New Yorker Jamie Saft is one of the most interesting men in downtown jazz these days. Aside from being an essential contributor to scads of John Zorn´s projects, including the Electric Masada series and his in-house, easy-listening band The Dreamers, he has contributed a wealth of innovative material to Zorn´s Radical Jewish Culture series on the Tzadik label, from the death metal of Black Shabbis to collaboration and production with jazz greats Ben Goldberg and Bobby Previte and his own innovative and wide-ranging solo material, from Sovlanut in 2000 to this year´s Borscht Belt Studies. In this new group, Saft at the piano and organ is backed by the rhythm section of Larry Grenadier and Craig Santiago, whose respective resumés include work with artists as diverse as Pat Metheny, Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, the B52s and Donovan.
New Zion Trio marries a smooth jazz with a reggae sensibility and barely-breathed Jewish melodies. It´s as straightforward a concept as you can come up with, even risking being a recipe for drowsiness – cocktail hour reggae? But Saft is such an interesting player, and his bandmates so accomplished, that your ears keep you busy studying the details like a Talmud student poring over a particularly intriguing passage.
Saft is also an accomplished dub producer, having even run Japanese noise artist Merzbow through the echo chamber with happy results, but here, no extra reverb is necessary, for the notes Saft drops on the Fender Rhodes are already so rotund. Drummer Santiago has an organic, Sly Dunbar earthiness, so steady on ´Hear I Jah´ you can brace yourself against it as Saft makes the individual keys on his Fender Rhodes float away in air, one after the other. Rock solid bassist Grenadier stands tall and proud as a Sitka spruce on ´Ishense´ as Saft buffets him with gentle whirlwinds.
Listening to Jamie Saft play in this unhurried, intimate setting is a pure and unadulterated delight. Indoor reggae for cold, big-city nights. Music to listen to with somebody.
Stephen Fruitman
