Search - Roberto Rodriguez :: First Basket

Documentary music with commercial

Case Quarter | CT USA | 06/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"it probably comes as a surprise to very few followers and non-followers of basketball that in 1946 there were no blacks playing the franchised game; whereas, a safe wager would be even fewer fans know that the 1946 new york knicks boasted a starting team of several jews. ossie schectman was the jewish player on the knicks team, and in professional basketball, to score the first basket, which became the title of david vyorst's documentary film about the period in basketball history when jews played the game.



cuban born roberto juan rodriguez moved to miami where he began his interest in jewish culture and music. while a drummer for numerous groups in nyc, john zorn asked him to do a recording of jewish music for tzadic. his fourth release with the tzadic label is this recordeing, first basket, a small orchestral soundtrack for vyorst's film.



the recording is made up of thirty brief selections, some of the titles: shofar, euro trash jewish hoops, kosher rasta, the holyland dribble, give an idea of what to expect, while with other selections the unexpected prevails in the form of a growling piano backing a slow growling trumpet piece charles mingus might had written, another more livelier trumpet led piece, red auerbach, also what i want to call come to the kasbah music, fanfares, an odd waltz, and a piece what a young friend of mine described as sounding 'like that turtle commercial on tv'.



much of the liveliness is due to the brevity of the selections. the opening selection, shofar, is a introduction to a music with accordion, banjo, violin, shofar, brass, electric guitar, influenced by a people who have been everywhere and done just about everything, presented as a kind of a traveling circus.



this probably isn't what miles davis had in mind when he often spoke of writing music based on the sounds on the court of a basketball game some day, but it's sure one fun of a recording.

"