John Zorn: Classic or Dud?

More specifically: Masada 'Live in Seville 2000', Filmworks XIII, and Music Romance vol. 2 are classics, while I can't get with most of his game pieces or Masada 'Live in Taipei 1995' (most because of the sound quality).

Duds: I thought Locus Solus was incredibly boring. Naked City didn't do anything for me (I kept wanting it to be more intense.) I don't know the name of it, but I bought and sold a CD that has stories read in Japanese and Vietnamese to guitar accompianment; another snoozer.

Classic: The Circle Maker is really great. Also, I like Painkiller's Guts of a Virgin. The Morricioni tribute I think is very overrated (not near as fun as listening to the original), but still good. And I have a Filmworks, I think No. 5, that is great. Or maybe it is No. 4...I know that it's the soundtrack to a Japanese porno film, but then that probably only narrows it down to 10 records for Zorn.

Things I have enjoyed: Masada, Circle Maker, Godard/Spillane.

So: Classic

'Elegy' is a truly wonderful 30 minutes to spend listening to (with some brief Mike Patton typical tortured squeals thrown in there, for good measure).

Also, 'Duras:Duchamp' is quite solid. 'Aporias' is and alright listen (though, this one isn't as interesting and/or captivating as the first two mentioned). Also, "Kol Nidre" is a wonderfully touching (and quite mournful) piece (found on 'The Strig Quartets' and some other collection of his).

I'm not big on his thrash and gash jazz-fusions, though. However, some of his surf guitar stuff and other things found on collections like the 'FilmWorks' series or 'Music Romance' (that you've mentioned) is nice, too.

Also, his piece "Spillane" (one cd has "Godard" with it and the one I have has the Kronos Quartet played "Forbidden Fruit") is worth a listen.

I thought I'd revive the earliest zorn thread to say I just got Michiriro sato/john zorn's ganryu island on tzadik (from soulseek), an absolutely triffic improv sesh with Zorn at its squealin' hard blowin' best, really working furiously to provide counterpoint to sato's pluckings on his shiamsen. was first released in '84 and all zorn fans must give this one a listen.

Am I the only one who thinks Marc Ribot is, in his own way, as annoying a (guitar) wanker as Eddie Van Halen?

C/D? an output that prolific is never going to be consistent, but you have to admire his willingness to experiment and his enthusiasm. plus, classics in his repertoire include most of the naked city albums, ditto painkiller, masada, electric masada, spy vs spy, moonchild, the 50th birthdays and the music romance series.

on the other hand, some of the more recent chamber and classical works I haven't been too keen on, and roughly half of the tzadik releases seem to be less-than essential. plus tzadik released that exceptionally strange melt-banana live in the studio album that made them (them! of all bands!) sound weirdly flat and cardboard-esque, which was quite an achievement.

but, on balance, classic. music would be a much more boring place without him.

^ COLBERT ON ZORN!

Uri Caine: Moloch: Book of Angels Volume 6

I've been playing the Koby Israelite (Orobas) again lately. I agree about the awesomeness of the accordion. Lots of great solos on the record. I can see what you mean about the rhythms being somewhat unsatisfying - to me, they don't seem to "groove" quite as much as they should - they seem a bit stiff. Maybe that's what you mean by the "proggy wedding band groove" (great phrase, by the way). I guess that's because the focus is more on having lots of different sections with different tempos and having surprising sudden transitions, so it's harder sometimes to let the groove develop organically. So there's a trade-off going on, but I can see value in both approaches. It's interesting that you found the drumming less interesting than the other instruments, considering that Koby has for most of his career been primarily a drummer, and he only recently picked up the accordion. I guess he picked it up pretty fast.

There's an interesting interview with Koby here:

http://www.adequacy.net/interview.php?InterviewID=69

I've been listening to last year's Malphas, performed by Mark Feldman and Sylvie Courvoisier, a great deal this summer. It's lovely, quite energetic, with memorable, unpredictable melodies and tight interplay. I sometimes wonder how much of the credit should go to Zorn and how much to the performers. AFAIK the scoring is quite open.

Also, I recently downloaded Astronome, performed by Patton/Baron/Dunn. It's very different but I liked it on first listen. Heavy noise-rock with vocables from Patton but somehow it seems to come together and be more listenable than some other things in that vein.

AFAIK the scoring is quite open

That's certainly the impression I get from the Koby interview:

DOA: The songs on Orobas are from Zorn's Masada series, which have been described as "improvisational starting points." In what form was the music delivered to you, and how much of it was already clearly defined? There are some killer solos on various instruments throughout the album. Would it be more accurate to say they were your improvisations or lines that were meticulously mapped out by Zorn ahead of time?

KI: Zorn sent me only the melodies/riffs in some tunes, and for some he sent me the chord changes (like in the song “Nisroc,” for example). The solos were improvised by myself or by the trumpet player Sid Gauld, recorder player Stewart Curtis, and bass player Yaron Stavi.

Mark Feldman is amazing on Ned Rothenberg's Inner Diaspora. He's playing a little less outside there, but there's plenty going on. The whole album is terrific (not that it has much to do with Zorn, aside from being on his label).

Yeah, you keep mentioning that one.;) I'm sure I'll like it but I haven't got around to hearing it yet.

BTW that's noise-rock in a proggy, choppy kind of way, not in a droney way.

Yeah, you keep mentioning that one.;)

Even though I have hardly heard anything new this year, I have to have something to hype.

Classic, but that Mike Patton connection makes me want to call him a dud.

why

DID NOT DESERVER 500,000 PTS!!!

MOST OF J Z'S SHIT SOUNDS LIKE ADULT THEMES FOR VOICES. TWO THUMBS DOWN.

dud. his voice on his horns is empty and faceless, and along with ken vandermark he's essentially this music's equivalent of the blues brothers: always paying tribute at the expense of developing even a halfway distinctive approach.

Naked City, Kristallnacht & Cobra live performances are pretty classic. Shots of a duo w/Eye I took in the 90's @ the Knitting Factory:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1238/1034906278_ff38e3f7bb.jpg

Christmas album!

The biggest surprise of the year is John Zorn’s beautiful Christmas album. Zorn has hand picked seven of his favorite Christmas songs, penned two lovely originals and they are performed here in classic Dreamers style with plenty of exciting solos, exotic colors and catchy lyricism. Filled with a joyful holiday spirit, innocence, a touch of nostalgia and a charming lyricism, this is music for all ages that will make you smile with delight from the very first notes. As a special treat, vocalist Mike Patton delivers an intimate and heartfelt rendition of Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire, making A Dreamers Christmas an instant classic, and an essential album for any contemporary Christmas celebration.

Can't wait for this.

Me too. I love the Dreamers stuff

John Zorn is one of the first/formative favorite artists of mine who nonetheless made me, at a certain point, just say 'enough.' So much of his stuff was so well packaged, played (by some of my favorite players) and recorded, and so much was expensive even by domestic standards, let alone as imports, that years ago I just had to give up trying to keep up. I haven't heard anything - let alone thought of - Zorn for longer than I can remember, though I have held on to some of my favorite stuff: Masada, Naked City, the soundtrack series, Big Gundown. Bar Kokhba and The Circle Maker.

(Ha, looking upthread, I think the last time Zorn came to mind was the last time I posted on this thread, five years ago!

I just got the first four Masada discs (three full-length CDs and a three-song EP). Listened to part of the first one this morning. It was good, but not life-changing or anything, and I didn't hear a huge amount of Ornette (except on the very first track) or anything ultra-Jewish in a shove-it-in-your-face sort of way. Most of it was just adventurous-ish hard bop. I guess I'll make my way through all of it (35 tracks) just 'cause it's there, but honestly my enthusiasm is already fading and I've only listened to about eight pieces.

I dunno, I think adventurous-ish hard bop is good enough. I suppose it does get interesting what be does with the various Masada themes in future projects/groups.

This Christmas album is well lounge-y...Not sure what I expected but we're clearly in the world of Christmas Cookin'/Ski Surfin'/Charlie Brown rather than Jazz Freakout Christmas.

I had a real Zorn-athon today. Listened to The Dreamers albums and then took in Mount Analogue for the first time. I bought my first Zorn Album 'Spillane' when I was 15 years old and 24 years later I still feel like I am a newbie. It was a split South Bank Show with Zorn/Sonic Youth that got my attention. Whenever I get bored of everything on my ipod I just delete it all and stick a load of Zorn/Mingus/Miles/Mozart on it.Every time I go back to Zorn there is always one of his albums that I previously didn't care much for, suddenly becomes my favourite album. The guy's music is an extraordinary goldmine. Now I am listening to Nova Express which is becoming another of my favourites.

Dreamers is his sort of post-Masada outfit, right? Sort of like another iteration of Electric Masada? I've heard their Book 2 disc is great.

Just check out The Gift, The Dreamers,Alhambra Love Songs and o'o and I guarantee you will find a lot to love. I am not great with his personel but I they all have Ribot on guitar and members of Electric Masada.

Electric Masada is a better band than Radiohead

I will be careful about getting too excited on here in future, lest I get cut again by laconic wit.

Sorry about my last nonsense post I have had a few today and am not sure what I was talking about.

Went to an excellent concert performance last night by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra of some of Zorn's orchestral pieces. Just great to hear a huge group of musicians really nailing some typically 'difficult' (to execute, at least) pieces. Can be heard here;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ppw1t

Try to check a couple - wish he'd play Chimeras live (its a for Pierrot Lunaire type ensemble, and it works)

There's this next month for Londoners.

I really like the extremely short-lived band Zorn had with Fred Frith on guitar, Bill Laswell on bass, and Dave Lombardo on drums. They only played four shows ever between 1999 and 2001, and recorded exactly one studio track, on the Taboo and Exile album (two other tracks on that disc feature Frith, Laswell, Lombardo, and Marc Ribot, but no Zorn). I have bootlegs of all four live shows, and they're pretty killer. A kind of cross between Pain Killer and Last Exit, with Lombardo erupting into double kick drum madness at regular intervals. Frith gets drowned out a lot. Oh, and at the New York show (which I was at), Eye joins on vocals for part of it.

Really? I saw their London performance and didn't think it worked at all - seemed like four different musicians doing their own thing rather any kind of collective endeavour. This may be conditioned by the fact that a) I'd seen a Masada evening at the same venue about a year before, which was one of the best gigs I've been to, and b) I find the sound of Laswell's electric 12-string particularly unlovable. Still, Lombardo was amazing, and we did get Derek Bailey in support.

I got to see a Naked City show in NYC back in the day at the old Marquee. The guy in the wrestling mask doing the vocals turned out to be, not Eye, but Mike Patton. It was one of the most fun shows I ever attended, seeing these four musicians with sheet music siting down looking totally serious whilst performing some of the most fucked up and precise noise ever invented.

So that's classic.

But the dude is incredibly prolific and only a small portion of it is even close to as interesting as that, so I understand if people disagree.

Another fond Naked City memory: I worked at the Tower Records in the Village from 1989-1990 downstairs in the cassettes department. Sometimes I would be asked to work in the separate room down there at the back where we kept soundtracks, jazz, world music and the like, sequestered from the more mainstream stuff. While working in there one was not allowed to play anything not for sale in there. So I always played Naked City (and also soundtracks for the first Decline of Western Civilization and River's Edge). Which pissed my bosses off and scared quite a few customers but I am also pretty sure I sold a few tapes too!

A 4+ hour Masada marathon this week in NY for his 60th, featuring 13 different iterations. There's a recording just gone up on D1m3 too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/arts/music/john-zorn-gets-a-masada-marathon-for-his-60th-birthday.html?_r=0

Wow.

