John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer , conductor , saxophonist , arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz , rock , Jewish music , hardcore , classical , contemporary , surf , metal , soundtrack , ambient , and world music . Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
75-485: Evan Shaw Parker (born 5 April 1944) is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation . Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation . He has pioneered or substantially expanded an array of extended techniques . Critic Ron Wynn describes Parker as "among Europe's most innovative and intriguing saxophonists...his solo sax work isn't for
150-536: A feedback loop and shifting soundscape . His various Electro-Acoustic Ensembles are a showcase for this area of his work, as well as the Trance Map project with Matthew Wight, which has included improvised live events across Europe and the US, involving other invited guest performers, with various Trance Map+ recordings released on psi, Intakt and FMR Records. Parker has recorded a large number of albums both solo or as
225-437: A "compositional workshop" to test the limitations of a rock band format. Featuring Zorn (saxophone), Bill Frisell (guitars), Fred Frith (bass), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), Joey Baron (drums), and vocalist Yamatsuka Eye (and later Mike Patton ), Naked City blended Zorn's appreciation of hardcore punk and grindcore bands like Agnostic Front and Napalm Death with influences like film music, country or jazz often in
300-747: A Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992), also featured short grindcore and free jazz -inspired compositions. They released their first live album, Rituals: Live in Japan , in 1993, followed by the double CD Execution Ground (1994), which featured longer dub and ambient-styled pieces. A second live album, Talisman: Live in Nagoya , was released in 2002 and the band was featured on Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 12 (2005) with Hamid Drake replacing Harris on drums and guest vocalist Mike Patton . Both bands attracted worldwide interest, particularly in Japan, where Zorn had relocated following
375-729: A certain style or key , or at certain tempos , conventions such as song structures are highly uncommon; more emphasis is generally placed on the mood of the music, or on performative gestures, than on preset forms of melody , harmony or rhythm . These elements are improvised at will as the music progresses, and performers will often intuitively react to each other based on the elements of their performance. English guitarist Derek Bailey described free improvisation as "playing without memory". In his book Improvisation , Bailey wrote that free improvisation "has no stylistic or idiomatic commitment. It has no prescribed idiomatic sound. The characteristics of freely improvised music are established only by
450-415: A day for a week, just orchestrating these file cards. It was an intense process. Zorn's file-card method of organizing sound blocks into an overall structure largely depended on the musicians he chose, the way they interpreted what was written on the file cards, and their relationship with Zorn who stated "At the end of the day, I want players to say: this was fun—it was a lot of fucking work, and it's one of
525-482: A genre of music, developed primarily in the U.K. as well as the U.S. and Europe in the mid to late 1960s, largely as an outgrowth of free jazz and contemporary classical music . Exponents of free improvised music include saxophonists Evan Parker , Anthony Braxton , Peter Brötzmann , and John Zorn , composer Pauline Oliveros , trombonist George E. Lewis , guitarists Derek Bailey , Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith , bassists Damon Smith and Jair-Rohm Parker Wells and
600-635: A group called the Crowley Quartet. A 2009 performance of the album's centerpiece Necronomicon was described as "... frenetic vortexes of violent, abrasive motion, separated by eerily becalmed, suspenseful sections with moody, even prayerful melodies. The music is sensational and evocative, but never arbitrary; you always sense a guiding hand behind the mayhem". Later works expanded to include vocal and operatic works; Mysterium released in 2005 featured Frammenti del Sappho for female chorus; Rituals (2005) featured Zorn's opera composed for
