Moreover, "Stairway" and several other songs were of epic length by rock standards, and concert improvisations stretched some songs to triple the length of their studio versions.
This year's concert features improvisation on Takemitsu's film scores, and at Carnegie it will follow a 14-day series of Takemitsu-scored movies at Film Forum in the South Village.
It was the rare arena concert filled with improvisation, and a show of musical solidarity across generations, laced with friendly competition.
They wanted to showcase performer-composers, make visuals an integral part of each concert and include improvisation, said Benjamin Robison, a violinist who leads the group, which is a sextet.
But I have trouble recalling any significant, edifying or exhilarating free-jazz or total-improvisation concert I've attended at which Mr. Dalachinsky has not been in the audience, rough-edged, congenial and ready with an opinion.
Though "Little Lion" is his first solo instrumental CD (in 1997 Signature Sounds released the instrumental "Ring Some Changes," a joint effort by Mr. Williams and Jim Henry), he is known for his elaborate guitar improvisation in concert.
But most of the concert whizzed by, with improvisations that flew far above cultural boundaries.
Like any week at the old Knitting Factory, the concert encompassed songs and improvisations, delicacy and brute force, jazz and rock, melody and noise, and many things in between.
At Zankel Hall in March the effervescent Quatuor Ébène ended a concert of Beethoven and improvisations on pop and film music with an a cappella rendition of "One Day My Prince Will Come" from Disney's "Snow White" — sung in French — that slyly toppled notions of old and new musical worlds.
On Monday evening Mr. Zorn unites friends and peers from various new-music circles for two sets of freewheeling improvisation; Tuesday's concert features six young bands engaged by Nonoko Yoshida, a saxophonist.
