JOHN ZORN
ABRONS ART CENTER - NEW YORK CITY - 2/22/08
FEATURING LOU REED AND LAURIE ANDERSON
Legendary avant-jazzman John Zorn's two-evening stint at the Abrons Arts Center at the Henry Street Settlement was a quintessential New York event.
For many years, saxophonist/composer/bandleader Zorn, stalwart downtown/underground jazz experimentalist, has been known for pieces with Jewish-oriented themes, and for this appearance on the Lower East Side (itself once a haven for Jewish immigrants), he decided to go for the gusto with an adaptation of the biblical Shir Ha-Shirim, or Song of Songs. Also known as the Song of Solomon, it's a section of the Old Testament that depicts--in colorful, romantic prose--an exchange between two lovers. Who better to call upon for the lovers' recitatives than Lou Reed and his longtime paramour Laurie Anderson? The two sexagenarians (no pun intended--Reed is 65 and Anderson 60) are both New York institutions, and both are known for their sprechgesang vocal delivery, not to mention the fact that Reed is of course one of NYC's most seminal Jewish rockers.
On the first night, for the piece's debut, Reed sported a loose-fitting white shirt sans jacket, giving his presence a classic romantic flair. The erstwhile Velvet Underground front man being one of rock's most notoriously unromantic artists, the image (not to mention his very participation) created an interesting dichotomy, as did that of the artfully affectless Anderson. Nevertheless, when the pair, facing each other from opposite ends of the stage, brought their renowned deadpan delivery to bear in giving voice to the sensuous text, the sonic impact proved a fruitful one. Anderson and Reed batted their lines back and forth like a postmodern version of a biblical Tracy and Hepburn; midway through, at the piece's most playful point, they engaged in repetition of urgent whispers in tandem, creating a crucial element of tension.
Instead of backing his leading man and lady with a pack of skronky instrumentalists, Zorn made the inspired decision to accompany those very distinctive voices with five more voices. Standing in a row towards the rear of the stage were five elegantly attired young ladies who supplied the piece's sole melodic content via clusters of wordless vocal harmonies. Zorn achieved an artistic triumph in crafting a complex-yet-organic latticework of melodies for the singers, constructions alternately sonorous and discordant that sometimes darted in and out of each other and sometimes combined for clear, sharp bursts of sound. The women's pure, vibratoless voices betrayed no more overt emotion than those of Anderson and Reed, but their tonal colors and appealingly melodic (even at their most avant-garde) effect created the contrast upon which the entire piece hinged.
Between the pointillist sonic tableaux of the singers and the expertly unsentimental approach of the readers, Zorn (who stood beneath the performers, conducting from the foot of the stage) succeeded handsomely at bringing an ancient Hebrew text into the present day, redefining its eroticism for the modern age and illuminating the inner music of its stanzas with an inveterate iconoclast's ear.
--Jim Allen