675-588: A group leader, and has recorded or performed with Peter Brötzmann , Michael Nyman , John Stevens , Derek Bailey , Keith Rowe , Joe McPhee , Anthony Braxton , Cecil Taylor , John Zorn , Fred Frith , Bill Laswell , Ikue Mori , Thurston Moore , Cyro Baptista , Milford Graves , George E. Lewis , Tim Berne , Mark Dresser , Dave Holland , Sylvie Courvoisier , and many others. Two key associations have been pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach 's trio with Parker and drummer Paul Lovens (documented on recordings such as Pakistani Pomade and Elf Bagatellen ) and
750-404: A masterful bebop alto player, but when he does perform in something approaching that style his playing has little of the tension and none of the relaxation of the great beboppers, often sounding more strangulated than anything". Zorn stated that "After my record The Big Gundown came out I was convinced that a lot of soundtrack work was going to be coming my way". While interest from Hollywood
825-652: A month this time." I've been working on these scales and playing these tunes all this time. In the back of my head somewhere are lodged all kinds of new ideas. Let's see if I can come up with 100 tunes in a month instead of in a year. So in the first month, I popped out a hundred tunes; the second month, another hundred; in the third month, a third 100 tunes. I had no idea that was going to happen. Zorn released thirty-two volumes of Masada Book Two compositions performed by many varied artists. The titles of many Masada Book Two compositions are derived from demonology and Judeo-Christian mythology . The Masada quartet performed at
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#1732794503211900-528: A part of the city’s improvised music scene based around the Little Theatre Club, joining John Stevens ’ Spontaneous Music Ensemble . Along with guitarist Derek Bailey , he quickly became a leading figure in the improvised music movement in London and throughout Europe. One of his most lasting connections was with German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach , whose trio he joined in 1970. Parker
975-759: A player's trust before they can play my music." Leaving Webster after three semesters, Zorn lived on the West Coast before returning to Manhattan where he gave concerts in his apartment and other small NY venues, playing saxophone and a variety of reeds, duck calls , tapes, and other instruments. Zorn immersed himself in the underground art scene, assisting filmmaker Jack Smith with his performances and attending plays by Richard Foreman . Zorn's early major compositions included many game pieces described as "complex systems harnessing improvisers in flexible compositional formats". These compositions "involved strict rules, role playing, prompters with flashcards, all in
1050-771: A principle known as auditory streaming , where the use of wide registers creates the illusion of polyphony , which Parker terms “pseudo-polyphony”. This effect is achieved primarily by using multiphonics or harmonics in combination with circular breathing , polyrhythmic fingering, and split tonguing . Working with electronic music since the early days of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble or with his duo with Paul Lytton , Parker has become increasingly interested in electronics , usually through inviting collaborators such as Phil Wachsmann , Walter Prati , Joel Ryan , Lawrence Casserley , Sam Pluta or Matthew Wright to process his playing electronically, creating
1125-736: A series of commercial soundtracks for the advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy , including one directed by Jean-Luc Godard , a long-term Zorn inspiration. Zorn used his film commissions to record new ensembles like Masada and the Masada String Trio . From the mid-1990s, Zorn composed film music for independent films dealing with BDSM and LGBT culture , documentaries exploring the Jewish experience, and films about outsider artists . In 2013, after releasing 25 volumes in his Filmworks Series, Zorn announced that he would no longer be releasing music for film. Zorn established Naked City in 1988 as
1200-464: A series of duets by Zorn with Michihiro Sato on shamisen , which received limited release on the Yukon label in 1984. Zorn has subsequently reissued these early recordings. Zorn's breakthrough came in 1986 with the acclaimed The Big Gundown released on Nonesuch Records . The album was endorsed by composer Ennio Morricone, who said: "This is a record that has fresh, good and intelligent ideas. It
1275-422: A single composition. The band performed pieces by film composers Ennio Morricone, John Barry , Johnny Mandel and Henry Mancini and modern classicists Alexander Scriabin , Claude Debussy , Charles Ives , and Olivier Messiaen and recorded heavy metal and ambient albums. In 1991, Zorn formed Painkiller with Bill Laswell on bass and Mick Harris on drums. Painkiller's first two releases, Guts of
