John Zorn is an American avant-garde musician who was heavily involved in the New York Downtown Music scene in the 1980s.
He is best known for his jazz, avant-garde, improvised, and contemporary classic music, but really he is skilled in many different genres of music, as well as with all different instruments, though he is known well for his skill with the saxophone.
He is also a composer whose music is so jammed with different feelings and thoughts that they become akin to literary epics for the music world, though Zorn simply chalks it up to a short attention span requiring him to jam as many of his interchangeable thoughts in his music as possible before the thoughts change again.
His work with the downtown music scene in New York allowed him to establish himself in the city, but also earned him some scorn from critics who placed him in the downtown scene because they were not sure where else to put him.
However, Zorn worked in all different genres, including a stint in Japan where he took advantage of the openness of the culture towards music to create new sounds and techniques.
John Zorn was born in Queens, New York in 1953 and began to play the flute, piano and guitar at an early age under the influence and direction of his parents who were both highly appreciative of music. He was exposed to all sorts of genres, from classical music to jazz, bebop, and country.
In college, he was able to incorporate elements of free jazz and experimental music into his work. He also developed an interest in cartoon music (which led him to create a soundtrack for a cartoon), Jewish music, and hybrids of genres.
The combination of his upbringing and influences created the unique sound that he is well known for and often misunderstood for today. His unique brand of creativity made him establish his own record company called Tzadik in 1995 so that he could create his own music and experiment freely with sound and genre combinations without worrying about answering to anyone else.
He has also created and composes for a number of bands in order to fully explore his love of all different genres of music. Some of these bands include Masada which allows him to develop his jazz and Jewish music influences, and Naked City which is primarily rock and jazz, but can be utilized to play anything.
He has also composed soundtracks for movies, cartoons, chamber music, and game pieces which are supposedly structured improvisations for Zorn, but to a listener can sound very chaotic as he never explains what the structure of the music actually is.
This wide range of musical compositions makes him very difficult to categorize and often very difficult for critics and listeners to swallow, meaning that creating his own label was not only an accomplishment, but a necessity.
Zorn is a rare musician in the music world as much of his work is not just music, but also the equivalent of literary masterpieces of epic movies. His music is often filled with commentary on life, such as the record Spillane which is a tribute to Zorns favorite filmmaker and novelist.
His other CDs, such as The Bribe are so full of musical clues to the story that one could listen to it over and over again and get a different part of the story each time.
He has received a few awards for his music, including the Columbia University's School of the Arts William Schuman Award which is given to someone who has created musical works of lasting significance. Zorn continues to compose and play with his various bands, creating music that seems chaotic and difficult, but is full of rich messages about life.
Author Resource:-
Drew Mers is an advertising consultant to to Empire Rehearsal Studios, which rents music rehearsal studios to bands and musicians in Manhattan (New York City) and Queens.
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