Dave Lombardo plays Vivaldi

Here’s a weird one: Dave Lombardo playing Vivaldi. In 1999, the not-in-Slayer-at-the-time drummer collaborated with Italian music critic Lorenzo Arruga and some classical musicians on Vivaldi: The Meeting, a set of improvisations on Vivaldi pieces. (This bio of Arruga amusingly calls the recording “improvisations with a Cuban drummer.”) The CD is fairly unlistenable, though it has a certain joie de vivre (which anyone would have given the chance to play with DAVE FUCKING LOMBARDO). Hearing winds, female operatic vocals, and thundering double bass drums is not my idea of a good time. Chalk this one up next to Fantomas on Lombardo’s “good on paper/bad in reality” CV. Compare “Una Sfida” (“The Challenge” – a fitting title) against Nigel Kennedy’s recording of the Presto movement of “Summer” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”

– Cosmo Lee

Lorenzo Arruga, Dave Lombardo & Friends – Una Sfida
Nigel Kennedy – “Summer,” Presto

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