1350-590: A single moment when the style was born. Free improvisation primarily descends from the Indeterminacy movement and free jazz . Guitarist Derek Bailey contends that free improvisation must have been the earliest musical style, because "mankind's first musical performance couldn't have been anything other than a free improvisation." Similarly, Keith Rowe stated, "Other players got into playing freely, way before AMM , way before Derek [Bailey]! Who knows when free playing started? You can imagine lute players in
1425-476: A special benefit night at The Stone which was also released on The Stone: Issue Three on CD. In December 2016 Zorn announced that The Stone would close in February 2018 but that he was hopeful that a new location could be found, stating "Venues come and go, but the music continues on forever!" By March 2017 Zorn had negotiated with The New School to move The Stone to Greenwich Village. On February 25, 2018,
1500-441: A suite dedicated to Jean Genet , was released in 1992. The establishment of Tzadik allowed him to release many compositions which he had written over the previous two decades for classical ensembles. Zorn's earliest released classical composition, Christabel (1972) for five flutes, first appeared on Angelus Novus in 1998. He credits the composition of his 1988 string quartet Cat O' Nine Tails (commissioned and released by
1575-704: A three-month residency in Tokyo. In 2006, Zorn formed the voice/bass/drums trio of Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn , and Joey Baron as "a compositional challenge, as a song cycle, songs without words" as he decided "I want to work with Patton more; Patton was very hungry to do more work together. ‘OK, so let's start it with just bass, drums, and voice". Rolling Stone said Moonchild was "a band that, much like Naked City, mutated radically across its lifespan as Zorn kept raising his compositional bar. While it touched on similar extremes as that group... its episodes are more sustained, its structures more conventionally songlike" noting "For
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#17327945032111650-429: A trio with bassist Barry Guy and drummer Paul Lytton . On Parker's 50th birthday, these two bands played a set apiece at a London concert; the results were issued by Leo Records as the 50th Birthday Concert . Parker, Bailey, and Tony Oxley founded Incus Records in 1970. The label continued under Bailey's sole control after a falling-out between the two men in the early 1980s. Parker curates Psi Records , which
1725-448: Is entirely dedicated to free jazz and other freely improvised music. A l'improviste, John Zorn Zorn engaged New York City's downtown music scene in the mid-1970s, collaborating with improvising artists and experimenting with compositional strategies and arrangements. Over the next decade he performed throughout Europe and Japan and recorded on independent US and European labels. He released The Big Gundown , reconstructing
1800-758: Is issued by Martin Davidson's Emanem Records . From 1999 to 2007 Parker co-ordinated, recorded and played in the Free Zone at the Appleby Jazz Festival , held in Cumbria, England. The recordings were issued through his Psi record label. Although Parker's focus is free improvisation, he has appeared in conventional jazz contexts, such as Charlie Watts 's big band and Kenny Wheeler 's ensembles and participated in Gavin Bryars 's recording After
1875-409: Is perhaps best known for his solo performances. Originally dismissive of solo performance as being too close in nature to traditional composition, he was inspired to experiment with solo performance by the possibilities for musician-instrument interaction demonstrated by Derek Bailey ’s solo guitar improvisations. Primarily using the soprano saxophone for these solo performances, the music makes use of
1950-600: Is realization on a high level, a work done by a maestro with great science-fantasy and creativity ... Many people have done versions of my pieces, but no one has done them like this". Zorn followed with Spillane in 1987, his second major-label release, featuring performances by Albert Collins , the Kronos Quartet , and the sprawling title track, an early "file-card" composition. This method of combining composition and improvisation involved Zorn writing descriptions or ideas on file-cards and arranging them to form
2025-619: Is represented, for instance, by the American record label Erstwhile Records and the Austrian label Mego . EAI is often radically different even from established free improvisation. Eyles writes, "One of the problems of describing this music is that it requires a new vocabulary and ways of conveying its sound and impact; such vocabulary does not yet exist – how do you describe the subtle differences between different types of controlled feedback ? I've yet to see anyone do it convincingly – hence
