Most revolutions fizzle and are forgotten, weak coups disband scarcely before the smoke from the initial blast clears. Fool..., however, will prove itself more dynamic than such lethargic attempts at change as it eloquently questions the rigidities of musical genre categorization and speaks for itself with irresistible tones of innovation and intensity that allow for no rebuttal from the musical status quo. Truly a convergence, a gestalt of musical theory and aesthetic, the album is a composition of solo performances by musican/composer Mark Deutsch on both the sitar and bazantar, an instrument of his own invention. In physical terms, the bazantar is a five-string acoustic bass modified with the addition of four drone strings and twenty nine sympathetics similar in concept to those found in the sitar. Musically, the protean instrument boasts a virtually unprecendented tonal range, as much due to its energy-conserving design as to its synergistic admixture of Western and Eastern musical traditions. A singular orchestra, the bazantar is a pansonicon that seems to resonate from within the very nexus of sound.

A classically trained bass player with long experience in orchestral ensembles, global folk traditions, jazz groups, and solo sitar performance, Deutsch translates the elements of his radical eclecticism into the composition of Fool... The thematic development and geometric structure of Western classical music, the contemplative precision, melodic contouring and tonal structure of Indian tradition, and the colorful freedom of jazz improvisation all find an inevitable home within the works that he creates on the bazantar. Out of this vibrant alchemy grow the sitar and bazantar pieces of Fool..., all musicall and thematically linked with an operatic cohesion.

Though relatively linear in respect to its narrative progression, the the thematic structure of the album is perhaps most fruitfully conceived of as a nested scheme that spirals outward from its central axis, The Sword Of Damocles, developing as it travels a holographically symmetrical journey from the intensely personal to the utterly universal.

Iacta Alea Est, the brief introductory piece is elemental, uncompromising in its finality and resolve: the name a reference to Caesar's infamous words -- "The die is cast" -- uttered upon reaching his strategic point of no return, the Tibetan balls and Chinese balls used in this composition evoke the single-purposed opinionlessness of an earthquake in conception, of the purity of fate. The concluding piece on the album, Lunatic Fringe, is characterized by a similar sense of inevitability. A single, intensely resonant note from a chime resounds, a signal not so much of ultimate conclusion as of infinite rebirth.

Orchids Womb, the second composition, is representative of an emotive broadening of the elemental introduction. A solo sitar performance, the piece ripples and subtly swells with potential and gestation. Its correlative composition, Orchids and Chrysanthemums, is another sitar performance, yet different from the first in its strikingly deliberate tempo and tones of reconciliation and serene acceptance that temper the theme of unbounded growth established in the second piece.

The Painted Bird continues the musical journey from the universal to the intimate as it darkens both the emotional and musical tones. The first piece on the album to feature the bazantar, The Painted Bird, is a remarkable introduction to the instrument, as it is comprised of the simultaneous depth of the double bass and frenetic highs of the sympathetic strings. The result is a composition of passionate heroism and struggle. Meaning "the work of one's life", Avodah demonstrates the vast range of the bazantar as its notes become richer, sublime in their expression of humility and compassion.

Persival, named for the most desperate seeker in European mythology, is a sitar performance that mimics the questing hero in its tonal exploration: at moments hesitant and neurotic, at others rash and unthinking, yet always intensely intellectual in perspective. The musical whole, however, is paradoxically enough a smoothly paced raga that brings the search to climactic and potent closure. Related to the fourth piece in its psychologically abstract focus, Kundalini Rising in its delicate, mesmerizing waver threatens to dissolve and evaporate into nothingness; when it finally does just that, the them of ascension becomes ethereally, transcendentally clear.

The bazantar composition The Sword Of Damocles is the axis of the album and represents the greatest expansion of both the thematic and musical elements. The piece is named for Damocles, a fool-hardy courtier to Dionysus the Elder of the fourth century. As legend has it, the king, upon hearing of his servant's absurdly high regard for the ruling class, invites Damocles to a sumptuous feast and seats him at the head of the laden table. The courtier scarcely enjoys the occasion, however, for a massive sword dangled by a single thread just above his head for the duration of the meal. The inevitability of death and the blindness of fate that the courtier discovered after such peril, the realization of truth's intimate relationship with absurdity, all such moments of awareness are contained within The Sword Of Damocles. Its density and darkness of tone are unrelenting in their insistence upon self-knowledge. It is an eloquent renunciation of vanity and personal desire that at the conclusion of the composition allows the absolute weight of the piece to ascend into the serenely meditative. Intensely subjective in perspective, Damocles illustrates in musical tones the relationship of the individual to the elemental. Indeed, Fool... is a manifestation of singularity and integration in all senses: the marriage of cultural influences, of dark tones and light, of heaven and hell, all find their unions celebrated within this most revolutionary of albums.

Stephen Rozier - New Orleans - December, 1998
 

Bazantar/Sitar, featuring the composition Fool..., is the first recording to showcase the Bazantar. As a composer, Mark Deutsch has integrated many diverse elements into this work. He weaves Indian music's sublime melodic contouring with the panoramic architecture of classical music, universal mathematical principles with a jazz musician's commitment to spontaneous creation, and avant-garde's visceral convulsions with folk tradition's graceful simplicity to create a musical gestalt that defies simplistic categorization.

The composition Fool... expresses in its cyclical construction the evolution of a consciousness from oblivion and struggle, through a progression of states such as searching, contemplation, epiphany, and forgiveness, to arrive at awareness and transformation. The work's underlying structure was developed from the concept of respiration, and employs many interwoven cycles, which are represented as the interplay between pairs of opposites. Though the composition can be seen as a journey from birth to death, in a deeper context it expresses the evolution of any idea from gestation to awareness.

While the Bazantar is the primary instrument used in the composition, the sitar serves an important role as a treble counterpart to the baritone voice of the Bazantar, with the percussion instruments used in the prelude and postlude conceptually binding the piece together. All the Bazantar and sitar tracks are live solo performances. There is no overdubbing, looping, or other studio effects on these tracks. Rarely attempted in today's environment of digital manipulation, the method of recording requires substantial skill by both engineer and musician. The result is a work that reveals the creative process with a remarkable vitality. The cd booklet includes liner notes by playwright Stephen Rozier (reprinted above), composer's notes, a mathematical chart of the 66 non-linear harmonic divisions of an octave, and a diagram illustrating the thematic, melodic, frequency, and emotive changes the piece undergoes from conception through culmination.