Did you hear his NPR interview? Totally not what I expected - funny, talkative, self-deprecating, cooperative, etc. ...

I was there http://i.imgur.com/zi7hd.gif

Josh - will check that out, I've been a bit of a grump wrt Zorn in recent years but feel that I'm coming back around again, the London birthday concert a couple of months ago was fantastic.

WGW - was it all good? I'd like to have seen SC3 doing Masada

It was pretty phenomenal

It was supposed to be 3.5 hours, so the nearly FIVE HOUR performance did, in fact, feel like a marathon, complete with exhaustion

Obviously, for me, the rockcentric stuff was the best — Secret Chiefs 3, Abraxas, Krakower, and Electric Masada who might be the best working American rock band — especially since it was so monstrously loud in that room. Watching/hearing older folks cover their ears and complain to each other was a rare treat you usually only get to see on sitcoms, so it had that extra element. On the other end of the spectrum, it was the second time I've seen Feldman/Courvosier duo and I really love the kind of broken chamber music feel that Pareles pointed out. (Their Masada CD is really good too) Zorn didn't actually play until the very last band, so hearing his familiar sax sound after however many hours was like a jolt of electricity.

I'm pulling it in now, if anybody wants a W3Transf3r link PM me.

I bought the Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz: Abraxas Book of Angels 19 after seeing em at Masada Marathon and it is blazing

http://www.spin.com/articles/john-zorn-mike-patton-met-museum-of-art/

The whole day at the Met Museum from open to close... in 77 seconds:
http://www.spin.com/articles/john-zorn-mike-patton-met-museum-of-art/

I lost track of the Filmworks series several volumes in, but wow, is this perfectly Komeda-meets-Morricone-a-rific:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYOS-tx0vHE

this 'in lambeth' william blake tribute is fantastic. reminds me of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9zLcHSilHY

How many Zorn CDs does an ilxor have in their house?

i only ever physically owned naked city

I "physically" own naked city and masada live in sevilla

50 on the dot, incl. 6 multi-disc sets, incl. the Parachute Years box

But none in the last 8-9 years

I have all 7 CDs by the Moonchild band, and the 4CD Painkiller anthology. That's it.

I used to have a dozen cassettes, then dozens of Tzadik and Avant and Elektra CDs. Masada and Naked City were a huge hunk. And Film series. Now all is digital.

Kristallnacht
Bar Kohkba
The Circle Maker
Naked City
Astronome
Six Litanies for Heliogabalus
Chimeras

I think that's all I have. Not sure where else to go with him. The Bar Kohkba discs are easily my favourites.

Pretty much everything Masada and Masada-related is worthwhile, esp. Circle Maker and Bar Kohkba.

formerly about 6 cds which went missing during a house move and I bought the Spillane/Albert Collins album on vinyl way back. About a gazillion digital albums.

About a gazillion digital albums.

^

Tzadik is getting more and more a Zorn-only outlet it seems, save for some new groups. The back catalogue is huge so I´m still discovering great new things.

Last summer I bought Zorn´s Filmworks 3, a pretty good cd (lots of great guitar work). The duo-cd with Bobby Previte (Euclyd´s Nightmare) is quite accessible and I´m now getting into the early game pieces work as 'New Traditions in East Asian Bar Bands´ and 'Cobra'. As a composer, I can see that his way of composing hasn´t changed radically as it´s still short blocks with lots of things happening, but things have certainly have become more refined and working with a pool of musicians that know what he wants works really well (on 'What Thou Wilt' for example). On ´Rimbaud´ he started mixing composed music with improvised music.

There´s a teaser of a recent studio session on the Tzadik twitter account with Ribot and some other musicians that made me curious.

I also posted this to Tzadik thread but I mention it on here as well; Aram Bajakian's brilliant and seemingly underrated There Were Flowers Also In Hell lp from last year absolutely shreds.

this sounds great

Klezmerson: Amon: The Book Of Angels Volume 24 [#8328]
Get ready to be blown out of your seat! Klezmerson has created one of the most astonishing installments of the entire Angels series--a spectacular reading of Masada material drawing upon the rich tradition of Mexican music from Oaxaca to Veracruz. Touching upon Henry Mancini, Xavier Cugat, Psychedelia and so much more, this is without doubt one of the wildest, most creative, flamboyant and masterful readings of Masada material since the Secret Chiefs 3. The work of a maestro in total control of his craft, Amon takes Masada to unimagined places! Essential!

LOL, Volume 24.

Essential!

22 + 23 were both essential imho so i wouldn't be surprised if the trend continues

i meant 21 + 22. i didn't love 23 as much

Just sayin', once your series (one of several, not including a deluge of other projects featuring permutations of the usual suspects) hits the two dozen mark, even "essential!" becomes a tough sell.

i have a whole mess of Masada & Zorn cds in my basement from college years ('99 - '03). a couple of those live Masada discs will be worth digging up (the ones with good sound, because i know a couple of them were not great at all). a bunch of other Tzadik stuff too (Cyro Baptista, Milford Graves, etc).

Filmworks ultimately hit, what, 25 volumes? I've heard many, if not most of them, and they are all great, possibly even essential, if you're into Quine, or Ribot or Friedlander whomever. But jesus, 25 volumes! And that's just one hunk of the world's biggest musical iceberg.

i remember reading that he was starting a book 3 series soon?

Just this week I discovered Zorn contributed to a Kurt Weill tribute after listening to the BBC Jazz Files documentary. I also bought ´More News for Lulu' recently.

News on Book 3

Masada, a repertory Zorn has been creating for more than two decades now, will be completed with this third installment. As he explained, the first book contained 205 compositions, the second 316 and the third will have 92, for a total of 613 tunes: the number of mitzvoth, or commandments, in the Torah.

His next release in the Hermetic Organ series was recorded at St Paul's church in Huddersfield, reet Town of Culture we are! It won't be as good as the Áine O'Dwyer church cleaners recordings where you can hear the buzz of vacuum cleaners and visitors talking in the background to her beautiful playing in St Mark's Church in Islington.

Kurt Weill tribute

Yeah, "Lost in the Stars," the first of those all-star Hal Wilner projects.

I like that Aine O'Dwyer!

mine are

Bar Kokhba

Merzbow - 1930

the 3 Eyvind Kang CDs

Kletka Red

so six? feel like there's one I'm forgetting about

o right Kang's Grass is on Tzadik, also have the Maryanne Amacher and Terry Riley's Aleph

the Aine O'Dwyer is the best thing i've heard so far this year

I wasn't being disdainful of the Áine O'Dwyer album, it is beautiful.

i agree - it's gorgeous.

Yeah, it's great—I reviewed it for The Wire (next issue, probably). The requests for fewer long low tones are hilarious.

The new Book of Angels vol 28 with the Nova Express Quintet is totally ace. I haven't been much bothered about Zorn for ages but this is lush. Lol just noticed on the tzadik site that I'm behind the times, Vol 29. came out in June.

seventeen releases so far this year ! anybody keeping up ?

https://johnzornresource.com/discography

really been enjoying the "hermetic organ" series. here's vol. 6:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhsPT6AWAGI

John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ Vol. 6 - For Edgar Allan Poe

I'm a huge fan of John Zorn, and yet, I'm not sure I've heard anything he's done for a few years, at least not since all the Masada/anniversary stuff. So I'm probably, oh, 300 releases behind.

All the Simulacrum albums are really good. The two albums (so far) by Insurrection, a quartet featuring Lage Lund and Matt Hollenberg on guitars, Trevor Dunn on bass, and Kenny Grohowski on drums are also really good.

the whole beriah songbook is excellent (or at least the albums i've heard so far - sofia rei, zion80, abraxas, klezmerson, a couple others)

TRACTATUS MUSICO-PHILOSOPHICUS-PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS FROM THE INVISIBLE THEATRE

^^^

was listening to this one with the mouthful of a title the other day and it's good stuff, another one where he actually plays alto sax on it.

the other one with him playing alto sax (which has been a rarity in recent years) I'm thinking of was from last year and I've forgot the title but I think it was from the Burroughs inspired series and was very good stuff.

cool, thanks for the responses !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uN8A3TljOk

John Zorn rare interviews in his apartment

the one from last year i was trying to recall was In A Convex Mirror

if i'm not mistaken he's also playing sax (and organ simultaneously) on a number of the "hermetic" pieces

well it is easy get lost with someone so ridiculously prolific!

indeed ! but now i find it's confirmed by tzadik:

Including some extended moments with Zorn playing both organ and saxophone simultaneously, the improvisation is intense and varied, with a remarkable compositional arch and wildly dramatic changes of color and timbre. The saxophone blends beautifully with the organ, standing out at times while Zorn plays the organ with his feet, hands and elbows.

John Zorn : The Hermetic Organ Volume 8—For Antonin Artaud

i thought there was sax on vol. 6 but apparently not

x-post Did he not remove his kitchen, to use the space for his record and comic collection? "Sure, I can eat out!"

I have about 20 of his albums. His output is hilariously prolific, but you can pick and choose styles and it's mostly good stuff.

at roulette in NYC on saturday with TYSHAWN SOREY

https://roulette.org/event/john-zorn-heaven-and-earth-magick/

“hermetic” vols. 6 and 8 are both going on my EOY list btw, just incredible music

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-zorn-jazz-metal-interview-naked-city-1015329/

Very long and imo very good career history published today. Includes some new interview material with JZ himself as well as loads of players he's worked with.

this is great so far, thanks for sharing.

Wow, thanks!!!!

I don't think about Zorn much these days, but so much stuff flooded back while reading the article. Like younger asshole me blasting the first "Naked City" over the camp wide PA at the Maryland Boy Scout camp I worked at, or dragging my tolerant friends and their unwitting new Columbia roommates to see Zorn's Sonny Clark tribute at the Knitting Factory (after introducing the song "Dial S for Sonny" one dude in my crew quietly hissed out "Dial S for Sexxxxxxxy" and everyone cracked up) or learning about Carl Stalling and Weegee ...

Also flashed back to a zine a friend had in 9th grade with an interview with Yamatsuka Eye, the interviewer asking about someone masked on stage once throwing up, and Eye responding: "Yes, I am atomic vomit woman," and us not knowing if it was mistranslated or if he was just insane.

It's great to have a lot of the historical record filled in, but I really dug part 4 where it gets into 30-40 years of grafting different trees together, entirely different species, and bearing new and viable fruit.

“Grohowski’s a great example,” he [Spruance] adds. “He doesn’t just play jazz chops faster when he plays metal, and when he plays jazz, he’s not playing fuckin’ metal quiet. It’s really that kind of thing; you’ve got to have your feet in both worlds for real. That wasn’t happening in the Nineties. There were no players like that back then. I think it is a direct result of Zorn’s alchemical experiments in the Nineties.”

This is basically all my favorite Zorn stuff — I'm not a huge Naked City fan these days, but the s/t and Torture Garden cracked my head open at the time (I had the Shimmy-Disc cassette of Torture Garden) and loved Painkiller. I saw them once at the Knitting Factory, but Mick Harris got sick so Ted Epstein subbed in on drums. I also saw one of the few Bladerunner shows on their initial run, with Eye on vocals because they were opening for Boredoms. I never saw Moonchild, but I own all seven of those albums and they rule. I need to buy all the Simulacrum discs; they're incredibly intense, but when you're in the mood for what they do (imagine the highest intensity of live Deep Purple circa 1972, organ, guitar and drums just going at it, only it never stops, it stays that intense for a whole hour) there's nothing else like it.

