This CD is about quality not quantity—less than thirty minutes in total, but absolutely some of the most incredible music Zorn has ever composed. Dramatic, intense, mercurial, challenging, and endlessly virtuosic, Zorn’s writing for strings is amongst the most exciting ever achieved in the classical world. Here he expands the fabulous JACK Quartet to a quintet and sextet with the addition of two of the most accomplished musicians in the New York scene: Yura Lee and Michael Nicolas. Composed in 2020, during the initial months of the COVID-19 lockdown, these are two of Zorn’s greatest masterpieces, beautifully recorded at Oktaven by Ryan Streber, and passionately performed by six members of Zorn’s inner circle. ESSENTIAL!

The fourth CD in Zorn’s remarkable series of piano trio recordings exploring clas-sical forms, “Nocturnes” is an absolute delight. Preceded by “Suite for Piano” (2022), “Ballades” (2024), and the “Impromptus” (2025), “Nocturnes” is Zorn’s personal take on the beautiful tradition of night music. Touching on Chopin, Scriabin, Debussy, Berg, and more, the music is a wonderland of subtlety—dreamy, drifting, and utterly compelling. Brian, Jorge, and Ches, three of Zorn’s closest and most trusted collab-orators perform with their trademark telepathic interplay, and an uncanny sense of surprise and creativity. With a stunning virtuosity that is always at the service of the music, the trio opens up new doors with each successive recording. Gorgeous music for late night listening!

Joseph Holbrooke was a legendary all-star ensemble from the mid Sixties dedicated to free improvisation. Comprising three of the most acclaimed virtuosos from the first generation of British improvisers—Bailey, Bryars, and Oxley—little has been released, but they briefly reformed in 1998 and the studio recordings from that period were made available in 2006 on Tzadik as “The Moat Recordings.” “Last Live 2001” is exactly that—their last live concert ever! Recorded in Antwerp in January of 2001, the ensemble is at their exploratory best in this newly discovered gem from the archives of composer/improviser maestro Gavin Bryars.

Composer, harpist, improviser, and educator Zeena Parkins has been a mainstay of the Downtown scene since 1984, performing with Fred Frith, John Zorn, Bjork, Ikue Mori, Yoko Ono, Pauline Oliveros, and countless others. Her newest project, years in the making, pays tribute to the fearless American visual artist Jay DeFeo. Zeena captures DeFeo’s bold experimentalism and love of beauty with a lush, exotic extended work for harp and percussion. Performing with her on a unique instrument built by legendary composer Lou Harrison is her close collaborator William Winant. One of Zeena’s most important and compelling releases, this is a major composition by a pioneering harpist/composer who still surprises after forty years of groundbreaking work!

Jim Staley
Ikue Mori
John Zorn

Friends and musical cohorts since the early 1980s, these three master improvisers come together to perform a freewheeling set of outrageous and mind-blowing improvisations. Recorded at Roulette, founded in 1978 and one of New York’s most adventurous venues, the music is full of surprising twists and jumps from one mood to another with mercurial synchronicity. Dedicated to the memory of Downtown theatrical genius Richard Foreman, “Alchemical Theatre” presents nine pieces of tele-pathic, counter-intuitive New York improvisation by three legendary figures of the Downtown scene.