" | 11:46 |
| 3. | "Gahelet (Embers)" | 3:27 |
| 4. | "Tikkun (Rectification)" | 3:02 |
| 5. | "Tzfia (Looking Ahead)" | 8:49 |
| 6. | "Barzel (Iron Fist)" | 2:02 |
| 7. | "Gariin (Nucleus - The New Settlement)" | 7:59 |
- All compositions by John Zorn
- Recorded and mixed on November 9 & 10 1992 at RPM Studio, New York City
Personnel
[edit]- Anthony Coleman: Keyboards
- Mark Dresser: Bass
- Mark Feldman: Violin
- David Krakauer: Clarinet, bass clarinet
- Frank London: Trumpet
- Marc Ribot: Guitar
- William Winant: Percussion
References
[edit]- ^ Tzadik catalogue
- ^ Cuthbert, M. S. Free Improvisation: John Zorn and the Construction of Jewish Identity Through Music in Studies in Jewish Musical Traditions: Insights from the Harvard Collection of Judacea Sound Recordings, Shelemay, K. K. (ed.), Harvard College Library, 2001
- ^ Hosken, Thom. "'Kristallnacht and After': Did John Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture begin life as a postmodernist or modernist project?". academia.org. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
- ^ a b Layne, J. AllMusic Review accessed March 16, 2009.
- ^ a b Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2000). The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (5th ed.). Penguin. p. 1543. ISBN 978-0-140-51452-0.
