John Zorn Recommendations

Posted by: Markus on 28 March 2002

John Zorn's music is diverse, eclectic, challenging and varied. I would break Zorn's projects into four categories, the first, which is of primary interest to me includes his work with the Masada Chamber Ensemble. The second category includes his film-based projects such as the filmworks series and the "Spillane" release. The third category includes releases by his bands such as Painkiller and Naked City and the fourth category I'd classify as "experimental". I'd be interested to hear how others might better classify Zorn's music--my objective is to focus on the stuff he does that I can actually enjoy and that's what I'll be focusing on here in my list of recommendations. Others may be more attracted to his more esoteric stuff and are more than welcome to post their recommendations here. I'm also very interested in the advice of others about which of the live Masada performances are best and which, out of the extensive series of the "other" Masada series are "best".

One more aspect of how I'm ranking these has to do with whether or not I can play them when my wife is around. My wife is an absolutely great wife but her musical tastes tend towards the Dixie Chicks, Allison Krause and James Taylor. If something is too noisy or too abrasive or weird, she's not into it and I wouldn't play it when she's around. This may not be a criteria you think is important but it's an important one for me and you might be interested to know that she enjoys each of the first four recommendations I'm posting below.

Here's my list of favorites in the order in which I'd recommend to someone new to Zorn's music to buy them:
1. My top fave--The Circle Maker by the Masada Chamber Ensemble. This is an absolutely brilliant release. How to describe it? See below.

2. Bar Kohkba--Masada Chamber Ensemble. The first release by the group and also extremely fine though has a few tunes which some might find a little on the avant-garde. I'd describe this as follows; imagine you have group of very traditional, very talented Jewish musicians who make their living playing traditional music for weddings, ceremonies and the occasional gig with the symphony orchestra. After a long week we find them retreating to an after hours club where they jam alternately with Medeski, Martin and Wood, Charlie Haden and Lee Morgan. I want to create a picture of music that it technically superb, very well recorded, artistically strong and enjoyable. I can't imagine a jazz lover who wouldn't be grateful to have stumbled across these releases.

3. Filmworks VIII. This album has two distinct sections--the first half is devoted to music composed for the film "The Port of Last Resort", a documentary about Jewish refugees escaping Germany in the '30s and emigrating to Shanghai. The second half is from a film titled something like "Portugese boys go to hell". I listen mostly to the first half where most of the members of the Masada Chamber ensemble are joined by pipa virtuoso Min Xiao-Fen. What's a pipa? Some kind of funky chinese string instrument that sounds like a cross between a guitar and a koto, but man, on this release it rocks! Very listenable, very enjoyable. This is from the film category.

4. The Gift. See the other thread which does a pretty fair job of describing it. Probably falls somewhere between the categories, or maybe there should be a fifth category comprised of Les Baxter/Martin Denny influenced surf jazz. That's how I'd classify this one.

5. Spillane. This was my first ever Zorn record (my copy is on vinyl even). What Zorn did was to compose musical snippets conveying various musical ideas and then sequence these to convey a mental picture. In this case the main focus of Spillane is to convey the feeling of reading a Mickey Spillane novel through music. He does a great job and, having read some Spillane, I'd say he gets it spot-on. On side two he's joined by Albert Collins. I'd classify this as from the Film category.

6. Filmworks III. This is a pretty interesting release and compiles a bunch of different Zorn film/commercial soundtrack projects from various periods of time. You'll hear snippets of very nice jazz with a total run time of around a minute, pieces that sound like a punk band got jammed into a blender with Ornette Coleman that last about 30 seconds, and a lot of bits and pieces that sound like the sketches for Spillane. I classify this as falling more into the experimental category. I enjoy it.

I think a lot of people get put off Zorn by picking up one of his projects like Painkiller or Naked City. These are too noisy for me. I'd describe them as a highly accomplished and talented group of musicians getting together to play industrial noise. Occasional glimpses of musical brilliance but mostly not what I'd what I want to kick back and listen to with a cup of coffee.

One last observation is that the weirdness of the cover art for Zorn's work tends to reflect the musical weirdness contained inside. Hence, the Painkiller stuff seems to convey pictures of bondage and torture, the filmworks have pictures of movie cameras, the Masada series are title using Hebrew characters. None of the releases I'm recommending include covers that are very weird or disturbing. A v. short story--a buddy of mine, having been "turned on" to Zorn and having picked up the first two recommendations, took a chance on one of the "bondage" covers. When I commented on it being in his collection he said, "yeah, thats a little weird...I'm not really into it..."

Follow up recommendations, anyone?

Mark

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I want to add another recommendation that I have just remembered that Zorn is associated with: Voodoo by the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet. On the Black Saint label. Available on vinyl. Not only is this a superb straight-ahead jazz record but it is a very fine recording. I don't remember who I was talking to back some time ago but it was someone who worked in a hi-fi store and he said he hated this record because it made any system sound great. Anyway, it is another Zorn project that is worth seeking out.

