Search - Cracow Klezmer Band :: Balan: Book of Angels 5

Melancholy and energy.

Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 07/07/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Balan" is the fifth volume released from John Zorn's Masada Book Two. The Masada project was originally a songbook of melodies written using the "Jewish scales" by Zorn as a springboard for improvisation performed by a pianoless quartet and later by other bands. Over a decade after he began the project, Zorn composed a second book of Masada pieces-- the Book of Angels, and has invited different ensembles to interpret the pieces on each volume. "Balan" features the Cracow Klezmer Band-- leader, arranger and bayan (accordian) player Joroslaw Bester, violinist Jaroslaw Tyrala, percussionist Oleg Dyyak and bassist Wojciech Front. For this recording, the band is augmented by the Dafo String quartet (violinists Justyna Duda and Danuta Augustyn, violist Aneta Dumanowska, and cellist Anna Armatts) as well as computer instrumentalist Ireneusz Socha and vocalit Jorgos Skolias.



Bester's arrangements tackle eight of the new Masada pieces-- he tends to favor an air of moodiness or perhaps almost remorsefulness, particularly in the pieces with an expanded ensemble-- "Haniel" is probably the best of this. Bester states the theme on the bayan, a skipping, bouncing theme played in a lower register, with swirling pizzicato strings echoing and supporting before the theme is split between the strings and the groaned, moaned, and babbled vocals of Skolias move to the fore. The first time through I heard this, I sat around pretty much stunned by it-- it manages a delicacy and litheness while at the same time managing an uncommon depth of mournfulness. Other highlights include "Kadosh", one of the many cartoon-music inspired themes in Zorn's songbook, with Bester and Tyrala performing a frantic dual-improv more than a little reminiscent of the John Zorn/Dave Douglas pairing, stunning "Lirael", which finds Tyrala rising and falling in the same breathy fashion that the accordian does with the two trading the theme and the violin eventually playing a downright distraught solo supported only by the bayan, and "Asbeel", a frantic piece that builds gently, gaining in volume and momentum with Tyrala stating the theme frantically over the top of chugging accordian-driven rhythms. All in all, it proves to be quite a nice album-- even the less memorable songs are worth a listen (opener "Zuriel"), with the only real dud on the record being bayan solo "Jehoel", which feels to come apart during the improvised passages.



I felt at times that the band felt out of place on their last interpretation of Masada pieces ("Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass"), that the improvs felt a bit forced now and again, even when the theme statements set up a fine atmosphere-- this album resolves that problem, the band seems to have really dug into the material and even the expanded ensemble pieces get fine, tight readings. Recommended."