Tzadik: Search & Destroy

Ooops, dang: "For a variety of reasons out of our control we've had to cancel and re-evaluate our ability to celebrate with an anniversary sale at this time. Please continue to support Tzadik"

Email today from Downtown Music Gallery, the store that seems to handle Tzadik's mail order that theyre offering all Tzadik titles 25% off through December - but they seem to not know how to update the webstore? Email amusingly contains what appears to be a list of ALL in-print Tzadik titles with an invitation to email them directly to order. Seems like a clusterfuck in the making but I feel like I'll give it a shot.

Bought the complete Masada studio recordings box from DMG and just got the shipment confirmation email. Should be here before my birthday!

Nice one. Enjoy!

OK, fine, I'll buy one

I just bought one

Fomo really makes me want one, this is some of my favorite music, but I just can't pull the trigger on a pricey CD boxed set, especially for CDs I used to own.

I used to own two of the CDs but one went missing several years ago.

Maybe it's in the boxed set.

Box just arrived. The packaging is pretty sweet...

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0xNbD-vNNV/

Nice. Wish I could check out the book.

Looks fantastic. Let's see if one of these boxes makes it to Europe these days. Tzadik website is still down.

Does anyone know if the 'hour of rare alternate takes, rehearsals, and inserts' on the Masada box duplicates anything from the Sanhedrin two-disc set of unreleased Masada studio recordings?

Does anyone know if the 'hour of rare alternate takes, rehearsals, and inserts' on the Masada box duplicates anything from the Sanhedrin two-disc set of unreleased Masada studio recordings?

Not 100% sure, but I don't think so. There's only one overlapping track from Sanhedrin and Disc 4 of the box set ("Tiferet") and the new box set it says it's a rehearsal take. Discogs listing of the 10xCD box has no track times though so I'm not entirely sure.

Thanks!

Wait, the box is billed as the complete studio recordings, but it doesn't include Sanhedrin?

The box is the original 10 albums as they were issued in Japan in the 90s, with 7 bonus tracks (rehearsals, punch-ins and alternate takes) added to the fourth disc to bring it up from 20 minutes to 78. There’s a note in the book saying basically “there’s even more stuff on Sanhedrin!”.

Huh. At least "Sanhedrin" is on streaming.

I may wind up buying Sanhedrin at some point, but I got this box because I'd never owned any Masada stuff in physical form; I just downloaded the albums (and Sanhedrin) at some point.

I've got to admit, my adult brain is fighting the fomo ...

I came super close to buying this but didn't. I did, however, see that Second City Prints, which was handling Tzadik Limited stuff, just declared bankruptcy, and that some people that bought the autographed copy got a regular copy instead (and that SCP has not always been responding/refunding). Didn't Zorn recently get hosed by a *different* third party label that went bankrupt? Dude needs to find/pick better businesses.

Shoestring gonna shoestring, what can you really do

Anyway, you can get them mail order from Downtown Music Gallery

https://roulette.org/event/improv-nights-2024/

A BENEFIT FOR TZADIK RECORDS

Limited Run, the online distributor for Tzadik’s direct-to-consumer mail order projects has declared bankruptcy owing the label $70,000. To help rebalance this loss these kind musicians have generously offered to make these three concerts benefits for Tzadik.

Please come, donate, and help Tzadik continue its mission to support and document new music in the 21st century.

A three-night run bringing together master improvisers to perform in multiple configurations and combinations, organized by and featuring John Zorn with Ikue Mori, Wendy Eisenberg, Dave Douglas, Sean Ono Lennon, Peter Evans, Kalia Vandever, Miles Okazaki, and many others.

It's crazy to me how even artists I've been listening to for more than 30 years, who are known worldwide, are balancing on a knife's edge financially. Zorn, Laswell...these are major cultural figures, and they're basically living gig to gig.

Laswell I believe, especially after the last couple of years. But Zorn, I suspect he's doing fine between gigs, grants, etc. If people are curating multi-night festival appearances featuring him and several of his bands, I'd hope he's at least got some pretty good guarantees coming to him. Granted, he likely rolls a lot of that into his labels/projects, but that's a choice. (A choice I'm glad he's making, mind.)

Interview with Heung-Heung Chin: https://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/01/the-art-and-design-world-of-heung-heung.html

Cool ty, I always wondered about the art!

Yeah, that was great.

Yeah, that's great stuff.

It's crazy to me how even artists I've been listening to for more than 30 years, who are known worldwide, are balancing on a knife's edge financially.

It's not that crazy. thanks, Spotify!

I gotta be honest, I wish Zorn would sell more merch! Bring on the posters, the prints, t-shirts, the coffee table books! The Tzadik site has pretty slim pickings.

Related, I wonder when/if they are going to (home) release the Zorn docs that the actor Mathieu Amalric has been making:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ybQOI5M3g