John Zorn was born September 2nd, 1953 in
New York City. Zorn was trained from an early age in
classical music composition. When as a boy he attended a concert held by his French instructor, Jacques Coursil, he became interested in
jazz music. His musical influences are wildly numerous and diverse, but the first jazz musicians to have an impact on him include
Anthony Braxton,
Ornette Coleman,
Jimmy Giuffre and
Roscoe Mitchell. Since 1974 he has had a huge influence on the music scene in New York, being especially active in the Lower East Side, where he is still a frontrunner of the "
downtown avant garde". He applies what he calls "
game theory" to largely improvisational music. Even as a young man, Zorn's piercingly distinct screaming
alto saxophone technique garnered him respect from established jazz musicians.
One of his first major accomplishments was to arrange several pieces for
Hal Willner's tribute to
Thelonious Monk, dubbed
That's The Way I Feel Now. In 1985 he played sessions on
Kurt Weill's album
Lost In The Stars and broke into the jazz market with
The Big Gundown, for which he included several unlikely numbers and musicians (including "Big"
John Patton and
Toots Thielemans). In 1987, he released
News For Lulu with Lewis and
Bill Frisell. This album is a series of classic hard bop tunes from the 60s, twisted with Zorn's easily recognizable sax-shrieks.
He has long been a supporter of
hardcore and thrash-style metal, which he holds has at least as much intensity as the
free jazz of the 1960's. He has supported and recorded with members of
Nottingham and England's
death metal favorites
Napalm Death, such as several terrifyingly graceful versions of
Ornette Coleman's tunes on the album
Spy Vs Spy, released in 1989.
Naked City, which includes Bill Frisell and drummer
Joey Baron, was formed soon after this, and the band's unique blend of "
sleaze-jazz" (
almost like
lounge music, but not),
surf rock and hardcore became well-known in New York's underground music circles. They made a self-titled album for
Elektra Records in 1990, and continued to record untouchable music throughout the 90s, often including
Yamatsuka Eye of
the Boredoms.
In 1991 Zorn founded a band called
Pain Killer with bass player/producer
Bill Laswell and Napalm Death drummer
Mick Harris. They released
The Guts Of A Virgin on the
Earache Records hardcore label. Over the next several years he formed
Masada, a group whose lineup changes from album to album, but typically includes Zorn, trumpeter
Dave Douglas, bassist
Greg Cohen and his old friend Joey Baron on the kit. Zorn's ability to blend almost insoluble genres of music into graceful, beautiful, earsplitting musical works is unmatched. He recently formed his own label,
Tzadik.
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/zorn_john/bio.jhtml
massive discog at:
http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/zorn_john/albums.jhtml
thanks to sighmoan for the monk fix!