Hello All, I finally got two new Tzadik releases: Daniel Zamir "Children of Israel" and Cyro Baptista "Beat the Donkey". Somehow I expected both of them to be really outstanding. Unfortunately I was quite disappointed. The albums are OK but not more than that. Zamir wanted to arrange some Israeli popular songs for his third CD on Tzadik. Instead of making record in a trio Zorn suggested him to add big horn section. That's why instead of one saxophone we can hear seven: Danny Zamir on soprano and alto, John Zorn, Marty Ehrlich and Ned Rothenberg on altos, Paul Shapiro and Anat Cohen on tenors and Doug Wieselman on baritone plus standard Satlah rhythm section of Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz on bass and Kevin Zubek on drums. In addition to that "Children of Israel" was recorded by Bob Musso, mixed by Bill Laswell and produced by Laswell and Zorn. Altogether the CD like that promises a lot, but the music on it is less than challenging. Extra horns make the songs sound like some sappy pop-jazz orchestra. Drums and double bass are so unnoticeable that it is almost impossible to say if they are good or not. Zamir himself is good but less inventive than on his first two Satlah records. Despite everything I wrote, "Children of Israel" is fun to listen and worth to have. For sure it wouldn't frighten people who are not familiar with Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture series, because it is not at all radical. Cyro Baptista "Beat the Donkey" show with Zorn as a special guest was the first thing I saw at Tonic during my first short visit to New York. Since then I saw them two more times: once with Ribot and once just by themselves. Every time it was very entertaining, joyful and weird. All three times Cyro was talking about releasing the music on CD upcoming fall. And all three times I was curious how he was going to that, because "Beat the Donkey" is so much more then just music. Three years later it happened this fall; now I have an answer to my curiosity. All the guests are here: Ribot, Zorn, Saft, Lubambo, Scherer, etc, etc. The music is here too, but the charm of live performance disappeared. Ideas which work excellent at the concerts don't work so well here. Even knowing and imagining how the drummers and the guests are playing some tunes it's hard to get that excited as when seeing them live. That was one of the reasons why at least half of compositions fade out in the middle; otherwise it would not be hard to get bored after couple of minutes of them. That makes the CD sometimes sound like beats sampler. The great thing about this album is that the sound quality is amazing. It feels like the ensemble is right here in front of the listener. All in all "Beat the Donkey" is a good companion to Cyro's "Vira Loucos" CD, which contains, I think, more interesting music, but doesn't sound that fresh and lively. And for sure "Beat the Donkey" is the best party music of year so far. NP: "In His Own Sweet Way - Tribute to Dave Brubeck" (CD) -- Best regards, Peter Gannushkin e-mail: shkin@shkin.com URL: http://www.downtownmusic.net/