2100-531: Is still commonly practised by some organists at concerts or church services, and courses in improvisation (including free improvisation) are part of many higher education programmes for church musicians. Since 2002 New Zealand collective Vitamin S has hosted weekly improvisations based around randomly drawn trios. Vitamin S takes the form beyond music and includes improvisers from other forms such as dance, theatre and puppetry. Since 2006, improvisational music in many forms has been supported and promoted by ISIM,
2175-734: The Bayreuth Opera Festival in 1998; and La Machine de l'Être composed in 2000, premiered at the New York City Opera in 2011, and recorded for the 2012 album Music and Its Double . Zorn's concert works have been performed all over the world and he has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic , Brooklyn Philharmonic and BBC Radio 3 . Conversations with Joey Baron led Zorn to explore and embrace Jewish culture. A further file-card composition Kristallnacht (1992) reflected on
2250-846: The Globe Unity Orchestra With Barry Guy /The London Jazz Composers' Orchestra With the Barry Guy New Orchestra With Paul Haines With Dave Holland With Tony Hymas - Barney Bush With Steve Lacy With Chris McGregor With Roscoe Mitchell With Louis Moholo With The Music Improvisation Company With Natural Information Society With Michael Nyman With Tony Oxley With Jean-François Pauvros With Paul Rutherford and Iskra 1912 With Alexander von Schlippenbach With Manfred Schoof With Setoladimaiale Unit With
2325-458: The Kronos Quartet on Short Stories ) to awakening him to the possibilities of writing for classical musicians. This composition also appeared on The String Quartets (1999) and Cartoon S/M (2000) along with variations on "Kol Nidre", inspired by the Jewish prayer of atonement which was written at the same time as the first Masada Book. Aporias: Requia for Piano and Orchestra (1998)
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2400-592: The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in March 2007 for what were billed as their final concerts. Zorn reformed the band as a sextet with Uri Caine and Cyro Baptista in 2009 saying: I felt like we kind of hit a plateau a little bit with it in 2007 and I said, "Well, maybe the quartet is really done. Maybe we've accomplished what we can accomplish. Maybe it's time to put this to bed." And then I
2475-700: The Night of Broken Glass that violently and destructively targeted Jews in Germany and Austria in 1938. Several movements used the Phrygian dominant and Ukrainian Dorian scales common to klezmer music . Zorn set himself the task of writing 100 compositions using the scale within a year. In 1993 Zorn engaged Baron along with Dave Douglas (trumpet) and Greg Cohen (double bass) to provide musical cues for Joe Chappelle 's first film Thieves Quartet (later collected on Filmworks III: 1990–1995 ) and established
2550-584: The Spontaneous Music Ensemble With Spring Heel Jack With David Sylvian with Cecil Taylor Free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of experimental music in its own right. Free improvisation, as
2625-595: The Tzadik record label to ensure the availability of his catalogue and promote other musicians. The label's releases are divided into series: Tzadik also releases special-edition CDs, DVDs, books and T-shirts. Since 1998, the designs of Tzadik releases have been created by graphic artist Heung-Heung "Chippy" Chin. Zorn's earliest New York performances occurred at small artist-run performance spaces including his own apartment. As his profile grew, he became associated with several Lower East Side alternative venues such as
2700-425: The cartoon scores of Carl Stalling into his first recordings and discovered Anthony Braxton 's groundbreaking solo album For Alto which inspired him to take up the instrument. "I'm not going to sit in some ivory tower and pass my scores down to the players." said Zorn, "I have to be there with them, and that's why I started playing saxophone, so that I could meet musicians. I still feel that I have to earn
2775-473: The 1500s getting drunk and doing improvisations for people in front of a log fire.. the noise, the clatter must have been enormous. You read absolutely incredible descriptions of that. I cannot believe that musicians back then didn't float off into free playing. The melisma in Monteverdi [ sic ] must derive from that. But it was all in the context of a repertoire." By the middle decades of