Moderately related, I could have sworn I've read stories of Van Der Graaf Generator gigs where the deep rumbling organ made people barf.

Nice, looking forward to reading this. I had a big Tzadik phase in college, though I gravitated toward the more accessible records rather than the noise end of things.

I was just listening to the most recent Shabaka & the Ancestors record thinking how very much it had in common with Masada (the core group).

That wasn’t happening in the Nineties. There were no players like that back then. I think it is a direct result of Zorn’s alchemical experiments in the Nineties.

Is Zorn the 1990s Frank Zappa? Beloved of musicians whose fans have probably never heard of him, hugely influential yet too willfully uncommercial to ever achieve actual success. Not sure what Zorn thinks of his audience tbh, hopefully more than Zappa thought of his.

in a word, no!

Yeah probably not

He is so not at all like Zappa.

He definitely was inspired by Zappa's genre cross-pollination. I remember an interview wayyy back where someone asked him his favorite album and he said it was a tie between Uncle Meat and, uh, I can't remember the other one. But the lineage is there, imo. The present day composer refuses to die!

zappa ? fuck outta here

Yeah, I always thought the connection was obvious.

I'm sure Zorn hears something of value in Zappa; he hears something of value in almost everything. He's a sponge and an enthusiast. But he lacks the smirking-asshole gene, and he doesn't think he's smarter than his audience, and that makes all the difference.

I see no video of the 1991 Naked City show I saw where Mike Patton sung.
I did, however, find a review of the show in the NY Times by Peter Watrous.

Covering the ground of a well-stocked record store, John Zorn's group Naked City moves easily from reggae to country music, from mock be-bop to volcanic noise, from the chillingly tranquil stretches of Messiaen to rockabilly rumbles. And the band, with Mr. Zorn on saxophone, Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass and Joey Baron on drums, does it quickly: the music is exciting, filling the listener with flashes of recognition.

At their show at the Marquee last Thursday night, Mr. Zorn and Naked City (joined by Mike Patton, the ex-singer for Faith No More) tore through tunes that lasted 30 seconds or so. For longer pieces, Mr. Zorn had styles flying by as quickly as telephone poles seen from the inside of a moving train.

Mr. Zorn has always advocated spectacle, which explains why his shows are more interesting than his recordings. Mr. Zorn's hard-core tunes, comprising noise and Mr. Patton's screams, hurtled by quickly, but for all their intended extremism they avoided the pain that real hard-core bands produce.

Mr. Zorn, the most visible member of the downtown scene, has always positioned himself as a 19th-century European Romantic, facing down a tyrannical bourgeoisie. But his affinity for basically anti-populist Romantic ideology gets fouled up in his stated populist philosophy of elevating overlooked musical genres.

At the show, the two strains clashed. With an academic's contempt for Western contemporary pop culture, Mr. Zorn kept his pastiches away from the ecstatic or the celebratory moment that fuels so much popular music. Eggheaded to the last note, the music avoided emotional revelation.

But the crammed Marquee showed that there is a substantial audience for Mr. Zorn's brand of musical tourism. It's easy to see why: the music is eclectic and yet free of cultural baggage, offering the listener the feeling of being an insider. And Mr. Zorn's posturing as an avant-gardist helps keep his shows entertaining, adding an element of buffoonery and quixotism that he may, or may not, intend.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/25/arts/pop-in-review-619191.html

I did find what is allegedly an audio recording of that show:
https://archive.org/details/19910418NakedCitywithMikePatton-TheMarqueeNewYorkNYUSA/01+-+intro.mp3

And yeah, that Rolling Stone piece is phenomenal.

Yep, it's very much worth everyone's time.

But he lacks the smirking-asshole gene

He may or may not have grown out of it — "his bearing has softened somewhat," as the article puts it — but he's had it in the past. He played Memphis in the mid 90s with Masada, and the young woman the promoter hired to drive the band was treated horribly by the young smirking asshole. All for the crime of not knowing enough about the right kinds of jazz, as she put it.

to be fair, he would have been in his early forties at the time. you know how kids can be.

lol, tough game is growing up in the limelight

hmmm. i don't really get zappa's overwhelming sneering misogyny from zorn, but naked city-era zorn was definitely extremely, uh, edge-lordy. look at the song titles on "torture garden" - "jazz snob eat shit", "perfume of a critic's burning flesh", "sack of shit", "new jersey scum swamp". i'll be honest with these song titles come off as a little bit hostile, and perhaps even a little bit condescending.

my biggest personal interest is trying to figure out what zorn's relationship is with people like me, historically and in the present day. so i skimmed through the whole article, all the way down to the melissa etheridge video at the end.

it took me nearly towards the end, but i did find what i was looking for. writer hank shteamer interviews one of zorn's more recent collaborators, wendy eisenberg. eisenberg does use they/them pronouns but does speak specifically to zorn's work in a queer context, and i am definitely very interested in understanding how zorn's work relates to queerness. for all of the violence and cruelty in zorn's work with naked city, the sexuality seems, well, inchoate, nebulous. he titles a track "igneous ejaculation" but what, exactly, is motivating that ejaculation is really unclear, other than, well, pain itself. he was extremely fond of s&m imagery, pictures of people chained, hooded, indeterminate.

these things take some time to figure out, certainly. i just wish the queerness of zorn's work was more explicit.

i hadn't heard of eisenberg before. i will definitely be checking out their bands "birthing hips" and "editrix".

i am definitely very interested in understanding how zorn's work relates to queerness. for all of the violence and cruelty in zorn's work with naked city, the sexuality seems, well, inchoate, nebulous. he titles a track "igneous ejaculation" but what, exactly, is motivating that ejaculation is really unclear, other than, well, pain itself. he was extremely fond of s&m imagery, pictures of people chained, hooded, indeterminate.

Since "igneous" is a type of rock, I always took that title to be about a volcanic eruption or a lava flow. That said, the sexuality expressed in Zorn's work is definitely hard to parse - as you say, there was that whole period where he was using Araki photos and other Japanese porn (torture and otherwise) as album art, but it seems to have passed once he left Japan for good. In recent years he's been much more preoccupied with religious imagery, from both Jewish and Christian mystical traditions. And I know nothing at all - does anyone? - about his personal sexuality. I've never heard or read anyone mentioning someone having had a relationship with him; he seems to have abandoned almost all normal human functions in order to maintain his pace of work. He (in)famously tore out the kitchen in his apartment to make more room for records.

Those are good questions I never considered. I always thought of Zorn as akin to Albini, another bomb-thrower iconoclast who has also lightened up as he's gotten older. (Though Zorn has about a decade on Albini.) The shocking song titles and whatnot, I wonder if he was mostly aping the, well, edge-lord stance of grindcore and hardcore. Curious, I also looked up the titles of the songs on the first Boredoms album for example; (I'm not that familiar with the Boredoms), and you find stuff like "Bite My Bollocks," "Young Assouls," "Lick'n Cock Boatpeople" and "Feedbackfuck." Zorn's discography is too unwieldy now for me to check, but at a certain point he stopped doing the shocking album covers and titles, right? The question is did he move on because it was a aesthetic phase or did he become more sensitive to its reception? Dunno.

BTW, he was interviewed a few years back on Fresh Air, of all places, and iirc it was pretty great:

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/217195249

Wow, this interview from 2003, conducted by the artist Michael Goldberg, is great, too:

https://bombmagazine.org/articles/john-zorn/

Lots of interesting stuff, but this caught my eye:

MG
Is your classical music persona different than that of your other kinds of music? In other words, when you go to a concert of your classical music, do you dress differently?

JZ
This is the way I dress, day or night.

MG
You know what I mean?

JZ
I know what you mean, there are a lot of levels to what you’re talking about. There’s the persona that you put out almost inadvertently, because it’s who you are. And then there’s the persona that is perceived by other people, whether they know you or not. And then there’s the work itself. I prefer to talk about the work rather than the persona. The persona is what the rest of the world wants to talk about. And why is that? Because it’s hard to talk about nonverbal creativity? Or is it because they have some weird obsession with the cult of personality? People talk about what I wear, how I talk. I’m a down-to-earth person like you, who’s going to tell it like it is. If someone’s jiving me, I’ll say, “Fuck you, you’re jiving me.” And people are threatened by that. And then they think you’re some obnoxious asshole, when you’re just someone who is very straight about shit. People are interested in people, is that what it is? Why aren’t they interested in the work? People come to my house and it’s like, where’s the furniture? I don’t have any furniture. If you want to sit, you sit on the floor. It’s a small place, covered wall-to-wall with books, CDs, records, movies, everywhere, and that’s it. They freak out—what’s going on here? I can’t figure this out. There’s no kitchen, there’s no place to welcome a visitor. I say, “This is where I live.”

it's a pretty fine line to walk. i do believe that creators should have the right to privacy, should have the right, to, uh, _non-disclosure_ (yes i saw the new documentary and you should too). on the other hand, my experience is that who i am comes out, you know, whether or not i choose to admit it to others or even to myself, that what i do is indelibly marked by who i am. personally i'm out because i can't imagine not being out.

my experience is that sometimes the things people are hiding are things that shouldn't be hidden. i remember all the jokes about how kevin spacey was obviously gay and yet he just wouldn't admit it, and in retrospect it becomes more clear why he didn't talk about certain things. there are a lot of men who have learned to not talk about certain things. that silence is often a threat to me and to people like me.

it's none of my business what zorn _meant_ by all that extreme s&m imagery, none of my business what he gets up to in his spare time, at least to the extent that what he gets up to in his spare time is safe, sane, and consensual. (i have a hard time believing, whatever he might choose to present, that he doesn't _have_ any spare time, that he devotes every minute of every day to his art.)

birthing hips are fantastic btw. eisenberg's quarantine record, just released, also fantastic. really undersung, and i'm glad working with zorn has made more people aware of her music.

I appreciate you thinking about it, because I never did. Any more than I thought about Slayer or Iron Maiden album covers or whatever.

great thanks now i'm gonna look and see if there's any rule 34 art of eddie

for that matter i will say that i also have spent a fair amount of time thinking about the intersection between metal, queerness, and gender. if anybody reading this thread might chance to be interested in my opinions on that topic, here is a link to a review i wrote last month of feminazgul's "no dawn for men": https://weirdthingsonbetamax.blogspot.com/2020/05/reviews-of-couple-of-2020-albums.html

I remember having a Zorn cd (I think it was Taboo & Exile) that had a very child porn-y photo in the insert, and it made me very uncomfortable to have around, and thought it odd that I never saw it mentioned in reviews or whatever.

Iirc, there was an Ellie Hisama article about the S&M images of Asian women in Zorn's artwork.

Huh, apparently in a magazine called Popular Music. Anyway, that sent me in a few right (wrong?) directions:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-15-ca-27473-story.html

For avant-garde musician John Zorn, the naked Japanese women in S&M; bondage that adorn his “Torture Garden” CD are an aesthetic statement that cannot be separated from the discordant jazz he creates.

For many in the Asian American community, they are flat-out pornography. Earlier this year, several national groups called on Zorn to withdraw two of his CDs from distribution, condemning the covers for portraying Asian women in a stereotypical and demeaning fashion.

The controversy is gathering steam: Earlier this summer, Zorn lost a gig in New York and a San Francisco radio station withdrew sponsorship of a Zorn concert after Asian Americans complained.

“If these are his personal proclivities, I have no objection to that, but it becomes a public act when he disperses these images into the marketplace and he’s certainly accountable for them and for having them critiqued,” said Richard Oyama, a scholar and poet who is active in the San Francisco-based artist group, Godzilla West.

