Two Words, One Answer.
bribe
 YuGiOh Warrior's Strike Structure Deck Single Card Dark Bribe SDWS-EN032 Common $3.99 YuGiOh Starter / Structure Decks and Singles - 5D's Starter and Structure Deck Single Cards!  The Bribe $39.91 The Bribe starts with a storm and ends with fireworks fitting bookends for a crime thriller full of passion, greed and double crosses. The story revolves around a war-surplus racket operated from an island off the Central American coast, where federal agent Robert Taylor runs into the only thing steamier than the weather: Ava Gardner. World-wise, world-weary and fabulous looking, Taylor and Gardner epitomize noir sex appeal. And the consummate actors playing the villains couldnt be more adept at oozing evil. Vincent Price portrays the suave criminal mastermind and Charles Laughton is his henchman, a sweaty wharf rat.  The Bribe $16.98 As John Zorn began moving beyond his early work as ultra-abstract improviser, he started to head in the direction of thematic structure, of setting up a series of rules and motifs around a single theme-- his composition "Spillane" (available on Godard/Spillane) is the best example of this-- Zorn dug deep into the source material and put together "file cards" with the different themes, rules, suggestions and directions on them. He then took an ensemble and recorded these file cards in some sequence or another. Where the line between composition and improvisation, or more abstractly, the line between composer and performer, is often unclear. Nonetheless, unlike his earlier system of improvisation (the Game Pieces), this tended to provide a significantly easier to digest set of music. With a large part of the band that recorded "Spillane"-- a virtual who's who of mid-80s downtown New York improvisers (Ehrlich, Staley, Quine, Coleman, Horvitz, Previte, the composer and half a dozen others), Zorn recorded this for a radio play. The results are, quite frankly, about what you'd expect. I suspect most folks looking at this have heard "Spillane"-- in it's way, this is more of the same, although it sustains a narrative a bit better. I'll point out that I was never really in love with the file card stuff-- it has its moments, but by and large and seems a bit lacking in that feeling of real immediacy that Zorn's best work has. I'm sure this is because of the element of storytelling in the subject matter, and while the recording certainly has its moments, usually based around a great performance from one musician or another-- Quine's monster r&b solo on "Meters", Zorn blowing a fierce blues on "The Taxman Cometh" and pretty much everyone on "Victoria Lake", by and large I find that it doesn't completely sustain my interest. Having said that, if you loved "Spillane", you'll probably love this. Not completely my cup of tea, but good for a lot of other folks. If you haven't heard "Spillane"-- start there, then check this out if you find you want some more. |
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