John Zorn
John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in New York City) is a American composer and saxophone player. He owns the Tzadik record label and has worked with a large number of experimental musicians, particularly in improvised music, modern classical music and jazz, though he has produced music in most styles.
As a child, he played piano, guitar and flute. He went to college in St. Louis where he discovered free jazz, before dropping out and moving to Manhattan. There he gave concerts in his small apartment, playing a variety of reeds, duck calls, tapes, etc; almost anything. In the mid 1980s he signed to the Elektra-Nonesuch label. Since then, he has released a very large number of records, usually putting out several each year.
Zorn's recorded output includes records by two bands of his own, Masada (a klezmer band playing music that is often described as Jewish jazz) and Naked City (an often aggressive mix of jazz, rock and grindcore). He has also worked with musicians like Bill Frisell, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Keiji Haino and Bill Laswell. He has written music for television and film, which has been collected in the ongoing Filmworks series of records on his Tzadik label. Some of these are jazz-based, others are classical.
He has also written several "game pieces", in which performers are allowed to improvise while following certain strucural rules. These works are in the main named after sports, and include Pool, Archery and Lacrosse, as well as Cobra.
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Bill Laswell | Bob Quine | COBRA | Christian Marclay | Contemporary Art | Dave Douglas | Derek Bailey | Ennio Morricone | Eugene Chadbourne | Fred Frith | Free improvisation | Gerogerigegege | Jazz | Jazz/Musicians | Jazz Age | Jazz music | Jazz musician | KK Null | Klezmer | List of Famous Jews | List of Jews | List of experimental musicians | List of free improvisation musicians | List of jazz musicians | List of noted Jews | List of rock and roll albums in the 1980s | List of uncategorized composers | Listing of noted Jews | M. Doughty | Mark Dresser | Masada | Masada (band) | Michael Doughty | Mike Doughty | Mike Patton | Musical Genres | Musical genre | Musical style | Otomo Yoshihide | Postmodern/Music | Postmodern music | Postmodernism/Music | Praxis, the band | Praxis (band) | Radio (album) | Radio (disambiguation) | Saxophonist | Steve Beresford | The Gerogerigegege | Tzadik | Tzadik Records | Yoshihide Otomo | Zionist Occupation Government | Zionist Occupied Government | Zorn
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