★Elektra Nonesuch
Naked City
1990 release ** "Naked City was formed a year and a half ago to give Zorn a focused vehicle for his omnivorous compositions and rearrangements. Taking its name from the gritty pulp TV show ("There are eight million stories in the ..."), this collection of downtown all-stars – John Zorn, Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass, Joey Baron on percussion – did a four-night, eight-set stint at the Knitting Factory, in New York City, last summer, never repeating a tune.…
De Staat
1991 release ** "Dutch composer Louis Andriessen is often spoken of as one of the great neglected minimalists. But his work tends to be far less strictly minimalist than that of early Steve Reich or Philip Glass and much more akin to the grab bag ethos of John Adams. In fact, much of "De Staat," a single movement composition with text drawn from Plato's The Republic written from 1973-1976, echoes Adams both in the favored tonalities and in the mix of minimalist styles. The work, as performed by …