You got any of his 2011 releases? I picked up all 5 that I know of. I must highly recommend At the Gates of Paradise. It's straight up mellow. Which is surprising coming from Zorn, but it's solid. His Christmas album is really sweet too. I hate Christmas music for the most part, but that's refreshing (A Dreamer's Christmas). Nova Express was all right. Enigmata was too much for me at the moment. I'll have to see if I change my mind later. Satyr/Cerberus was interesting for the concept, but hard to listen to as well...

Has anyone seen A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn by any chance? I was recently told about it but haven't watched it yet.

It's great if you skip through and watch the clips of Zorn that it shows, but the director makes it almost all about herself and provides little insight to Zorn that you wouldn't have known already.

Yeah, the director is definitely a pain but it's really cool seeing Zorn rehearse and compose. He comes across as really relaxed and friendly; I was expecting him to be a little intense. If you still haven't seen it you should check it out. It may or may not be all on youtube......

i've only heard Naked City and Astronome thus far

love both

Is Zorn actually religious? I've noticed he's been making some traditionally melodic religious music recently.

I don't know if he himself is Jewish, but his roots are. He's done a lot of radical Jewish culture music following the album Kristallnacht. I couldn't find anything on his religion, but to no avail. Maybe his Christmas album last year can be evidence that he is secular and appreciates the music that religions use? Just a guess. I do think that he is Jewish, though.

John Zorn - Gevurah - YouTube

Based mostly on seeing the name pop up in Frownland's "now listening to" on last.fm, I decided to give John Zorn a go. Seems pretty rad so far, although he has a hell of a discography. I've been mainly using rateyourmusic reviews to decide which albums to listen to (I've listened to Naked City and his first Filmworks album so far), but if you guys have specific recommendations I'd love to hear them.

I got you into this mess so I'll give you a few suggestions :laughing:. Spy Vs. Spy is my favourite Zorn album not counting Naked City's material. Also check out Book of Heads, The Big Gundown, Moonchild, and his group Masada's album Alef.

And by Naked City did you mean the album or the group? Because Zorn made a few other albums with the people on the Naked City, and they're all fantastic. Especially Torture Garden, which also happens to be one of my overall favourite albums.

Naked City the album. I had a mess of a time figuring out if I should tag the album Naked City as a Naked City album or a John Zorn album, but I eventually settled on tagging it as a John Zorn album because that seemed to be true way the album is credited...I think? It's these sort of tagging issues that keep me up at night. :laughing:

I was putting off Spy vs Spy because I've never actually listened to the original works of Ornette Coleman and I want to do that before touching Zorn's versions. I mean, I'm sure it's pretty much entirely different but I'd feel weird jumping into it like that. I've been on a jazz binge lately, though, so I'm sure I'll get to some Coleman soon enough, and then I can go for Spy vs Spy. As for the other suggestions, I'll look into them.

To the point of being nearly unrecognizable as OC, in my opinion

John Zorn is a hero.

The Big Gundown was neat, although I wasn't completely in love with it at first listen. Interested enough to give it another spin, though. It was a while ago though so maybe I'm just not remembering it well!

Naked City has been great every time I listen to it. I'm a sucker for albums with tons of short tracks that pile up on each other. The content is damn fun, too. I'll continue hopping around his discography, hoping hitting up the other albums you guys have suggested.

john zorn
 

he is definitely a genius. john zorn is a big influence. quite wide ranging career

Holy shit, ahahahaha. I didn't know Mike Patton was capable of such insanity. It's like meth for the ears!

Reminds me somewhat of Yamatsuka Eye's "duet" with Zorn. No words.

I love 'Little Bittern' and 'Moonchild' from John Zorn. He's pretty much the epitome of a genius and Moonchild feels even a little classical/jazz-ish. Such great, great work, man..

Has anyone here heard all of John Zorn's work? I'm working my way to that status and I've found that finding his new releases are difficult, and I thought he was rather popular (to the extent that someone making Zorn's music can get). He's got around 500 albums and while some are disappointing, it's like an adventure to listen to his entire catalogue.

I love his record with Fred Frith called "The Art of Memory." It achieves the same ranked status as Zorn's Naked City work.

I own 18 different John Zorn albums and they're only a small portion of his immense body of work over the years.

I really like his 22 volume set entitled Film Works which mostly soundtracks to non-existent movies. This song, Main Titles, is from Film Works 3 (1997). It has a very noirish sound.