Asian Americans also object to a Zorn CD called “Naked City,” which includes images and text referring to a historic form of Chinese capital punishment in which a living person’s body is dismembered. A written explanation in Japanese says the CD is dedicated to this theme.

Zorn, 40, a New York-based saxophonist who has lived in Japan for much of the past decade and speaks fluent Japanese, says he is shocked by the vehemence of the attacks. He says the images were not chosen lightly but reflect his own interest and explorations into the dark side of human experience.

“I’m not an insensitive person,” Zorn said in a telephone interview. “I understand the concerns of the Asian American community. I don’t want to make it more difficult for them.”

The artist says that after the complaints started, he asked his Japanese record label to stop importing the CDs on a temporary basis. In the meantime, he has offered to wrap the offending CDs in plain covers or add a disclaimer explaining that the graphic images “have been used for their transgressive quality, illustrative of those areas of human experience hidden in the gaps between pain and pleasure, life and death, horror and ecstasy. They are not and were never intended to denigrate or insult any particular person or groups of persons.”

But Asian American groups say that’s not enough.

“It’s not like we can just slap a Band-Aid on it and say, ‘Fine,’ ” says Sherwin Yoon, a spokesman for the New York-based Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence. “We appreciate the steps he has taken, but we were hoping to work closer with him to bring this greater issue to light. There needs to be a lot more discussion about misrepresentation of Asians in the media and the art world.”

An exasperated Zorn says he isn’t willing to go any further.

Quirky and esoteric, Zorn is a leading figure in New York’s experimental art scene, where he focuses on making music solo, with collaborators or with his longtime band Naked City. Zorn is resolutely unconcerned about reaching a mass market and has a small but influential following. Few of his 30 or so recordings have sold more than 10,000 copies.

Zorn says he draws inspiration from French writer Georges Battaille, whose literature dealt with erotic and taboo themes, the macabre theater of Grand Guignol and the often-shocking photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin--who takes viewers into a nightmarish world of sexual deviance, cadavers and circus freaks.

His tastes are omnivorous and eclectic. His recordings have included a tribute to the music of film composer Ennio Morricone and avant-garde jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. For his next Naked City project, Zorn is putting a Coleman spin on traditional Jewish klezmer music, friends say.

Zorn says he chooses the images on his CDs carefully to complement the music. Sometimes the images even inspire the music. The controversial covers--which Zorn says were released without problem in Japan--are designed in collaboration with Tomoko Tanaka, a female graphic artist in Japan. According to Zorn, both the music and art come out of deep personal experience mixed with an outsider aesthetic.

“When I lived in Japan, I got involved in the S&M; torture scene,” Zorn says. “I lived those images. If someone criticizes me, they’re not looking at the scope of my work, as an artist who deals with these themes in a consistent way. I’ve used Caucasians in violent situations too.”

Zorn’s friends and supporters say the artist is a moral person who is being used as a scapegoat to further a political agenda.

“People are unfairly assuming that he’s exploiting and taking advantage of these photos . . . and that’s not true,” says Michael Dorf, owner of the Knitting Factory, a New York-based performance space and record label that specializes in avant-garde music.

“John has artistic integrity. He’s got a huge collection of art that has to do with this theme. He’s done research on it. He’s immersed and obsessed with Asian culture. He’s not doing this without a consciousness about what it means for women and Asian women and the history of the Japanese exploiting other Asian countries.”

Battles over artistic freedom in music-related imagery are nothing new. Past furors include a mid-1970s flap over an ad for the Rolling Stones’ “Black and Blue” album that featured a bruised, tied-up woman. Geffen Records reissued a Guns N’ Roses CD after complaints about the initial “Appetite for Destruction” cover, which reproduced a Robert Williams painting of a robot raping a woman. Last year, women’s groups lodged protests against rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, saying an eight-panel cartoon on the “Doggystyle” CD degraded women.

But the controversy defies easy solutions.

“This raised a lot of questions for me,” confesses Ginny Z. Berson, program director at KPFA, Berkeley’s Pacifica radio station whose phone lines were flooded with angry callers, many of them Asian American, after the station broadcast a Zorn concert in January.

Following the uproar, KPFA withdrew sponsorship of a concert by Zorn planned for San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall. Berson also instructed a DJ to discuss the controversy on the air before playing Zorn’s music and put together a talk show program on the issue.

“Our mission is to promote understanding, the building of bridges between people of different cultures and groups . . . and artwork that depicts torture of Asian women does not promote that,” Berson said.

“But what does John Zorn playing his sax have to do with that?” she added rhetorically. “And what about Miles Davis’ misogyny? Does that mean we have to discuss his attitudes toward women each time we play his music?”

Zorn’s invitation to play at the New York Museum of Natural History’s 125th anniversary celebration in June was rescinded after Asian Americans there complained, according to the artist and Dorf, who helped broker the concert. A spokeswoman for the museum said a contract was never signed, but conceded there had been discussions with Zorn and that he was dropped because of complaints.

Zorn says he’s sorry about the lost gigs but that he’s not about to compromise.

“As an artist you can’t please everyone,” Zorn says. “If I took all their criticism to heart I’d never create anything. I don’t want to make it harder for Asians in this country; I’m on their side. But frankly, I don’t think my records are doing that.”

Lotta stuff to chew on in .... whatever this is:

https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:16062/datastreams/CONTENT/content

This one features a long discussion of the artwork from "The Gift," which I think is the one you are referencing, Jordan.

Actually, the aforementioned academic essay/treatise/book goes deeeeeeep into some of the stuff being addressed in this thread.

He’s immersed and obsessed with Asian culture.

Oh, one of those guys is he?

Wb, Kate!

This is a bit off-topic but I just wanted to point out that in French (not a particularly queer-friendly language tbf) 'genre' means both gender and genre (in the aesthetic sense) so the connection between the two is fairly obvious even though very little is usually made of it (certainly less than in the English-speaking world ime). Either way, it's an insightful reading of Zorn's compositional and/or improvisational style. It gets a little trickier when the problem of culture steps into the equation: to my ears, Zorn's genre-hopping is mainly about the encounter of cultures writ large (Jewish, American, Japanese, etc.) and/or subcultures (the avant-garde, jazz, hardcore, etc.). Sexuality is by no means absent from these juxtapositions, especially in his earlier, more overtly 'transgressive' works, but foregrounding it is not a priority for him as far as I can tell.

I've only skimmed the book at that link, obviously, but it occurs to me that none of these discussions include Painkiller's Rituals: Live in Japan, a relatively hard-to-find title (the label went out of business), but one worth mentioning since the cover art (front and back) depicts a bound man being graphically sexually dominated by a woman. Does that make the other album covers "better"? No, but it might broaden the scope of discussion.

This one features a long discussion of the artwork from "The Gift," which I think is the one you are referencing, Jordan.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, June 23, 2020 12:24 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't have that album, it was definitely Taboo and Exile. The image shows up if you google the album title. :/

Also I'm surprised the article barely touched on his relationship to Judaism, which is clearly a huge part of his music and the label

xpost Oh, are you talking about that picture of the girl from Taboo and Exile Vol. 2? The art on "The Gift" is as problematic, or even, judging from what I linked to, more problematic. I don't remember it that well, honestly, because around that late '90s time (that Music Romance series) I stopped liking a lot of his projects and/or started listening more or less exclusively to Masada and its adjuncts, plus other collections, like the Filmworks series. And then right after that were all the cool Masada anniversary collections, plus the 50th b-day live stuff. Sometimes it's just a matter of wanting to hear Baron or Quine, say, rather than some of Zorn's later collaborators, though that Rolling Stone piece makes me want to remedy that. I don't think I ever got into Moonchild or the Dreamers, for example. And I should try The Book Beri'ah series.

Listening to the music linked in that article made me remember how much I dislike a lot of his music (via not being a noise dude), and the genre jump-cut aesthetic feels pretty dated now. But, it's still probably too easy to take him for granted, and I do still love Masada classique.

My enjoyment of his music increased considerably when he shifted toward Masada, although I like a few of those early ones.

Also I see he's still slinging cds, from the same ol' website. :) I think it's probably the right decision to not stream if you've got a hardcore legacy base like him (would love to know how much they sell these days).

I always feel like I should like Zorn a lot more than I do. I just never get a sense of any distinctive "voice" from his compositions (Masada excluded), like you do with Morricone or whoever else he references. It all just kind of wafts over me, like it's been theorised into being rather than felt into being. I admit that maybe the fault with this lies with me.

That's why I typically listen for specific players rather than the compositions, as such. Masada was always an experiment in melody, but I would also listen to those musicians any time, in any context. Zorn tends to get some great work out great players given a longer leash than usual to get out of their comfort zones (or to get comfortable in *his* zone). Like, per that RS piece, Dave Lombardo getting to improvise, or Joey Baron having a blast playing blast beats, or Frisell getting the rare excuse to embrace all his diverse interests at the same time. Bill Laswell, for example, is also a king at gathering talented eclectic players, but he is more interested in shaping them to his vision as a producer, imo; Tony Williams plays drums on PiL's "Rise," iirc, but it may as well have been, say, Anton Fier.

“When I lived in Japan, I got involved in the S&M; torture scene,” Zorn says. “I lived those images."

it's a compelling argument and one that holds up today. to the extent that he's speaking from his lived experience, i'm not particularly inclined to brook criticism of his work.

that said, leng tch'e? you lived that shit? i mean look i wasn't involved in the japanese s&m scene of the '80s and '90s but i do find zorn's depiction of bdsm to be a fairly unrepresentative and misleading representation based on my encounters with it. naked city's music is hard, violent, aggressive, like the sting of a whip, and certainly yes there is a place for that in bdsm (even if i myself am more taken with the thud of a flogger). but bdsm, for me, is a highly contextual space, a _negotiated_ space, and naked city's work strips bdsm of that context. for him, there doesn't seem to be any difference at all between consensual bdsm and leng tch'e.

i mean, if there's more to all this than just crass shock value, very well and good, but it's been thirty years since _naked city_ came out and i still have no idea what the hell else he is supposed to be getting at.

i tried reading that academic book but i just wasn't sold on it. 2008? it seems like a lifetime ago. it starts making these arguments about how the concept of "kawaii" is propaganda is designed to instill feminine docility, and it's like, really? this is the argument you're making? and this is supposed to be an academic argument? i know a _lot_ of women who find shojo pretty fucking validating and empowering.

for the record i'm not "back" back - just found this thread particularly interesting and couldn't keep my mouth shut. :)

It is very impressive just how much music that John Zorn has been able to make happen. I got to think the fact that his career aligned with there still being money in making recordings is how he was able to finance and keep this train of extreme music going all over the world. In some ways, I'm not sure with the current media setup whether it would be easier or harder to pull off what someone like John Zorn has accomplished across his musical career.

Listening to the music linked in that article made me remember how much I dislike a lot of his music (via not being a noise dude), and the genre jump-cut aesthetic feels pretty dated now. But, it's still probably too easy to take him for granted, and I do still love Masada classique. 

i've been a low- to medium-level fan since high school in the late 90s but have never been attracted to the noise/metal/grind type stuff, so much so that I forget that's such a huge part of his whole body of work. That RS article is a reminder to me of how crazy it is that he can have so much music, to the point that I can ignore that massive part of his whole body of work and still feel like it would take 3 lifetimes to catch up on everything.  