Marku

[This message was edited by Markus on THURSDAY 28 March 2002 at 16:41.]

Posted on: 28 March 2002 by John C

I can throroughly recommend Masada Live at Tonic.

Re-artwork. I'm not worried by the s&m covers but The Gift disturbed me rather more because it seems to depict scenes of child abuse.I interpreted the whole package as a commentary on how we regard a child as a "gift" yet children are abused and tortured worldwide. Yet the images leave me rather unsettled.

John.h

Posted on: 28 March 2002 by Former member

Of the Masada live releases, I would recommend Live in Jerusalem and Live at Tonic without hesitation - both are stupendous performances.

Live in Taipei is interesting, particularly comparing the tracks repeated on the Jerusalem set, but is a little nearer Painkiller territory; the recording sounds like it was made in a metal bucket and the band appear to have declared war on the acoustics, resulting in a pretty fearsome performance. Your wife may take less kindly to this one !

Middleheim and Sevilla are both fine performances - Middleheim being the better IMHO - but I would go for either Tonic or Jerusalem to start with.

Also, if you likedSpillane, thenThe Big Gundown (where Zorn reinterprets Ennio Morricone's music) is essential. I think the recent CD re-release has extra material so this might be worth a look.

regards,

Nigel

Posted on: 28 March 2002 by Former member

I had the misfortune to catch Zorn's Naked City at the Trades Club in Leeds sometime during the mid/late eighties.Zorn,with a stellar line-up of Wayne Horvitz,Bill Frisell,Fred frith and Joey Baron producing an unmusical,self indulgent kind of thrash jazz.Bloody awful.
However,the guy is a fine post bop alto player.I enjoyed early Masada on DIW and the Masada string trio on Tzadik(alas,they went when I ditched cd to concentrate on vinyl.)So I looked again at Ornette and also discovered Bartok's string quartets.More interesting string trio stuff can be found by SToNY(the String Trio of New York)featuring Billy Bang on violin,James Emery on guitar and John Lindberg on bass.Fusing jazz, classical,folk and pop, early albums like Area Code 212 and Common Goal(both on Black Saint)are brilliantly recorded by Giancarlo Barigozzi in his Milan studio.Voodoo is of course, mandatory.

best

Dave

[This message was edited by tmwinon on THURSDAY 28 March 2002 at 23:52.]

Posted on: 28 March 2002 by John C

I'm also a huge fan of more recent John Lindberg, Bounce, Catbird Sings and Tree Frog Tonality.

John

Posted on: 28 March 2002 by Former member

I can second most of the recommendations above, but I'm less enamored with the soundtracks and experimental stuff.

For the live Masadas, my fav is the Jerusalem set which features some very fierce playing & top notch performances from all. Sonically, too, this live set will test your system's dynamic capability. I also really like Dave Douglas on his solo albums and Joey Baron is a rhythm fiend (altho' his own albums leave something to be desired).

The studio Masadas are a bit more tame but contain some fine music. It is interesting to compare the live versions with the studio ones.

Both Circle Maker and Bar Kokhba are wonderful, although Zorn doesn't actually play on these albums. You find people like Erik Friedlander, Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman et al. playing music and arrangements by Zorn.

Finally, and I've said this often enough, the Voodoo album just proves that avant garde artists can easily play hard bop with their arms tied behind their backs. Not only that, they also easily beat Wynton Marsalis, Joshua Redman and their gang at their own game.

John, although the Gift does contain some "disturbing" images which can be interpreted as child porn, I believe they are strictly tongue-in-cheek and subversive. I don't think they would arouse any sicko's prurient interests.

BTW, Latin Boys Go to Hell was a soundtrack for a gay porn movie of the same name!

Hockman

[This message was edited by hockman on FRIDAY 29 March 2002 at 09:03.]

Posted on: 29 March 2002 by Giles Felgate

Pretty much agree with everyone else on the recommended titles, esp The Big Gundown and Spillane (which incidently has been released without the Albert Collins and turntable/quartet piece but with Godard, one of his other portrait pieces).

If you like Spillane check out The Bribe. It's incidental music for three noir radio plays and is a little more tradiionally structured. I'd also put in a vote for the first Naked City (7559-79238-2) if only because it has the best version of the James Bond theme ever!

PS Markus I think my partner and your wife are from the same mold ie check presence before playing "challenging" music!

Giles

Posted on: 04 April 2002 by Robert Derwae

The recordings Zorn did with guitarist Bill Frisell and trombonist George Lewis. The first, a studio recording, was called "News for Lulu" and it featured imaginative reworkings of songs by Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Sonny Clark and Freddie Redd. The followup, a live recording called "More News for Lulu," had some of the same tunes, as well as some new things. And, in the context of the discussion about cover art, these recordings can be highly recommended as they feature photos of the beautiful, silent-film star Louise Brooks.

Regards,

Robert