2850-509: The 20th century, composers such as Henry Cowell , Earle Brown , David Tudor , La Monte Young , Jackson Mac Low , Morton Feldman , Sylvano Bussotti , Karlheinz Stockhausen , and George Crumb , re-introduced improvisation to European art music, with compositions that allowed or even required musicians to improvise. One notable example of this is Cornelius Cardew 's Treatise : a graphic score with no conventional notation whatsoever, which musicians were invited to interpret. Improvisation
2925-453: The Book of Angels project, Azazal and Haborym . In 2003, Zorn formed Electric Masada, a band featuring Zorn, Baptista, Baron, and Ribot, along with Trevor Dunn (bass), Ikue Mori (electronics), Jamie Saft (keyboards), and Kenny Wollesen (drums) releasing their debut live album from Zorn's 50th Birthday Concert series and a double live CD recorded in 2004. In 2019, Zorn formed
3000-774: The International Society for Improvised Music. ISIM comprises some 300 performing artists and scholars worldwide, including Pauline Oliveros , Robert Dick , Jane Ira Bloom , Roman Stolyar , Mark Dresser , and many others. Founded in Manchester, England, in 2007, the Noise Upstairs has been an institution dedicated to the practice of improvised music, hosting regular concerts and creative workshops where they have promoted international and UK-based artists such as Ken Vandermark , Lê Quan Ninh , Ingrid Laubrock , and Yuri Landman . On top of these events,
3075-541: The Knitting Factory and Tonic. On Friday April 13, 2007, Zorn played the final night at Tonic before it closed due to financial pressures. Zorn was the principal force in establishing The Stone in 2005, an avant-garde performance space in New York's Alphabet City which supports itself solely on donations and the sale of limited-edition CDs, giving all door revenues directly to the performers. Zorn holds
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3150-543: The Masada Books. Zorn completed the third Masada book, titled The Book Beriah , in 2014. Zorn released one of his most popular albums, The Gift , in 2001, which surprised many with its relaxed blend of surf, exotica and world music. On February 29, 2008, at St Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, Zorn premiered The Dreamers , which saw a return to the gentle compositions first featured on The Gift and established
3225-573: The Masada String Trio, composed of Greg Cohen (bass), Mark Feldman (violin), and Erik Friedlander (cello); and the Bar Kokhba Sextet which added Marc Ribot (guitar), Cyro Baptista (percussion), and Joey Baron (drums), both of which were featured on 1998's The Circle Maker . The Masada String Trio were also featured on Zorn's Filmworks series , as part of his 50th Birthday Celebration , and released two albums as part of
3300-621: The Middle East have been extensive, usually at festivals with musicians and ensembles that perform his repertoire. John Zorn was raised in a Jewish family in New York City where he attended the United Nations International School and studied piano, guitar and flute. Zorn's mother, Vera (née Studenski; 1918–1999), listened to classical and world music ; his father, Henry Zorn (1913–1992),
3375-539: The New Masada Quartet with Julian Lage (guitar), Jorge Roeder (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums). A Tenth Anniversary Series of Masada recordings was released by Zorn beginning in 2003. The series featured five albums of Masada themes including Masada Guitars by Marc Ribot , Bill Frisell , and Tim Sparks ; Masada Recital by Mark Feldman and Sylvie Courvoisier ; Masada Rock by Rashanim; and two albums featuring various artists, Voices in
3450-727: The Noise Upstairs runs monthly jam nights. In Berlin, Germany, from the 1990s onwards, a school of free improvisation emerged known as echtzeitmusik (‘real-time music’ or ‘immediate music’). This has been sustained by supportive venues such as ausland , Anorak Club, Labor Sonor, and others. In late 1970s New York a group of musicians came together who shared an interest in free improvisation as well as rock, jazz, contemporary classical, world music and pop. They performed at lofts, apartments, basements and venues located predominantly in downtown New York ( 8BC , Pyramid Club , Environ, Roulette , The Knitting Factory and Tonic ) and held regular concerts of free improvisation which featured many of
