John Zorn: Classic or Dud?

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??