He has an entire album full of nothing but crazy voices and sounds he can make. Mike Patton's insanity knows no bounds.

Are you talking about 'adult themes for a voice'? That ones pretty impressive, but it wears on the ears after a while. I'm a big fan of zorn and yamatsuka eyes work together, especially their second collaborative album nani nani ii, which is a lot like that video.

Yeah, I don't really care much for it. It was kind of cool to hear it, but it's nothing I could really just listen to again. Kinda out there.

I actually think you're on to something with that.

John Zorn Interview

John Zorn's been releasing a lot of amazing **** lately.

Salem 1692 (2018)
Insurrection - Trevor Dunn (bass), Kenny Grohowski (drums), Matt Hollenberg (guitar), Julian Lage (guitar)
avant-garde jazz, brutal prog

In a Convex Mirror (2018)
John Zorn (sax), Ches Smith (drums), Ikue Mori (electronics)
free improvisation, avant-garde jazz

Cleric - The Book Beri'ah Vol. 2: Chokhma (2019)
Cleric - Nick Shellenberger (vocals, keyboards), Matt Hollenberg (guitar, oud), Dan Kennedy (bass), Larry Kwartowitz (drums, percussion)
avant-garde metal, klezmer, mathcore, brutal prog, avant-garde jazz

The Heirophant (2019)
Brian Marsella (piano), Trevor Dunn (bass), Kenny Wollesen (drums)
avant-garde jazz

Tractatus Musico-Philosophicus: Philosophical Investigations From the Invisible Theatre (2019)
John Zorn (saxophone, vocals, fender rhodes, prepared piano, guitar, drums, bass, game call, percussion, objects, samples)
experimental, modern classical, spoken word, sound collage

Virtue (2020)
Guitar – Bill Frisell, Gyan Riley, Julian Lage
Spanish classical, folk baroque, avant-folk

Classic but one I'm revisiting.

The track below is f*cking FIRE.

Naked City
Leng Tch'e

This album is f*cked up lol. Yamatsuka Eye really wants to sound like somebody succumbing to Leng Tch'e. The album cover mixed with the sounds is gunna give me nightmares. I'm surprised it took me this long to try this album.

Aka the best living composer, and one of the most important of all time (no ****).

He is as important to our time as Beethoven was to his day.

Zorn, the classical composer, jazz saxophonist, composer of XYZ genres of music (including the popular Naked City and Painkiller bands). Doesn't get much better than that.

From his earliest projects to his current ones, he's covered so much ground and holds such a strong artistic integrity the whole way through.

The recent "Songs For Petra" album is also really fun and beautiful.

Back in the day I had (nearly) his entire discog, and a couple extra records from his Tzadik label. Absolutely prolific and so varied without ever losing that little screaming edge that makes his compositions so god damn interesting and fun.

Love this man.

The irony is that he is so prolific that whatever 'back in the day' was, he's released like 80 since then lol.

He's released three coming up this year already, and that's just up till April. All the way into December last year he was still releasing stuff.
That month he released "The Turner Diaries" which are classical etudes for solo piano.
In November he released another classical album, one called "Azoth".

This site is a good resource for basic cateloging of his projects:

johnzornresource(dot)com

Oh f u c k I'm so happy this website exists, I had no idea. Thanks!

Yeah my back in the day was the 2000s and he's released a lot more since then. The man is a machine.

I really doubt any one individual could have an impact on the infinitely wide array of musical practices in our globalized and decentralized world that would be comparable in any meaningful sense to the impact of Beethoven on the rigidly codified musical practice of central Europe in the early 19th century.

The analogy is simply not helpful in trying to understand the significance of any artist working today and what that artist's project or trajectory are all about.

I agree. It really isn’t helpful to place creative artists on this kind of faux worship pedestal during their lifetime. When a small number of elements concerning the quantity of their output are artificially highlighted as to make them a larger universal creative force than they really are, it tends to look ridiculous even to those who may actually admire their work.

John Zorn is god

I'd definitely recommend starting with his album "Naked City." It's an absolute classic and a fantastic entry point to his unique style. The album captures his bold and fearless approach to music, giving you a taste of his versatility and innovation.

I'd definitely recommend starting with his album "Naked City." It's an absolute classic and a fantastic entry point to his unique style. The album captures his bold and fearless approach to music, giving you a taste of his versatility and innovation.

I’ll check him out!