3525-621: The Requiem , performing the composition "Alaric I or II" as part of a saxophone quartet. Parker contributed to David Sylvian 's albums Manafon and Died in the Wool . Parker marked his 80th birthday with a three-concert series at Café Oto, London (April 2024) and The Heraclitean Two-Step, etc. (4CDs of solo performances with a 120 page book; on False Walls). He also has appeared in pop-music contexts: on Scott Walker 's Climate of Hunter , and on dub -influenced albums with Jah Wobble ,
3600-517: The Swiss improvisation duo Voice Crack started making use of strictly "cracked everyday electronics". A recent branch of improvised music is characterized by quiet, slow moving, minimalistic textures and often utilizing laptop computers or unorthodox forms of electronics. Developing worldwide in the mid-to-late 1990s, with centers in New York, Tokyo and Austria, this style has been called lowercase music or EAI ( electroacoustic improvisation ), and
3675-458: The Wilderness and The Unknown Masada . In 2004, Zorn began composing the second Masada Book, The Book of Angels , resulting in an additional 316 compositions. Zorn explained: After 10 years of performing the first book, I thought "Maybe it'd be nice to write some more tunes." And I wrote 300 more tunes. When I started writing those it was "Let's see if I can write a hundred songs in
3750-996: The adventurous drum n bass duo Spring Heel Jack and rock group Spiritualized . He appeared on the b-side to Vic Reeves and The Wonderstuff 's UK 1991 number-one hit "Dizzy", performing saxophone on "Oh, Mr Songwriter" (based on Vic Reeves Big Night Out TV show end theme song). At one point during a sax solo, Vic can be heard shouting: "Pack it in, Parker!" Parker has also made notable appearances on record with Robert Wyatt . Evan Parker playing in Aarhus, Denmark , 2010 With Derek Bailey With Han Bennink With Borah Bergman With Paul Bley With Anthony Braxton With Peter Brötzmann With Gavin Bryars With Lawrence Casserley With Alvin Curran With Pierre Favre With Joe Gallivan With
3825-615: The availability of his growing catalog of recordings. He prolifically recorded and released new material for the label, issuing several new albums each year, along with recordings by many other artists. Zorn performs on saxophone with his Naked City , Painkiller , and Masada bands, conducts ensembles such as Moonchild, Simulacrum, and several Masada-related groups or encourages musicians toward their own interpretations of his work. He has composed concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, and produced music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary. Tours of Europe, Asia, and
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#17327945032113900-731: The band of the same name. The Dreamers released their second album, O'o , in 2009, an album of Zorn's Book of Angels compositions in 2010 and a Christmas album in 2011. In 1992, John Zorn curated the Avant subsidiary of the DIW label and released several Naked City recordings on the label as well as many other albums featuring Zorn affiliated musicians including Derek Bailey , Buckethead , Eugene Chadbourne , Dave Douglas , Erik Friedlander , Wayne Horvitz , Ikue Mori , Bobby Previte , Zeena Parkins and Marc Ribot . In 1995, in co-operation with jazz producer Kazunori Sugiyama, Zorn established
3975-501: The charts out and said, "OK, just watch me because I'll be conducting. Let's just do it." And it was one of those magical clicks on the bandstand that sometimes happens. So yeah, this band is taking off again. After 15 years of doing this music, we can still find new things. Zorn's Masada compositions and associated ensembles have become a central focus of many concerts and festivals and he has established regular 'Masada Marathons' that feature various bands and musicians performing music from
4050-599: The early 1980s, Zorn was heavily engaged in improvisation as both a solo performer and with other like-minded artists. Zorn's first solo saxophone recordings were originally released in two volumes as The Classic Guide to Strategy in 1983 and 1986 on the Lumina label. Zorn's early small group improvisations are documented on Locus Solus (1983) which featured Zorn with various combinations of other improvisers including Christian Marclay , Arto Lindsay , Wayne Horvitz , Ikue Mori , and Anton Fier . Ganryu Island featured
4125-473: The film scores of a formative musical influence, Ennio Morricone , to acclaim in 1986. Spillane and Naked City further demonstrated Zorn's ability to merge and blend musical styles in new and challenging formats. Zorn spent significant time in Japan in the 1980s and early '90s returning to Lower East Side Manhattan to establish the Tzadik record label in 1995. Tzadik enabled Zorn to establish independence, maintain creative control, and ensure
