Legendary guitarist to release interpretation of
John Zorn’s Tap: The Book of Angels, Vol 20

In the spirit of Pat Metheny’s groundbreaking forays into free improvised music that dates back to Song X with Ornette Coleman released in 1986 and a collaboration with Derek Bailey called The Sign Of Four a decade later, the great jazz guitarist’s label Nonesuch has united with John Zorn’s Tzadik label to release a new album called Tap: The Book of Angels, Vol 20 in late-May. John Zorn, about to embark on a major Zorn At 60 festival tour with key appearances including one at the historic Moers festival in Germany next month, has never collaborated with Metheny on a record before. The music Metheny is to release is taken from the second volume of the Masada Book known as the ‘Book of Angels’, inspired like the first volume by traditional Jewish music. Metheny and Zorn started to think about working together via email, Metheny says, after Zorn contacted him to write notes for one of his Arcana publications. “I mentioned", Metheny says via his record company, “that I had followed his Book of Angels series from the start and felt like I might be able to contribute something unique to the collection. With his enthusiastic encouragement, he gave me some suggestions as to which tunes were still unrecorded, and I picked the ones that jumped out and spoke to me. Over the next year, in between breaks from the road, I recorded them one by one in my home studio whenever I got a chance." Tracks are ‘Mastema’, ‘Albim’, ‘Tharsis’, ‘Sariel’, ‘Phanuel’, and ‘Hurmiz’. Look out for a review in Marlbank nearer release.

The cover of Tap, above