John Zorn’s Bagatelles Vol. 6 spotlights the Brian Marsella Trio as one of the most responsive and imaginative vehicles for Zorn’s late‑period composition. Conceived between March and May 2015, the Bagatelles are 300 short, knotty tunes – often atonal, rhythmically tricky, occasionally disarmingly simple – designed to be reinterpreted by different improvising ensembles. Vol. 6 narrows the focus to a classic piano‑trio lineup: Brian Marsella on piano, Trevor Dunn on bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums. Across eight pieces (“Bagatelle #119,” “#149,” “#266,” “#41,” “#274,” “#215,” “#153,” “#288”) the trio moves with a kind of elastic inevitability, treating Zorn’s scores as both rigorous études and open‑ended invitations.
Marsella has become a central figure in Zorn’s recent universe, and you can hear why here. His touch swings from glassy, pointillist runs to dense, two‑fisted clusters, giving the bagatelles a feeling of being “at home” under his fingers – much as Monk’s tunes make immediate sense when Monk plays them. Dunn anchors and subverts in equal measure, toggling between walking lines, counter‑melodies and pure texture, while Wollesen acts as both timekeeper and saboteur, slipping from straight ride patterns into fractured accents and colouristic explosions. Together they cover a wide arc: driving swingers that nod to the trio tradition before unspooling; tender ballads where Zorn’s rare, simple melodies are played with unguarded lyricism; free‑jazz flights where the written head is a brief flash before the music fans out into open improvisation; and “exotic” mood pieces that hint at distant idioms without settling into pastiche.
What keeps the album gripping is the way it balances design and risk. Zorn’s bagatelles are tightly packed with information – intervallic traps, rhythmic feints, abrupt modulations – but once the themes are stated, the trio treats them like live wire. Solos can pivot from inside swing to jagged abstraction in a bar; grooves appear, dissolve, then reassemble from a different angle. The pieces feel short, but never slight: each is a self‑contained world that opens just long enough to reveal a particular temperament, then snaps shut. Within the larger Bagatelles cycle, Vol. 6 sits alongside Vols. 5, 7 and 8 as part of a keyboard‑focused block, but its identity is distinct – a piano trio record that honours the classic format while letting Zorn’s “weirdo tunes” pull it into stranger orbits.
Released on Tzadik under the John Zorn’s Bagatelles banner, Vol. 6 captures a downtown New York scene in full conversation with Zorn’s late‑style writing: sharp, playful, technically ferocious, but always chasing something beyond virtuosic display. For long‑time Zorn listeners, it’s a vital chapter in a monumental project; for newcomers, it’s an accessible yet uncompromising entry point – eight pieces of compressed drama where composition and improvisation are so tightly braided you can’t quite tell where one ends and the other begins.