4200-407: The first Masada group to perform his recent compositions using the instrumental lineup and improvisational approach of Ornette Coleman 's pioneering free jazz quartet. Within three years, the number of compositions had grown to 205 and became known as the first Masada Book. Zorn explained: The project for Masada was to create something positive in the Jewish tradition something that maybe takes
4275-467: The first five of Moonchild's seven albums, released from 2006 through 2014, Patton utilized his full whisper-to-scream range while operating entirely without lyrics". As Zorn's interest in Naked City waned, he "started hearing classical music in [his] head again." Zorn started working on compositions that drew on chamber music arrangements of strings, percussion and electronic instruments. Elegy ,
4350-411: The hardest things I've ever done, but it was worth the effort." Three further releases on Nonesuch followed; Spy vs Spy in 1989, Naked City in 1990, and Filmworks 1986–1990 (1992) before Zorn broke with the label. All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person—the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with
4425-445: The idea of Jewish music into the 21st century the way jazz developed from the teens and 1920s into the '40s, the '50s, the '60s and on ... My initial idea was to write a hundred tunes. And then I ended up writing over 200 for the first book and then performed it countless time for years. In 1996, Zorn released Bar Kokhba featuring Masada compositions recorded by a rotating group of musicians. Two ensembles arose from this album:
4500-445: The improvising groups Spontaneous Music Ensemble and AMM . In the context of music theory , free improvisation denotes the shift from a focus on harmony and structure to other dimensions of music, such as timbre , texture , melodic intervals, rhythm and spontaneous musical interactions between performers. This can give free improvised music abstract and nondescript qualities. Although individual performers may choose to play in
4575-529: The last performance was held at the original venue and Zorn moved operations to The New School's The Glass Box Theatre on the basis of a handshake deal . In September 2003, Zorn celebrated his 50th birthday with a month-long series of performances at Tonic in New York, repeating an event he had begun a decade earlier at the Knitting Factory . He conceptualized the month into several different aspects of his musical output. Zorn's bands performed on
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#17327945032114650-406: The leading European improvisers of the time, including Derek Bailey , Evan Parker , Han Bennink , Misha Mengelberg , Peter Brötzmann and others. Many of these musicians continue to use improvisation in one form or another in their work. Electronic devices such as oscillators, echoes, filters and alarm clocks were an integral part of free improvisation performances by groups such as Kluster at
4725-479: The name of melding structure and improvisation in a seamless fashion". Zorn's early game pieces had sporting titles like Lacrosse (1976), Hockey (1978), Pool (1979), and Archery (1979), which he recorded and first released on Eugene Chadbourne 's Parachute label. His most enduring game piece is Cobra , composed in 1984 and first recorded in 1987 and in subsequent versions in 1992 , 1994 and 2002 , and revisited in performance many times. In
4800-413: The piece. Zorn described the process in 2003: I write in moments, in disparate sound blocks, so I find it convenient to store these events on filing cards so they can be sorted and ordered with minimum effort. Pacing is essential. If you move too fast, people tend to stop hearing the individual moments as complete in themselves and more as elements of a sort of cloud effect ... I worked 10 to 12 hours
4875-414: The prominent figures in the scene, including John Zorn , Bill Laswell , George E. Lewis , Fred Frith , Tom Cora , Toshinori Kondo , Wayne Horvitz , Eugene Chadbourne , Zeena Parkins , Anthony Coleman , Polly Bradfield , Ikue Mori , Robert Dick , Ned Rothenberg , Bob Ostertag , Christian Marclay , David Moss , Kramer and many others. They worked with each other, independently and with many of
4950-524: The sonic musical identity of the person or persons playing it." Free music performers, coming from a disparate variety of backgrounds, often engage musically with other genres . For example, Italian composer Ennio Morricone was a member of the free improvisation group Nuova Consonanza. Anthony Braxton has written opera , and John Zorn has written acclaimed orchestral pieces. Though there are many important precedents and developments, free improvisation developed gradually, making it difficult to pinpoint
