Underrated Artist: John Zorn

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BleuPanda
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Underrated Artist: John Zorn

Post by BleuPanda »

It's been a while since we had one of these, and I've been wanting to discuss this artist with somebody (since my real-life friends immediately lose interest when I describe what exactly John Zorn is...).

John Zorn was only a recent discovery of mine, after I noticed sonofsamiam mention him in a topic about Glenn Branca's The Ascension. I was intrigued by The Ascension as an experiment but not exactly as an enjoyable piece of music. When I turned on Zorn's Naked City, I expected much of the same. Let's just say I was very, very wrong.

I'm not the biggest guy on jazz, and most forms of metal I listen to as an outsider. John Zorn takes the most extreme forms of both and juxtaposes them together in a beautiful mess of noise. It is chaos in a perfect form.

Zorn (and his band Naked City) is one of those artists that will never be fully embraced by the critical community, or many people in general. I believe that's by design; few works have gone through so much effort to push the listener away. Yet there are a few of us who are drawn back to his ungodly mixture.

Above all else, Zorn is talented - both avant garde jazz and grindcore rely on certain techniques, and he pulls everything off. Though his records rarely if ever combine the two genres in the same moments, he creates one unifying sound between these disparate genres.

I'm still only breaking into my Zorn phase; all I've heard so far is his three albums listed on this website; but he's a prolific artist, the type that will generally have a single work gather acclaim as a stand-in for everything else he has done. Naked City and Torture Garden are what I call 'experience' albums, the works I listen to more for what they're doing than my enjoyment; it's just an added bonus that its experimentation comes off as fun to me. Spillane is a pre-Naked City record, so it lacks the grindcore elements, but it's an excellent representation of his jazz sound. The Naked City album was an immediate entry to my top 100, and the other two are just outside. As such, I naturally recommend all of them.

Just a heads-up: from what I can tell, pretty much every album released under his Naked City and Painkiller bands has rather disturbing pictures of dead bodies for album covers; I wouldn't be surprised if there were others among his works. Though I love his music, I find this decision as tasteless as it is tacky; it's such a predictable choice for a grindcore act.


(this is where I hope sonofsamiam chimes in and gives us his take on Zorn)
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BleuPanda
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Re: Underrated Artist: John Zorn

Post by BleuPanda »

So underrated he only gets a dozen views and slips halfway down the first page without a comment!
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BleuPanda
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Re: Underrated Artist: John Zorn

Post by BleuPanda »

Tragic :(
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bootsy
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Re: Underrated Artist: John Zorn

Post by bootsy »

BP, I've never heard of him but I will give him a listen. Sounds pretty interesting.
sonofsamiam
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Re: Underrated Artist: John Zorn

Post by sonofsamiam »

Sorry to be late on this, time is very tight for me these days.

The thing about John Zorn is his catalog is SO vast (he's got 155 or so albums on RYM, plus about 30 listed classical works, and he just keeps on recording), I would have to think there are very few true experts out there. So I can speak about what I've heard, which is generally very good.

The grindcore triptych BleuPanda referred to includes Naked City, still likely his career peak, as well as Torture Garden and Grand Guignol. All of these are marked by disturbing covers as Bleu mentioned, and the latter 2 offer diminishing returns. That sort of cover art does not span all his work, though.

I personally LOVE Spillane, as well as the earlier The Big Gundown, where he takes Morricone and puts him through the free-jazz/avant blender. There is also Cobra from the 80s, which is called a "game piece" and is system music, but of the most enjoyable kind. Also in the 80s is an extremely raucous but very interesting tribute to Ornette Coleman, Spy vs. Spy. None of this period is for the faint of heart, but I still consider it his general peak, culminating in Naked City.

In the 90s he moved toward more of a focus on Jewish music, touched by classical. I have only heard a bit of this stuff, but very much like The Circle Maker (which is highly listenable), find At the Mountains of Madness with his Electric Masada group to be intimidating and occasionally interesting, and find Kristallnacht, which recreates the beginning of the Holocaust, to be great in theory but tough going in practice.

The 2000s brought some more accessible sounds on occasion, especially The Dreamers, which is a ton of fun, and The Gift, which is easily digestible but didn't stick to the ribs. I've given a lot of other albums brief chances, but going full on into Zorn is a life commitment I'm not ready to make. I'm happy enough with the albums I mentioned above, but will always check out new things if I get a big recommendation. Overall with Zorn, I find him to be an artist that is constantly questing, will try anything, loves extremes, and never loses his sense of fun. He hits sometimes and misses sometimes, but I have huge respect for the guy.
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bootsy
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Re: Underrated Artist: John Zorn

Post by bootsy »

BP, good call on this. I listened to all 3 of his albums listed on the AM 3000 and the Big Gundown and enjoyed all three. I'm glad you introduced me to this guy. As I said I hadn't heard of him. That's another reason why I love this site so much. You guys have introduced me to so many amazing artists and this guy is one of them.
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