50th Birthday Celebration Volume 5

50th Birthday Celebration Volume 5 is a live album of improvised music by Fred Frith and John Zorn documenting their performance at Tonic in September 2003 as part of Zorn's month-long 50th Birthday Celebration concert series.^[1]

50th Birthday Celebration Volume 5
Live album by John Zorn and Fred Frith
Released	June 29, 2004
Recorded	September 15, 2003
Venue	Tonic, New York City
Genre	Downtown music Avant-garde jazz
Length	44:53
Label	Tzadik TZ 5005
Producer	John Zorn
John Zorn and Fred Frith chronology
The Art of Memory (1994) 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 5 (2004) The Art of Memory II (2008)
John Zorn chronology
Masada Recital (2004) 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 5 (2004) 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 6 (2004)
Fred Frith chronology
What Leave Behind (2004) 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 5 (2004) Eleventh Hour (2005)

Reception

The Allmusic review by Sean Westergaard awarded the album 4 stars stating "The interplay is simply amazing. Much of it is what you'd expect from free improv, but there are a handful of beautiful, lyrical moments, like those that close the set. Any fan of free improvisation will be thrilled. It doesn't get much better than this."^[2]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]

Track listing

All tracks are written by John Zorn and Fred Frith.

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Off Topic"	7:29
2.	"Alecto"	3:56
3.	"Sowers of Discord"	3:54
4.	"Four Corners"	8:14
5.	"Level Six Jumping"	4:33
6.	"Cruel Abstraction"	6:25
7.	"Eumenides Outside the Window"	6:54
8.	"Nine-part Invention"	4:37
9.	"Cord Trouble and Tuning"	1:38
10.	"Astrologers and Magicians"	6:31

• Recorded live at Tonic in New York City on September 15, 2003

Personnel

• John Zorn – alto saxophone
• Fred Frith – guitars