Marc Ribot is the first virtuoso to take on John Zorn's set of 35 guitar
etudes from 1978, although the set was originally written for Eugene
Chadbourne. Ribot's been incorporating the pieces into his solo
performances and recordings since he recorded them for Tzadik in
1995, but seeing them performed almost in toto (a few were omitted)
reinforced how the work fit into Zorn's aesthetic of the time.
What's often missed about Zorn's jump-cut compositions is that they
weren't studio creations; even pieces like Spillaine were meant
to be (and were) performed live. Book of Heads is something
like Naked City for solo guitar. Country and blues licks are quashed as
soon as they're recognizeable, there are hints of classicism and noise
often overtakes. The mood swings are achieved on many of the pieces
through heavy use of distortion and wah pedals, bottleneck slide,
balloons muting strings until they break, bowing styrofoam, knocking on
the guitar body and augmenting the strings with a nail file and alligator
clips (exercises which, in fact, bear Chadbourne's stamp). Ribot
approached the suite as a concert performance, eyes focused on the
small scores, rarely cracking a smile as he licked his fingers and
squeaked a balloon held between his knees or ran his hands in opposite
directions along the guitar neck while blasting the distortion pedal. As
his arsenal, he brought a dead beautiful Gitane copy of Django
Reinhart's Maccaferri and an Audition electric hollow body with that
lived-in look. (The latter might not have been the best choice, as
floating bridges weren't designed to withstand a drinking straw being
drug across them. Fortunately, the composition allows for interpretation
and the noice made readjusting it wasn't out of place.) Another piece
required three guitars laid on a table, the strings of two damped by a
sweater and all plucked like a koto above the nut and below the bridge;in a later piece they were played with a bow in each hand.
The etudes are brief, abrupt, imposing, assuming and sardonic. What
doesn't come through as clearly on record, or in truncated performance,
is the instances of beauty they also contain. They work from a
claustrophobic little closet of sound, but within that achieve some
striking moments.
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