Cyro Baptista's Banquet of the Spirits: Caym: Book of Angels Vol. 17
Author: Daniel Spicer
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Cyro Baptista (perc, voc) |
Label: |
Tzadik |
Magazine Review Date: |
June/2011 |
Catalogue Number: |
TZA-CD-7388 |
RecordDate: |
date not given |
New York's Kabbalistically-inclined iconoclast John Zorn wrote the 316 songs that form his Book of Angels in a three-month blaze in 2004. Since then, those tunes have been interpreted by a wide range of artists. Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista's Caym is the 17th album to tackle Zorn's opus – for which the composer has gifted 12 previously unrecorded numbers. Baptista's vibe is very much rocking a Sufi-fusion groove, with middle-eastern rhythms, and twanging oud solos rubbing up against scrungey electric piano. At times it seems to walk a perilous line, not quite sure if it wants to zone-out in the deep, cosmic space opened up by John McLaughlin's My Goals Beyond or get its party started like an Arabian Manu Chao – but there are some satisfyingly hip touches along the way: ‘Tzar Tak’ is like a Bollywood mash-up of Terry Riley's time-lag organ; ‘Hutriel’ taps into Lloyd Miller's swinging fake-sheikh oud-jazz; and ‘Yahel’ gets some heavy Har-You Latin percussion going. Globetrotting fun.
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