No one is ever going to hear it all except the man himself but every time I delve deeper into his tentacular discography, I arrive at the same (ever shallow) conclusion: Naked City, Bar Kokhba, The Circle Maker and Live at Tonic 2001 are his peaks.

Bar Kokhba Sextet from the 50th birthday series and Electric Masada - At the Mountains of Madness are two underappreciated classics.

I guess he finances Tzadik with that fellowship grant he got a few years back? That, and his own CDs must sell enough to turn a small profit. He doesn't seem the kind of guy to have outlandish living expenses either.

I'm not sure with the current media setup whether it would be easier or harder to pull off what someone like John Zorn has accomplished across his musical career.

it would be completely impossible now

xpost you mean that MacArthur Grant? I'm sure that helped. But I think that was 2006. He had it all figured out well before then. I think Zorn lucked out in a couple of regards, like no doubt getting space in NYC when the getting was good, but he also has maintained any number of long lasting relationships with people that would drop everything to work with or for him.

I've always been struck by the consistent quality of his CD sleeves, of all things, not just the art but the way the booklets and cases were printed and laid out. There was and I assume remains a lot of effort put into what turned out to be, ironically, pretty disposable media. Is any of his music out of print? In one of those things I or someone else posted there's a claim made that little he has recorded has sold more than 10,000 copies, so does he just create small runs of stuff that still doesn't sell out?

That's why I typically listen for specific players rather than the compositions, as such. Masada was always an experiment in melody, but I would also listen to those musicians any time, in any context. Zorn tends to get some great work out great players given a longer leash than usual to get out of their comfort zones (or to get comfortable in *his* zone). Like, per that RS piece, Dave Lombardo getting to improvise, or Joey Baron having a blast playing blast beats, or Frisell getting the rare excuse to embrace all his diverse interests at the same time. Bill Laswell, for example, is also a king at gathering talented eclectic players, but he is more interested in shaping them to his vision as a producer, imo;

Tbh, this is so much the case that I sometimes question whether Zorn's name should even be on some of these albums.

Certainly there are Zorn projects that Zorn is not on. He's just writes the pieces or conducts and so on. On the group projects or things like that, do they share writing credit?

Anyone else see the Frisell doc? It's great, but he's just a compulsive composer, leaving sheets of scribbled melodies lying all over the house.

On any Tzadik album with Zorn's name on it, he writes all the music. Even when there are passages of improvisation, it's because he's basically written "Improvise from here to here" in the score.

I know Tzadik did a limited run of a few titles on vinyl last year, to offset big losses from that distribution outfit Pledge Music going under, I guess they lost a bundle. One of the only times I've ever heard of Tzadik vinyl, other than the Dreamers christmas album and a couple other things.

Strange to think he'll be 67 this year! His output has averaged around 10 releases per year for two decades or more now, doesn't seem to be any signs of slowing down either.

On any Tzadik album with Zorn's name on it, he writes all the music. Even when there are passages of improvisation, it's because he's basically written "Improvise from here to here" in the score.

Have you seen the scores? I just wonder what the ratio is - whether they're more like jazz charts where he wrote a head or what. I got the sense they were pretty loose but I've not found the actual scores for these - thinking of things like the Gnostic Preludes discs with Frisell or the Masada Songbook discs that are credited to him but don't feature his playing, not Naked City or Cobra.

OK, yeah, if this is what the performers are working from, that seems p similar to what any jazz improviser works from:
https://wiki.masada.world/index.php?title=File:ABIDAN.jpg
https://wiki.masada.world/index.php?title=File:MIBI.jpg
https://wiki.masada.world/index.php?title=File:Hath-Arob.jpg

Or are those just excerpts? Bar numbers in the second make me wonder.

The Masada charts (as such) are bits and pieces of melodies and themes to improvise around. Iirc from the aforementioned doc the Frisell scribbles looked very similar.

That said, I bet they're a little more comprehensive than those images.

I haven't seen the scores, but I've interviewed musicians who've played on his projects, and they explained to me that he writes everything and conducts them in the studio. Masada is a different thing - he was explicitly working in a "jazz" (read: head-solos-head and out) context there, so he wrote a zillion short tunes for the band (and later ensembles) to play. But for example, there's an album that's a piano trio with Tyshawn Sorey on drums where the piano and bass parts are completely written, but Sorey's part is entirely improvised.

I saw that maybe a decade ago Dave Douglas did a seminar on Masada, and this was the pitch:

When John asked me to present a seminar, I thought: why not take a handful of Masada tunes, old and new, and play them with people? We’ll have the charts in Zorn’s incredibly-expressive handwriting… Bring your instrument as the goal will be to play as many tunes as we can get through. I learned a lot playing these tunes, and I think people may enjoy coming to get a closer look at how the tunes look and how performances of them work. Word is the composer may even come by and answer some of the many remaining questions I have for him.
Playing this music has always been fun, challenging, and thought-provoking for me. I can’t say that I have any answers, but Monday we will open up the book and see where the charts take us. Each of these tunes points in a unique and inspiring direction.

Just googling around, I found this example of a Naked City chart:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/p960x960/15235410_1342911889052648_2410928962678836150_o.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=oQifnF3A9c8AX8UCB1m&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&_nc_tp=6&oh=bf18a0fab8ec5160db2625b7361e5fbf&oe=5F18192B

Also found this NPR piece on the Pledge Music collapse:

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/14/723225435/as-a-crowdfunding-platform-implodes-a-legendary-composer-rebounds?fbclid=IwAR3sKNYJoRcNJhFKxX_y952SWk443qR_2jVYK9rYdg4A40mdTvBN9poFwI4

Thanks, that's helpful info. I'll look for the doc. Yeah, I have the Cobra score and have done it before and have seen some Naked City stuff (but not that one, I don't think) and do find those things fascinating. It was the other ones that I was questioning more. (The music p much always sounds good tbc!)

I'm more interested in the non-Zorn albums on Tzadik, like this incredible percussion album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htq_tQbLXTs&list=PLvXNbgj_M4CX1_sm62I-Z38H_6IG6gM09

?

https://youtu.be/Htq_tQbLXTs?list=PLvXNbgj_M4CX1_sm62I-Z38H_6IG6gM09

Also found youtube bootlegs of Uri Caine's solo piano Masada record, and the piano trio with Craig Taborn/Christian McBride/Tyshawn Sorey. I'd love to hear that Hall of Mirrors record with the notated piano parts though.

I'd love to know the budget breakdown for a standard Tzadik project. Recording time and costs, sales, artist deals.

I'm sure Tzadik doesn't have a huge budget, but holy shit, please employ a web designer from the 21st century. The site is maddeningly bad, which is extra frustrating when you know there's tons of cool stuff to discover if only navigating through it all weren't so miserable.

Ohhh, Raz Mesinai is Badawi, that makes sense (also explains why that album sounds so amazing, he's the producer and engineer, not the percussionist). I keep running into him under different guises.

xp

Agreed on the website. I think an easier-browsing, easier-using redesign would pay for itself in increased sales pretty quickly.

The blurb to this year's Virtue for guitar trio (Julian Lage, Bill Frisell & Gyan Riley) got a chuckle out of me: 'Softly spiritual music that is perfect for meditative late night listening alone or with a special friend'.

ha. i often think about what it must be like for whoever has the task of writing the blurbs for 150 Tzadik releases a year.

Ok I've really been enjoying kind & gentle Zorn (sans Zorn) the last few days, like the guitar trio album and guitar/harp/vibes trio, both with Frisell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6xPjANLZjA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJKDl7VGUyQ

Love those "Gnostic Trio" gtr/harp/vibes albums, about once a year I'll go through a stretch where I just literally cannot turn them off for a few days straight.

Ooh, I need to check these out

It sounds like Tortoise minus drums in a lot of places

Wait, that's what Tortoise sounded like??

Whereas the guitar trio album was reminding me of like '80s King Crimson-lite (in a good way)

Specifically like 'The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls' Tortoise.

Wait, Sund4r, you aren't into Tortoise?!

And, yes, I do love the Gnostic Trio albums and enjoyed Virtue, which I just listened to, thanks to that Youtube stream. (Will buy this one certainly.) This is what I mean, though: if it is in fact the case that they're basically improvising on heads that Zorn gave them, should they be credited as "John Zorn" albums, as opposed to e.g. "Frisell/Lage/Riley (playing the music of John Zorn)", any more than any other recording where Frisell improvises on heads by any other composer? xp

Haha, I hated Millions Now Living when my hardcore-loving friends bought it in high school and never really gave them many other chances. Listened to TNT after it came out, when I was in university, and thought it was sort of dumbed-down Reich meets dumbed-down improv. I am far more open to 'dumbed-down' versions of things now, though.

Presumably Zorn is guiding the music as they play too.

I was watching this wonderful concert last night. It gives a pretty good view of what his direction looks like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQoIDkVO3mo

Just saw this is on the way. Seems like one of the most accessible, mainstream-ish things he has ever done?

John Zorn-Jesse Harris: Songs For Petra [#8374]

Singer Petra Haden excels in this beautiful and unique program of songs penned by the songwriting team of John Zorn and Jesse Harris. Friends for many years, they began working together on The Song Project in 2012, and 8 years later this CD presents the full fruits of their collaboration: 13 Zorn compositions with original lyrics by Jesse Harris. Including the most beautiful melodies from a wide variety of Zorn CDs (and one original that has never appeared on cd before), the melodies are catchy, the lyrics heartfelt, the grooves deep and the solos profound and exhilarating. Backed by the amazing Julian Lage, Jorge Roeder and Kenny Wollesen and produced by Jesse Harris, this is a CD that you will listen to again and again.
(Release date: August 2020)

I scored Frith&Zorn's "late works" for pennies and have found it surprisingly rewarding.

For a moment, I thought you meant you wrote or arranged the score.

ha, me too!

ha same

What Tortoise should I listen to if I want something like the Gnostic Trio??

I have no better recommendation than TNT, mostly that one track though. :)

It has been about 20 years since I heard it. P sure I'd appreciate it better now.

re zorn w/out zorn i've been following rjc since the imprint launched and i have an incomplete list of some of my fave stuff from it if anyone is curious:

Barbez! - Bella Ciao
Jamie Saft - Black Shabbis
Jamie Saft - Breadcrumb Sins
Sofia Rei - Beriah vol. 1
Cracow Klezmer Band - De Profundis
Mycale - Book of Angels V. 13
Deveykus - Pillar Without Mercy
New Klezmer Trio - Short for Something
Tim Sparks - Tanz
Jewlia Eisenberg - Trilectic
Dan Kaufman - Force of Light
Yoshie Fruchter - Pitom
Ayelet Rose Gottleib - Mayim Rabim
Kletka Red - Hijacking
Jon Madof - Zion80
Pharoah's Daughter - Out of the Reeds

Followed a lot of JZs projects in the 80s but the last one I really paid attention to was the original run of Masada. There seems to be a real lack of critical writing about his post 2000 releases. I liked the bomb interview and the Shteamer article was good but that's not a side of his work that I care much about. Something made me start to look through his recent stuff but I feel a bit lost. Picked up the solo Tractatus musico-philisophicus which seems like a new approach to his early solo projects.

The Jeremiah cymerman 5049 podcast has featured interview with many people in the Zorn and tzadik orbit. Cymerman seems close to Zorn personally. There was a good recent episode with engineer Marc Urselli where they talked a fair bit about
working with Zorn in the studio.

http://www.5049records.com/podcast/coronacast-3-marc-urselli

I still love Spillane because i bought it when I was 16 after watching put blood in the music and it blew my mind a bit.

if it came out now I'd still think it was pretty frazzled/inspired/brilliant.

xxp
don't mind a bit of Jeremiah Cymerman, quite bleak but I keep going back to it.

