Wu-Tang's GZA at the Troc

When the Wu-Tang Clan started in 1992, the members of hip-hop's hardest-working collective almost immediately began dropping their own solo albums.

Each of the nine MCs was nearly as potent as the mother ship's debut,

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

If RZA was its scientist, Raekwon its actor, and Ol' Dirty Bastard its wild child, GZA was its "Genius." It wasn't just a nickname from 1995's

Liquid Swords.

What George Harrison's sprawling

All Things Must Pass

was to the Beatles' canon,

Liquid Swords

was to the Wu - a surprisingly grand work, expressive and expansive.

Liquid Swords

toyed with eerie keyboard sounds out of a horror movie, with GZA's snaky flow, low voice and complex rhymes steeped in references to chess and martial arts. It was ominous and daring then, and a classic now.

By performing

Liquid Swords

in its entirety on Wednesday night at the Trocadero - while hyping his stripped-down new CD,

Pro Tools

- GZA reminded old heads of his continued prowess and new fans of his past accomplishments.

GZA, the cerebral Gary Grice, didn't need to refresh anyone's memory, as the all-ages crowd knew every word.

It's not as if GZA and his crew didn't make nods to

Pro Tools

. They offered the dense "Paper Plates (50 Cent Diss)" and a few other snippets of its blunt force funk. But GZA - rich in voice, direct in execution - jumped on stage and made with the

Sword

play. While its synthetic strings sawed on, "Shadowboxin'" allowed a cool GZA to rap slyly about murdering the competition ("I slayed MCs back in the rec-room era"). If he wasn't bashing rappers, he was ripping conglomerates ("Labels").

And when the detuned keyboard noise of "Cold World" didn't seem quite icy enough, GZA yelled, "I want to hear that key-tar. I want that beat to drop" before he and Killah Priest - one of Wu's longtime associates and GZA's opening act - took on the misery-laden "4th Chamber." Magical.