MIDSUMMER MOONS

One of John Zorn's more gorgeous albums was released, appropriately, near the summer solstice of 2017: ten exquisite and sometimes quite lively acoustic guitar duets, inspired by lunar imagery in the plays of William Shakespeare. As usual Zorn abstains from any performance credit (his greatest talent is a generous gift for collaboration), although he did of course write all the music, and also created the evocative collage on the inner CD flap: seaside castle ramparts and shadowy fishermen under a veiled full moon, with a skeletal arm rising portentously out of the surf.

The good news is that the album isn't one of Zorn's typically esoteric neo-classical algorithms. Each song instead recalls the elegance of his Gnostic Trio recordings, stripped to its otherworldly essence: 42-minutes of pure melodic beauty. The twin guitars can be soft as harps ("Silver'd in the Moon's Eclipse"), or reveal a surprisingly keen rhythmic edge ("Moon Take Thy Flight"). I would love to hear the same music interpreted by a sympathetic rock band: the results could be stunning, not unlike a resurrection of early Genesis. But the disarming simplicity of these unadorned instrumental arrangements, in the hands of two ace players, is reward enough.

The bad news is that the album might escape wider notice, buried as it is inside such a mammoth discography as Zorn's, itself likewise dwarfed within the expanding ProgArchives database. If Steve Hackett had released the exact same music (and he easily might have), I have no doubt these pages would be humming with admirers eager to extol its virtues.

In its own unassuming way the album would have to be counted among the best of the year: another quiet triumph for the tireless composer and arranger. The Bard himself describes it best, quoted inside the CD sleeve: "...pluck the wings from painted butterflies to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies."

I'm not going to say a lot about this album as it was one I picked up without doing my homework. The thing is that I was excited about finding some John Zorn music that I liked back in 2017. And all of it was music he released between 2015 and 2017. Albums like "Inferno", "The Interpretation Of Dreams", The Garden Of Delights" and "The Painted Bird". I was led to these albums after discovering ELECTRIC MASADA, a Zorn led band that blew me away. I was on the search for more like-minded music of his after hearing that one, lets put it that way.

That search led me to that '15- '17 period of his that contained some incredible music. And in my excitement I grabbed this one too called "Midsummer Moons" from 2017, only to find out it's simply two acoustic guitar players, and that's it. For the whole album. Now Gyan Riley and Julian Gage are gifted players or Zorn wouldn't have asked them to play, but I feel this is pretty one dimensional despite them changing things up at times.

This is just not my music to be honest. A beautiful cover art, and I would say the same about a lot of these melodies. The word "moon" is in nine of the ten song titles. An all instrumental album about the moon. This was one of those "oops" moments, but if your into classy, high end, all instrumental music, you need to hear this. Zorn is the composer and producer and I've seen this listed as chamber jazz and contemporary folk.

3 stars, but please read Neu!mann's insightful review.