Jazz Articles about John Zorn

John Zorn: Tradition and Transgression

by Tom Greenland
June 7, 2009

John Zorn: Tradition and Transgression John Brackett Hardcover; 248 pages ISBN: 0253220254 Indiana University Press 2009

Coming to grips with the prolific and ungainly output of composer/improviser/sonic scavenger John Zorn is a Herculean task. In John Zorn: Tradition and Transgression, the first book-length treatment of this pivotal Downtown icon, scholar John Brackett moves away from the clichéd interpretation of Zorn as a postmodernist (with all the term's implications of disjuncture, ...

John Zorn: Filmworks XXIII: El General

by Warren Allen
May 7, 2009

"Los Cristeros," the opening track of John Zorn's twenty-third Filmworks volume, starts gently enough, building from a bass and marimba groove. Then Marc Ribot's electric guitar enters. Brash and distorted, with the cocksure step of a gunslinger, and the frayed edge of a fedora, Ribot's solo keens with the energy and inspiration of the best.

Continuing in the vein of recent Zorn projects, the album features simple, hypnotic melodies for eclectic instrumentation. Most tracks never quite recapture the explosiveness of ...

John Zorn: The Rain Horse

by Martin Longley
January 18, 2009

This is number XIX in Zorn's Filmworks series, his self-confessed outlet for accessible composition, at least throughout most of its editions. The saxophonist doesn't actually play on this soundtrack disc, concentrating on writing, arranging and conducting. The result is a sequence of what must surely be Zorn's most restful, reflective, melodic and lyrical music, performed by the highly sensitive chamber trio of Erik Friedlander (cello), Rob Burger (piano) and Greg Cohen (bass). The Russian animator Dimitri Geller was seeking to ...

John Zorn: Filmworks XX: Sholem Aleichem

by Warren Allen
October 22, 2008

Composer John Zorn continues his remarkably productive 2008 (at least seven releases to his name so far) with Volume XX of his Filmworks series. Zorn assembled these pieces for the soundtrack to a documentary about Sholem Aleichem, the 19th century Jewish author whose character Tevye inspired Fiddler on the Roof.

In the liner notes, Zorn writes that he initially had misgivings that the score might just turn into traditional klezmer music. But director Joe Dorman reassured him that ...

John Zorn/George Lewis/Bill Frisell: News For Lulu

by Martin Longley
October 6, 2008

This is another reissue of the 1987 album that found this avant super-trio in what was (and still is) unlikely territory, not only playing bebop, but also pouncing on a less than obvious repertoire. Four composers were selected, their hardboppin’ tunes more or less equally divided, with around four numbers each from trumpeter Kenny Dorham, tenor man Hank Mobley and pianists Freddie Redd and Sonny Clark. These recordings were made during the peak period of Zorn’s Naked City ...

John Zorn / George Lewis / Bill Frisell: News for Lulu

by Chris May
June 11, 2008

Fun, fun, brilliant, spirit-raising fun. News For Lulu, recorded in 1987 and here reissued in a new master with a bonus track, features three idiosyncratic post-modern improvisers in a homage to the late 1950s hard bop songbook--not playing the material for laughs, not subjecting it to "reconstruction," but approaching it with joy, respect, truck loads of energy and unfettered, viral abandon.

John Zorn / Bar Kokhba: Lucifer: Book of Angels Volume 10

by Troy Collins
March 17, 2008

Lucifer is the first studio recording in ten years from composer John Zorn's most popular Masada line-up--the chamber sextet, Bar Kokhba. Although Zorn's reputation as the enfant terrible of music has followed him since the early '80s, his various Masada projects have been universally acclaimed, which showcase a surprisingly accessible side of this extraordinarily diverse and challenging artist.

Culled from The Book of Angels (his second collection of Masada tunes, written in 2004) this session unveils some of Zorn's most ...