Someone should listen to everything Zorn has ever been involved in then do an AMA.

Didn't Whiney just do the listening part of that?

In case anyone is wondering about your boy, my quarantine/retirement goal is 7 more weeks of coding boot camp + listening to all 266(?) John Zorn albums. I’m on #30 right now and still maintaining sanity. 🎷🚰 🐍 🎲

— Christopher R. Weingarten (@1000TimesYes) March 23, 2020

Hah, I wasn't aware. Props, I may join him on his mad endeavour someday.

Wow.

A much longer yet undoubtedly more pleasant experience than merzboxing.

I'm currently listening to #216 of 270

What's the longest streak in a row (if any) that has been a real struggle? What has been the longest streak in a row (if any) that has been a real joy?

to my ears, Zorn's genre-hopping is mainly about the encounter of cultures writ large (Jewish, American, Japanese, etc.) and/or subcultures (the avant-garde, jazz, hardcore, etc.). Sexuality is by no means absent from these juxtapositions, especially in his earlier, more overtly 'transgressive' works, but foregrounding it is not a priority for him as far as I can tell.

― pomenitul, Tuesday, June 23, 2020 1:49 PM (two days ago)

Very OTM

There's an assertion in a lot of his work that anything can be appropriated as "material". Iirc somw of his game pieces used 'found' composition fragments to this effect. The question of attribution that Sund4r has raised is something I've thought about for sure.

Anyway. I always suspected that The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls is based on Encontro by Projecto III.

xxxp woah

What's the longest streak in a row (if any) that has been a real struggle? What has been the longest streak in a row (if any) that has been a real joy?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, June 25, 2020 6:12 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You'll have to wait for the AMA!

You better make good on your promise. I'll be sharpening my questions.

I'm like 80% in (maybe even more since those Parachute sets are multi-CDs), so I don't see myself stopping

Are you building a comprehensive power rankings list?

One for the AMA then, I reckon the game CDs would have been the biggest slog for me but is there anything in there along the same lines as 'Cynical Hysterie Hour?' I love that CD.

Do you have actual cds for most (all?!) of these? Or is this what people still use slsk for.

What would the toppermost ones be in a poll, Naked City, Spillane, Masada - Live In Sevilla?

I'd deffo put Alhambra Love Songs and Nova Express in there, just to be controversial and because I liked them.

I wonder if it's possible not to enjoy any of Zorn's work at all just by virtue of its sheer sprawl.

Do you have actual cds for most (all?!) of these? Or is this what people still use slsk for.

― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, June 25, 2020 6:42 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Most Tzadik Zorn stuff up to like 2005 is on Qobuz in CD quality.

I own about 67 Zorn albums on CD

The rest I have to pirate

I obviously would want to put in a fat, well-informed Tzadik order if I ever get employed again

re zorn w/out zorn i've been following rjc since the imprint launched...
Deveykus - Pillar Without Mercy

Have to give Zorn credit for putting out orchestral recordings that were out-of-print for years, or not available at all. He's also good at doing special one-off projects with people who don't play very often together (such as Blue Buddha and Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor tribute projects, among others).

Another nice Tzadik initiative I recently discovered is a 3-album project with jazz musician/arranger Karl Berger. "In a moment - Music for Piano and Strings" is wonderful. Berger has his own studio and the sound of the room adds something special to the music.

I recently reread the Borah Bergmann interview in The Wire, especially commenting on Zorn's Serious Composer ambitions. I didn't like his "Meditations for Piano" at first but now I think it's great.

Some other personal Tzadik favorites:

All 3 Sephardic Tinge albums
Tim Sparks - Neshamah
Tobias Picker - Invisible Lilacs
VA - Hallelujah, Anyway - Remembering Tom Cora
Eyvind Kang - Yelm Sessions

I thought of the kitchen-less John Zorn during covid lockdown. I hope he managed to eat.

I just went back to this 2015 email interview I did with all 3 members of Simulacrum. It goes into a lot of detail about how they work in the studio, how much rehearsal they have when Zorn writes new music, what's actually on the page, etc., etc., so read that if you want.

Zorn was a big influence on my listening in the '90s. I visited NYC in the summer of '94 with my parents and I dragged them to a Masada show at the Knitting Factory (that was before it moved to Soho, when it was still a fairly modest basement kind of space in the East Village). Dave Douglas wasn't there, instead Marc Ribot filled in on guitar. We were sitting at a table probably 10 feet from the "stage". It was completely amazing, but my parents were not impressed by Zorn's "smirking asshole" side (which he definitely had [has?]). At one point he cussed out the sound person because he wasn't happy about something about the sound. All that prolific hard-to-find output was incredibly tantalizing in those pre-streaming days, when visiting record stores was a kind of pilgrimage. In some ways maybe it was about sheer abundance for me, unfathomable mysteries, ars longa vita brevis and all that. Later I moved to NYC and caught a lot of shows with Zorn and related projects at the Soho Knitting Factory, Tonic, etc. I remember one show he did with Mike Patton as the Horse-Cock Kids at the Knitting Factory where they came on like an hour late, played for 15 minutes and left the stage. The lights came up. People booed. That was it. He definitely was capable of being an asshole. But somehow you knew that he was being an asshole with absolute sincerity. You believed that short abbreviated set was exactly what he wanted to present that night, even if you were kind of pissed about the price of the ticket.

I remember one show he did with Mike Patton as the Horse-Cock Kids at the Knitting Factory where they came on like an hour late, played for 15 minutes and left the stage. The lights came up. People booed. That was it.

A friend of mine (dead now) was at that show and said someone chased them to the dressing room afterward shouting "What the fuck?"

All that prolific hard-to-find output was incredibly tantalizing in those pre-streaming days, when visiting record stores was a kind of pilgrimage. In some ways maybe it was about sheer abundance for me, unfathomable mysteries, ars longa vita brevis and all that.

Same. Truly cant remember how i first discovered Zorn as a kid growing up in the hinterlands of the midwest, but I think it may literally have been from just being in the local punk record store and seeing the hugely well-stocked section of Zorn CDs and thinking "who is this person I've never heard of with 45 albums?" And every time I got one it sounded completely different from all the others.

I think I learned about him through a few vectors. One, probably reviewed in Option magazine. Two, Naked City was on Nonesuch, which I was gravitating to for cool stuff like Steve Reich. Three, "Torture Garden" was on Shimmy Disc, and my hip friend in 9th grade was really into Kramer and stuff like B.A.L.L., which were somewhere in the same noise/lo-fi realm as Sonic Youth or Amphetamine Reptile (as I remember it). And then there was Eye and the Japanese noise scene, which was hiply exotic in 1989. I know I would get excited whenever we went up to New York from Philly and I could find all those Avant imports and stuff, or when I was on tour in a band and I'd stop in some used record store somewhere and find some Tzadik thing I had never heard for $5 or whatever.

I'm a little less clear how I glommed on to Laswell, though. Maybe when the Axiom label was started and someone lent me Bahia Black's "Ritual Beating System," calling it one of the coolest records ever made (it was)? That was 1992. Dunno if I knew of Last Exit, say, or Material, though I did have "The Third Power" around the same time, and was into the Golden Palominos, so who knows.

For me it was when The South Bank Show (in the UK) broadcast Charles Atlas' documentary 'Put Blood In The Music', then my mates and I all immediately ran out and bought Spillane and made the leap from Sonic Youth to Zorn, Branca, Chatham etc.

In the late 80s Nonesuch was part of Elektra so they sent promos out to record stores (through the distributor, I guess?). A friend of mine's family owned a record store and they got a promo CD of the Naked City album and gave it to me. That was my in. Then I bought the first Painkiller record because it was on Earache and I was already listening to Godflesh and Napalm Death.

Zorn was definitely at the intersection of a lot of contemporary composers, noise, metal, and jazz. Didn't have to go far in any one direction to find some really cool stuff. Likewise, didn't have to go far from that cool stuff to hit Zorn.

my hip friend in 9th grade was really into Kramer and stuff like B.A.L.L.

That’s a pretty hip 9th-grader!

He was pretty hip!

In the late ‘90s, I saw the actor Michael Richards at the Knitting Factory – he was seeing a show, and looking around shiftily in a “recognize/don’t recognize me” way – and I thought it was so funny to see that particular “Kramer” there... but I didn’t know anyone who would really appreciate the joke.

I think if Zorn had been born a few decades later he would definitely be making electronic music and compulsively releasing new albums on Bandcamp every week, instead he's had to build this whole infrastructure of musicians, scoring, recording, cds, etc to scratch his itch.

RE: Naked City

Zorn produced and arranged "Hard Plains Drifter" on Bill Frisell's "Before We Were Born" album. It sounds like a Naked City piece (it was done at the same time period the NC studio albums were done). In the "Bill Frisell: An Anthology" songbook, there's a 4-page hand-written transcription of the piece made by Frisell, containing 38 different sections. This was done to be able to play it live. It looks similar to the transcriptions I´ve seen posted in this thread. It's a nice book with lots of funny drawings (I didn't know Frisell could do that too).

TIL that Joey Baron plays drums on David Bowie - Outside

Also on Laurie Anderson's Bright Red, which also was produced by Brian Eno and came out the year before. That could be what he's doing there. I just noticed how many downtown/ Zorn people are on her Strange Angels album, too.

Now Youtube just keeps serving me up latter day John Zorn albums, which I'm ok with. This particular salsa (Masalsada?) track is pretty sick:
https://youtu.be/VlTqNwb0veg?t=522

Been listening to The Big Gundown after hearing the news of Morricone's death - it's not on Spotify in the U.S. but it's here if you want to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7bIhV-Zckk

What a great album, not only my favorite Zorn album but probably my favorite jazz of the past 40 years.

wow, yeah. the first time i heard this it didn't really click for some reason. but hearing it now, it sounds so very good.

i think this album was the first I learned of Vernon Reid's pre-Living Colour jazz days.

Zorn's tribute to Morricone, a public post: https://www.facebook.com/TzadikLabel/posts/3433097923389983

Hey, does anyone know what rap song sampled the lick at 29:00? It's driving me crazy (and I'm not sure if it samples the Zorn record or the Morricone original, but that particular moment really rung a bell). I thought it was something off Aesop Rock's Labor Days but not finding.

dare we compare the five notes of his famous ‘coyote call’ in The Good Bad and The Ugly with the four opening notes of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony?

Zorn otm, tbh.

xpost I assume someone sampled the original. Seems like something you'd hear from Def Jux, yeah, or Dan the Automator.

Huh:

https://www.spin.com/2020/07/a-brief-guide-to-the-endless-hip-hop-samples-of-ennio-morricone/

Ah, found it:

https://www.whosampled.com/sample/357599/Aesop-Rock-Flashflood-Ennio-Morricone-Amore/

Gotta say, it actually sounds like it sampled the Zorn version! The particular attack of the glockenspiel & flute together, etc.

Hmm https://archive.org/details/19880727JohnZornsEnnioMorriconeTributeBand-VeronaItaly

Between March(?) 2020 and July 2020, I listened to all 272 John Zorn albums

ASK! ME! ANYTHING! 🎷

— Christopher R. Weingarten (@1000TimesYes) July 29, 2020

O_O

Any ambient standouts?

Ooh, I've got a few (that I want to ask here):

1) Who would you consider the MVP across the whole catalog? Joey Baron? Bill Frisell?