5025-583: The squeamish." Parker's original inspiration was Paul Desmond . Parker soon discovered the music of John Coltrane , who would be the primary influence throughout his career. Other important early influences were free jazz artists Cecil Taylor , Albert Ayler and Jimmy Giuffre . Since the 1990s the influence of cool jazz saxophone players has also become apparent in his music, with Parker recording tributes to Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz on Time Will Tell (ECM, 1993) and Chicago Solo ( Okka Disk , 1997). Parker moved to London in 1966 and quickly became
5100-660: The surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there. —John Zorn Zorn demonstrated his hard bop credentials as a member of the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, recording Voodoo in 1986. News for Lulu (1988) and More News for Lulu (1992) featured Zorn, Bill Frisell and George E. Lewis performing compositions by Clark, Kenny Dorham , Freddie Redd , and Hank Mobley . He recorded Spy vs Spy featuring hardcore punk versions of Ornette Coleman 's compositions in 1989. According to Cook, "Zorn's admirers often consider him
5175-510: The title of artistic director and regularly performs 'Improvisation Nights'. Zorn feels that "The Stone is a unique space and is different from Tonic, the Knitting Factory, and most of the other venues we have played at as there is no bar ... so there is NO pressure to pack the house with an audience that drinks, and what night you perform has nothing to do with your power to draw a crowd or what kind of music you might play". On January 10, 2008, Zorn performed with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson at
5250-517: The underground scene at Zodiac Club in Berlin in the late 1960s. For the 1975 jazz-rock concert recording Agharta , Miles Davis and his band employed free improvisation and electronics, particularly guitarist Pete Cosey who improvised sounds by running his guitar through a ring modulator and an EMS Synthi A . But it was only later that traditional instruments were disbanded altogether in favour of pure electronic free improvisation. In 1984,
5325-531: The use of words like 'shape' and 'texture'!" The London-based independent radio station Resonance 104.4FM , founded by the London Musicians Collective , frequently broadcasts experimental and free improvised performance works. WNUR 89.3 FM ("Chicago's Sound Experiment") is another source for free improvised music on the radio. Taran's Free Jazz Hour broadcast on Radio-G 101.5 FM, Angers and Euradio [ fr ] 101.3 FM, Nantes
5400-599: Was Zorn's first full-scale orchestral release featuring pianist Stephen Drury , the Hungarian Radio Children's Choir and the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies . Much of Zorn's classical work is dedicated or inspired by artists who have influenced him: Several of Zorn's later concert works drew inspiration from mysticism and the works of Aleister Crowley in particular; Magick (2004) featured
5475-506: Was asked by the Marciac Jazz Festival to put together a slightly larger group. They asked me what if I added a couple of people to Masada and I said, "I can't add anybody to the quartet. The quartet is the quartet, that's what we do." But then I thought, "Well, if I was going to add someone I would probably ask Uri and Cyro." So we tried it at Marciac and it was unbelievable. We didn't even have any rehearsal time. I just passed
5550-769: Was interested in jazz , French chansons , and country music ; and his older brother collected doo-wop and 1950s rock and roll records. Zorn spent his teenage years "listening to The Doors and playing bass in a surf band " while also exploring the experimental and avant-garde music of György Ligeti , Mauricio Kagel and Karlheinz Stockhausen and listening to cartoon soundtracks and film scores. Zorn taught himself orchestration and counterpoint by transcribing scores and studied composition under Leonardo Balada before enrolling at Webster College where he attended lectures by Oliver Lake . While at Webster he incorporated elements of free jazz , avant-garde and experimental music , film scores , performance art and
5625-425: Was not forthcoming, eventually independent filmmakers like Sheila McLaughlin and Raúl Ruiz sought his talents. Filmmaker Walter Hill rejected his music for a film to be called Looters . Although Zorn's score did not make the final cut he used the money he received to establish the record label, Tzadik, on which he released Filmworks II: Music for an Untitled Film by Walter Hill in 1995. Zorn also produced
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