Masada (band)

Masada
Masada performing, c2005; L.-R. Joey Baron (dr), Greg Cohen (b), Dave Douglas (tr), John Zorn (sax)
Background information
Genres	Klezmer Experimental Jazz
Labels	Tzadik Records
Past members	John Zorn Joey Baron Greg Cohen Dave Douglas

Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.

Masada was the first ensemble to perform Zorn's compositions inspired by Radical Jewish Culture and written to be performed by small groups of musicians.^[1] Initially envisioned as a set of 100 "songs" notated within a limited number of staves and confined to specific modes or scales, Zorn's Masada project would eventually total 613 compositions divided into three specific "books".^[2]

Zorn used Hebrew titles for these compositions along with melodic themes and musical structures reminiscent of klezmer music, and Jewish imagery on album covers to explore Jewish identity within the Masada songbook and groups. He stated: "The idea with Masada is to produce a sort of radical Jewish music, a new Jewish music which is not the traditional one in a different arrangement, but music for the Jews of today. The idea is to put Ornette Coleman and the Jewish scales together."^[3]