2) What one release from Zorn's oeuvre would you gift a total neophyte and/or regular, like your mom or something? My go to (with limited experience and results) has been Bar Kokhba.

3) Similarly, which Zorn release would you put on if you really wanted to clear a room. Like, for sure?

4) Is there one Zorn release that features enough aspects of all his attributes that listening to it would give you a good idea what to expect out of the most of those 272 albums?

5) Are any of the the releases outright bad? Or just not to your taste?

6) Favorite artwork?

7) Any combination of musicians that you think didn't get used enough, or maybe were gathered for together one release but you wish had gotten together again?

8) How many if any of the albums would you not have recognized as a Zorn project had you not known they were a Zorn project?

Any ambient standouts?

― Fetchboy, Tuesday, July 28, 2020 11:39 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

The Dream Membrane!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_Membrane

and Naked City's Absinthe

3) Similarly, which Zorn release would you put on if you really wanted to clear a room. Like, for sure?

Feel like the obvious answer here is Kristallnacht, which actually came with a warning label:

Caution: "Never Again" contains high frequency extremes at the limits of human hearing & beyond, which may cause nausea, headache & ringing in the ears. Prolonged or repeated listening is not advisable as it may result in temporary or permament ear damage. - The composer

I gave that warning as much credence as the warning on my dad's LP version of the "1812 Overture" that had recordings of actual canons on it that for sure would make you go deaf. Or the text on the Cure's "Disintegration:" "THIS MUSIC HAS BEEN MIXED TO BE PLAYED LOUD SO TURN IT UP.” Ooh, dramatic.

That said, I can't remember what "Kristallnacht" sounds like. Maybe it killed me?

I've never listened to it myself, but apparently it's a track made up of hundreds of layered samples of shattering glass. And it's almost 12 minutes long, so I bet that's fun.

1) Who would you consider the MVP across the whole catalog? Joey Baron? Bill Frisell?

Copied from Twitter:
Marc Ribot is definitely the Michael Jordan of the Zorn catalog, though everything he does sounds like Mark Ribot. So you also gotta give it up for the versatility of Joey Baron and Trevor Dunn

2) What one release from Zorn's oeuvre would you gift a total neophyte and/or regular, like your mom or something? My go to (with limited experience and results) has been Bar Kokhba.

Nove Cantici Per Francesco D’Assisi

3) Similarly, which Zorn release would you put on if you really wanted to clear a room. Like, for sure?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rne-xtCILE

Caution: "Never Again" contains high frequency extremes at the limits of human hearing & beyond, which may cause nausea, headache & ringing in the ears. Prolonged or repeated listening is not advisable as it may result in temporary or permament ear damage. - The composer

4) Is there one Zorn release that features enough aspects of all his attributes that listening to it would give you a good idea what to expect out of the most of those 272 albums?

The Filmworks anthology covers a lot of ground. I also think the Book Beri'ah is a one-stop shop for a lot of the Zorn ideas since 2005

5) Are any of the the releases outright bad? Or just not to your taste?

The only ones I would say are outright BAD are Weird Little Boy and Mystic Fugu Orchestra (which is an intriguing concept, but the fake 78 sound is poorly done and distracting). The rest are really just varying shades of "inessential." One of the Masada live discs has real shitty sound, so I'd reccommend the other, like, 20 Masada Book 1 albums before that one. Femina was real bland on first listen.

6) Favorite artwork?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61%2BSHvSbKCL._SL1200_.jpg

But most of the Dreamers albums have really cool packaging

7) Any combination of musicians that you think didn't get used enough, or maybe were gathered for together one release but you wish had gotten together again?

The Ribot/Dunn/Weston trio on Book of Angels 7 is absolutely smoking. The Taborn/McBride/Sorey trio on Volume 27 is amazing too. I wonder if that one didn't get that much attention because they went by Flaga instead of Craig Taborn/Christian McBride/Tyshawn Sorey Trio or something

8) How many if any of the albums would you not have recognized as a Zorn project had you not known they were a Zorn project

His sax style is unmistakable, so probably not anything he plays on. Some of the game pieces maybe. Some of the classical works. Probably others.

8) How many if any of the albums would you not have recognized as a Zorn project had you not known they were a Zorn project

Hermetic Organ stuff was my first thought on this

Yeah, he does play sax on 6 and 8 tho, I think

Nominating you for the congressional medal of freedom, a grateful nation thanks you for your service

If you had to pick, what stretch of time would you classify as your favorite and/or his best?

Are you going to tackle the broader Tzadik catalog next?

I seriously respect Zorn's writing ethic, especially wrt to not worrying about repeating himself or feeling like he has to reinvent the wheel every time (I can only assume). Like, just getting over yourself as you sit down to write the 67th piece based on the same scale (the wiki on the Masada books talks about how he wrote 100 pieces in a year for the first one, and 100 pieces a month for 3 months for the second one).

Nominating you for the congressional medal of freedom, a grateful nation thanks you for your service

If you had to pick, what stretch of time would you classify as your favorite and/or his best?

Are you going to tackle the broader Tzadik catalog next?

― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Wednesday, July 29, 2020 1:14 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Def the 1985-1990 run is his most schizo/diverse/unpredictable and has my three of my fave Zorns (Torture Garden, Spy Vs. Spy, Spillane)

I do plan on getting deeper in the Tzadik catalog, but probably not the whole thing

I think Spillane blew my mind open when I was 16. In some ways it did more to change my appreciation of music than any other album tbh. It still sounds absolutely inspired, even that Albert Collins side that I didn't quite get at the time!

Another question: those three you cite as faves (Torture Garden, Spy Vs. Spy, Spillane) are all from the same general coupla year late '80s span, which is also when Zorn was perhaps at his "popular" peak. That is to say, albums on Elektra/Nonesuch, ads in magazines, that sort of thing. Even "Torture Garden," which was not on a big label, was released the same year as the first Naked City album, so I'm sure some (like me) learned about it by way of that. I'm not sure of your age, but when did you first hear about Zorn, and did it coincide with his period of relative prominence?

I think first heard Zorn maybe my senior year of high school (1998) when I bought Locus Solus based on the review in the Spin guide, maybe? I didn't really like it or get it.

But then I bought the Black Box in college when I was a huge Bungle Guy and liked that a lot

A high school friend bought me the Classic Guide To Strategy Volumes 1 & 2 CD when I was 17 or 18 I think. I thought it was hilarious and fun and mind bending but lost the disc somewhere along the way and just never ventured into Zorn. Daunting discography + I’m not a huge skronky improv head

but I like what I’ve heard of eg Masada and I like watching Naked City/painkiller videos on YouTube

Is Baphomet any good? I cannot stream it anywhere which is strange.

I haven't listened to it yet, but have you heard the other Simulacrum albums? Maybe check those out first if you haven't:

Simulacrum
The True Discoveries of Witches and Demons
Inferno
The Painted Bird
49 Acts Of Unspeakable Depravity In The Abominable Life And Times Of Gilles De Rais
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Beyond Good and Evil - Simulacrum Live

John Zorn’s A Dreamer’s Christmas album is fucking great!! I don’t know jack shit about Mr. Zorn other than that awful Yoko Ono collaboration YouTube video that went viral and of course the fact that he’s released a grand total of about 52 billion albums in his lifetime. But this is great! Just mellow jazzy Christmas music with lots of vibes. Even my wife likes it, and she hates everything!

Crossing over with the Zappa thread (#onethread) that's one of the many things that makes Zorn great. He can be extreme and confrontational and unlistenable, but he's also a talented enough bandleader and composer that, unlike Zappa, he can also release albums that just about anyone would enjoy or appreciate. I once gave Bar Kokhba as a gift to my wife's mom.

Yeah the Xmas album has gotten near daily play at the Eye Open household this year

I want it all on Apple or Spotify. The game albums “Hockey” “Golf” or whatever. EVERYTHING. This is what your oeuvre was made for Sir. Make it happen please.

Maybe he's figured that there's nothing much in it for him to gift his entire back catalogue to some corporate behemoth in exchange for $.0005.

Yeah probably. Somehow I still want what I want though.

Yeah i dunno exactly how the numbers crunch but he seems like hes probably one of the few people around making ok money off of CDs, im sure hes not anxious to change the formula.

But yeah over the years Ive fantasized about some kind of Tzadik-only streaming service, or like a Tzadik app, would totally pay $5 a month for something like that.

I thought the Tzadik catalog was on one streaming service, Tidal or Qobuz or something - but not on Spotify.

Huh...I’m gonna look that up. Never heard of Qobuz before.

Qobuz has one or two other albums that Spotify and Apple don’t have (Spillane abs something else) and Tidal has the same stuff the big two have.

https://assets.boomkat.com/spree/products/727839/large/702397837923_T11_Image.jpg

John Zorn featuring Bill Frisell, Julian Lage and Gyan Riley
Teresa de Ávila

^^

love this

Thanks for the tip! I've almost never heard Frisell play acoustic, and I don't know those other dudes. Though it looks like Gyan Riley is Terry Riley's son?

I thought Julian Lage was famous these days! I didn't know that about Gyan Riley though.

lol, he could be famous, I've just never heard of him!

Yeah, Lage has been around for a while. He's got an album coming out on Blue Note next month that I like. And he's worked with Zorn before, as part of the group Insurrection.

He became famous as a child prodigy, played the Grammys at 12 and all. He's a little fussy but I like his playing well enough. Modern Lore from a few years ago was a nice album and I esp liked him in the Nels Cline 4. This trio did a Zorn album last year called Virtue - is this similar?

yeah very similar, but I think this one has better compositions and is more focused or something.

OK, tighter compositions with more focus was what I hoped for so that sounds promising.

just getting to this now, really loving it. hearing frisell play crisp & clean acoustic like this is a joy

it's quite complex and layered but has a simple beauty to it.

I'm really liking this so far. The compositions do seem tighter. The way that the contrasting ideas in "An Embarrassment of Raptures" are juxtaposed and reconciled is really satisfying. Haven't broken that much down yet but sounds like there's a lot of chromatic mediant movement in various pieces?

From that Perfect Sound Forever interview with Robert Quine, this is maybe the most shocking line:

I've done Coke and Nike commercials with John Zorn.

Read that too fast and thought it said he'd done coke with Zorn, and I immediately thought "no way has John Zorn ever been anywhere near cocaine"

lol

It's harder to picture Zorn doing high-level commercial spec work though.

There was a Sega Genesis commercial that used Naked City, but if Zorn has done other music for commercials (which I don't doubt) he's never publicized it and it probably doesn't sound anything like his music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdoVjrhJn8Y

I want to say those Filmworks collections include a few jingles.

I know someone who took a film class with a producer whose husband was a filmmaker (at the time I think they still lived in the Chicagoland area), and his teacher mentioned that John Zorn scored their first indie feature. Sorry to say, this was before I knew John Zorn's work (and apparently none of her students knew who he was either), but she said they all loved his music and reached out to him. He agreed to do it for NO payment, provided that he retain ownership of the music in terms of the masters, the publishing, etc. I guess he did that a lot, but it's really admirable. I forgot the names of everyone involved with that film (as well as the film's title), but it was a heist film that was shot around Chicago.

I did some searching, and I think the film was probably Thieves Quartet (released in 1993), and the music would be on Filmworks III

https://www.discogs.com/release/457819-John-Zorn-Filmworks-III-1990-1995

Impressive line-up: Zorn had Dave Douglas and Joey Baron with him, and apparently Quine played on one track.

Wish I had known this sooner. I just saw Douglas recently and was able to briefly chat with him before his show. Would've asked him about this, though I'm not sure he would've remembered anything about it.

Filmworks III also has 30+ little things he did for a big ad firm in the early to mid 90s, though obviously no brands are mentioned

Unless “Batman” counts as a brand

I’ve always wanted to make a fan edit of TRESPASS that uses his cues instead of Ry Cooder’s. It probably doesn’t work and Walter Hill may have been correct to drop them, but I love ‘what-ifs’ with rejected scores

Oh ok, I never really delved into the Filmworks records, but it makes sense that they'd contain unused commercial work (though often that's prohibited by contract, wonder if he reworked them or just did it anyway).

You should pick a few to listen to! Lotsa Quine.

Pulled out my copy of Filmworks III and here's JZ's info on those tracks.

I have a very special relationship with the commercial house of Weiden and Kennedy – when they need something off-the-wall, they call me. My deal is simple, but unheard of in the commercial music field. I never do demos – and I never "redo" anything. I do the job once – I do it the way I want – and I get paid whether they use the music or not. Hardly the description of a commercial sellout. Weiden and Kennedy is probably the only advertising firm who would do such a thing. Most commercial houses find it impossible to trust an artist in this way, but Weiden and Kennedy has rpoved that one can work in the world of advertising and still retain one's integrity and creativity.

I wish I could go into some details on these sessions, because the stories are priceless (you just can't make this stuff up). But needless to say scoring the spot "FRANCE" directed by GODARD was a particular high point. The Brooklyn cheer (RAZZ) you hear at the end of the spot was visually synched with the product shot, and I had to perform it myself (Arto didn't want to insult the client and refused to do it).

For legal reasons I can't mention the products and various companies that these spots were created for, but these sessions have been some of the most relaxed, enjoyable times I've had in a recording studio. The musicians and I always have a ball, and I think that comes across in the music.

Two people should be singled out on these tracks – ROBERT QUINE, who does some of his best playing on many of these short TV spots and has been a vital member of these groupings since my very first commercial sessions – recording engineer/sing-songwriter/synclavier genius JASON BAKER, whose easy going manner, indefatigable energy, unflagging focus and precise ear for detail makes working in the studio a pure pleasure – even when you're surrounded by "music editors," "clients" and "creatives."

Bob Quine has one of the most beautiful guitar sounds in the world, and his compelling comping patterns and solos are never less than perfect. He's often mixed down, or even out (!) of many of the pop/rock projects he usually works on, but here you can experience the savage bite of his "nasty tone" and the sensuous warmth of his "surf sound" up close and personal.

I hope you have as much fun listening to this music as we had recording it.

Very cool, thank you!

(btw how are you all listening to Tzadiks these days...cds?)

There's some stuff on youtube -- I've enjoyed the Hermetic Organ tracks I could find. Otherwise I really just relisten to what I have ripped from CDs to computer, older stuff. I quit trying to keep up with his output about 20 yrs ago so I'm not too familiar with Dreamers, Simulacrum, etc.

Zorn's doing another big ol' birthday thing here in SF across multiple nights, Great American instead of the Chapel this time:

https://gamh.com/shows-zorn70

Featuring John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Fred Frith, Mike Patton, John Medeski, Dave Lombardo, Trevor Dunn, Petra Haden, Trey Spruance, Kenny Wollesen, Brian Marsella, Gyan Riley, Cyro Baptista, Chris Otto, Sae Hashimoto, Steve Gosling, Jorge Roeder, WIlliam Winant, Ikue Mori, Ches Smith among many, many others …
This series will feature two world premiere performances, several of Zorn’s best loved and most celebrated ensembles as well as some of his latest projects, a unique solo organ recital at Grace Cathedral and a very special COBRA performance, curated especially for San Francisco.

The Grace Cathedral event intrigues.

no Eye, no credibility (j/k)

Shitty time to be unemployed :(

Just checked and realized I'll be out of town that weekend (Labor Day, seeing my folks) but I might be able to go for the Laurie Anderson/Frizell/Zorn combo night. Saw Anderson and Zorn with Terry Riley at that earlier set of shows, a good night out.

i saw JZ last night doing a midnight improvisation on the organ in the basilica in minneapolis.

if he's playing organ in a town near you, my advice is to go!

He doesn't exactly tour or even post live dates, does he?

I dunno about "tour" but he just did this in SF and it was definitely posted in advance: https://gamh.com/shows-zorn70/

Caught one of the Anderson-Frisell shows, was good stuff. Wish Frisell had solo'd more, he was sort of excessively humble and supportive.

But see, why would I have even thought to look at the GAMH site to see that that cool series was even happening?

Anyway, looks like his Facebook page (or a Facebook page) is pretty active with, well, activity, so maybe I should check that out more often.

Yeah, I saw that SF posting. I'm not sure if he tours that much because he does a LOT of shows around NYC all the time. Most of them I know only because I checked the venue's schedule - they always sell out though to be fair even the most famous venues that have him aren't big venues.

this one was free and there was plenty of room in the church

Wish Frisell had solo'd more, he was sort of excessively humble and supportive

tbf, for better or worse, this has been the man's default mode for decades. He's never been a scenery-chewer, but I do wish he'd let it rip now and again. Lord knows he's capable

The Basilica organ performance was great and as someone who occasionally attended mass there as a child surreal

Caught the New Masada Quartet performance and it was the most fun & pleasure I've gotten out of Zorn group since like 1993, loved it

Who's in that group?

Oh, Kenny Wolleson and Julian Lage, nice. Would love to hear that band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAhjnGu8No

is that clemenza on drums?

lol, It's crazy how much older Kenny Wolleson looks compared to when I first saw him, I didn't recognize him in that John Lurie studio episode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF5tidRij1g

He looks exactly like this old boss I use to have named Dennis, and the whole show I was like "man Dennis is really fucking good at drums"

went to the John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Sean Ono Lennon a few weeks ago and it was excellent

Old news, but I didn't realize Zorn got burned so badly by the sleaze balls at Pledge Music ("Zorn lost a total of $197,559"):

https://www.thewire.co.uk/news/55101/john-zorn-recoups-losses-from-pledge-music-bankruptcy

The Masada catalog (the original 10 albums) is finally getting reissued as a deluxe Tzadik box:

https://tzadik.limitedrun.com/products/748363-masada-30th-anniversary-edition-the-complete-studio-master-takes

$175 (or $250 for a signed copy). All the original music, plus a disc of bonus material (alternate takes, rehearsals) and a thick book of essays etc.

I don't typically go for fancy box sets, but that one is damn tempting

Oh, and Tzadik's entire catalog is on streaming services now.

What, seriously!?

WHAT

way to bury the lede man

xxxp but still not on Bandcamp, smdh

holy shit

I AM LISTENING TO CLASSIC GUIDE TO STRATEGY V.4 ON TIDAL RIGHT NOW

They must be slowly rolling out all 300 or whatever releases, no Naked City or Masada on Spotify yet, or formative stuff like Big Gundown or Spy v. Spy, afaict.

Some of the Great Jewish Music comps are there but not Serge Gainsbourg or Burt Bacharach. Still, this is momentous.

My family is going to hate me. On the other hand, dinner time just got more interesting.

Holy fuck

Holy cow

I'm generally above feelings of fomo, but some of these 70th celebrations make me jealous. I wish my fall weren't as full of commitments, otherwise I'd be looking at flights to, like, Mexico City.

I've been in a 'listening project' mode lately (Art Blakey, Wu-Tang), but this is overwhelming to contemplate.

My unemployment is doing corrosive damage to my Zorn fandom

So far it's really hard to search on Spotify, which makes it hard to tell what's there or not. Still not sure Naked City or OG Masada is up, but lots of Masada related stuff is. Live albums, New Masada stuff, other collections. I believe all of Film Works is up, obviously tons of other stuff, including countless records I've never heard because, yeah, there's a limit (practical, financial) to keeping up.

Just did a search on John Zorn and I see a lot more albums on his page today vs yesterday. Another option is to put this in the search box:

Label: "Tzadik"

Huh, that got me worse results. That is, none.

I do see "Big Gundown" now, so things are moving.

Obviously there are tons of albums and artists in this drop, maybe it's clogging up the works a bit. But another example, I get nothing if I search for "Painted Desert," and that's whether or not I search for Ikue Mori, Marc Ribot or Robert Quine. I assume it's all trickling in.

Some of the stuff that's not up on streamers yet has been put up on Youtube in the past day or so, with notes saying "Provided to Youtube by Redeye Worldwide," which is Tzadik's distributor. Seems like a good sign.

One bad thing is some artist misattribution, like some of the Book of Angels volumes only have JZ as the artist, and don't include the actual players. Like vol 1, Astaroth, only artist listed is JZ, but no Jamie Saft Trio.

I'm putting as much as I can in this playlist. It's a work in progress, so please don't send messages pointing out what I missed yet.

https://spotify.link/KV97uSnNsDb

We might need a separate thread for spelunking through the catalog

I think it's impossible lol. Whiney dedicated like a year of his life to it, and where did that get him? Behind!

xp definitely!

There is this — Tzadik: Search & Destroy — but a new thread seems like a good idea.

I'm happy to discuss here or elsewhere. I really need to devise a way to keep track of things I want to dig into more. Right now I'm just shuffling through masses of stuff, trying to remember the things that catch my attention, but there's just too much goodness.

Oh, I'm not trying to be a completist by any means, but there's certainly a lot in there that I've been intrigued by for years. I'm more than content dipping in and out.

I wonder what made him finally do it, and why they went straight to streaming without trying Bandcamp (or maybe that's still to come).

I really really hope they do Bandcamp as well, that's all I use

Ha, I like the "A Tzadik Classic!" label applied to some of these - https://www.tzadik.com/catalog.php?view=date

I also love that Julian Lage has been spending so much time in the Zorn-verse

Is Joey Baron no longer working regularly with Zorn?

I guess not? I listened to a nearly three hour podcast interview with him and it was insane to me that Zorn/Masada never came up.

Ok let's go https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=41

Oops - At the Mountains of Madness: Tzadik Records catalog now streaming

Speaking of the original Masada quartet, I see that Tzadik is coming out with a limited run box set of the 10 original quartet CDs, previously only available on DIW Japan. Pricey but tempting.

Oops, missed the fact that this was posted above. I was distracted by the streaming news.

Just watched this clip from 10 years ago, it rules:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4eO2o9u1j0

Stupidly I somehow waited until 2024 to discover how great Electric Masada is. Been earing up the two live releases.

Related question - is the Bar Kokhba Sextet stuff in a similar vein? I noticed it's a pretty similar lineup, but with Zorn just conducting and not playing.

Bar Kokhba Sextet is very different, much more of a mellow vibe, but their 50th birthday performance is one of my favorite things that he's done.

Thanks, that's the one I was eyeing to check out next.

For those who are keeping up, there have been 11 Zorn-and-related releases in 2024. So far!

I just updated my full catalog playlist with these yesterday!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4QzGKbxwEXyW5caVfcPqm1?si=688cf431c9cf475c

xps this is my absolute favorite Zorn-related release by a wide margin:

https://www.discogs.com/release/559576-John-Zorn-Masada-Chamber-Ensembles-Bar-Kokhba

that's a classic but also very different from the sextet

"Ballades" from this year is really solid (Brian Marsella / Ches Smith / Jorge Roeder).

Jorge really gets around these days

Zorn et al. coming back to Big Ears next year. The big news: OG Masada reunion!!!

I should try to go, I regret missing the last big Zorn fest. I still have never seen him perform in any capacity.