Okay folks,

I'm confused about this John Zorn thing. Why do people think he's a great composer, listen to his music, or go to his concerts?

I can't, for the life of me, buy into his "4 bars of swing/4 bars of hardcore drums and squeally alto sax/4 bars new age crap...etc." Is this really that innovative or new?

He writes 12 tone music, which isn't very good...well, any 10-year-old can write 12 tone music. I guess he makes up for it by superimposing some sort of violent, pretentious subject matter over it...Sexual Bondage, oooooooooo.

Because Zorn writes a lot of music that stems from rock and roll, we can take a careful look at these simple moments, when he's not baffling undergrads with sound effects, and put his "talent" for composition to the test.

You can see from his more mainstream sounding stuff, or his cartoon/video game music, that he is very mediocre. Compare his music to the great rock musicians like Bowie, or the Beatles, or even his friend, Mike Patton, and you'll see what I mean. Whatever it is I'm talking about...the ability to write "catchy" music is not one of his gifts. I don't know, it takes more than cool cover art to impress me.

I've made countless attempts at understanding his music and have seriously tried to appreciate it.

Basically, if someone took all the boring, crappy "experimental" bongo jams that Tool puts between every one of their songs and expanded them to a 3 hour long piece, it would sound brilliant in comparison to Zorn's music.

Flame me if you must, but seriously, WHAT'S THE DEAL FOLKS?

I guess I kind of like his marketing approaches and cover art and what not. The man sells himself brilliantly. Musically, though, he seems like another egghead who's convinced a lot of rock musicians and college students that he's doing something important for music.

Another one is Paul Dresher. A weak rock-musician-turned-composer who has achieved international fame God knows how. Go borrow "Slow Fire" from the library if you doubt me. Don't buy it, though.

Please prove me wrong! There are quite a few musicians that I'm into now, but used to hate...can you do it for Zorn, too?

I'll get back to you on this, Roivas...I've got some work to do, but I'll write up my lengthy defense of Zorn sometime tonight...

Thanks, Seba!

I'm interested in hearing what you've got to say about Zorn too, Seba. Although I'm sure I haven't dedicated as much time to trying to listen to him as Roivas has, I basically hold a similar opinion...

Here's what they have at my library. Any suggestions for easy listening? Thanks again!

IAO / Music in sacred light
Cobra / John Zorn's game pieces, vol. 2
Masada live at Tonic, 2001
Solo flights / Laimon, Sara
The parachute years, 1977-1980
Film works. IV, S/M + more
Five / Douglas, Dave (already tried this one...so damn boring. Who needs this when you have Mingus?)
John Zorn's cobra live at the Knitting Factory
Redbird (Already tried: zzz)
Short stories / Kronos Quartet
Manhattan cascade / Klucevsek, Guy
Torture garden
Naked city
The Carl Stalling project
Voodoo / Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet

Although I do agree that John Zorn can be highly inconsistent, he has released some really wonderful albums.

Here are some of the albums I recommend before you dismiss altogether.

Masada - Live In Sevilla

This is my favourite Masada album, although Live At Tonic is also good, just not as good in my opinion.

John Zorn - Filmworks XIII

In my opinion Zorn's best Filmworks, it is a soundtrack for a film called 'Invitation to a Suicide', it features Marc Ribot on guitar (who has played with Tom Waits), as well as Rob Burger on accordion, Erik Friedlander cello, Trevor Dunn bass and finally Kenny Wolleson on marimba/vibes.

A really nice album.

Short stories / Kronos Quartet

This is a very nice album from the Kronos Quartet. There is only one piece by John Zorn on it. The rest are by other composers. My favourite track on this album is the final track with Indian Raga Singer Pandit Pran Nath, worth finding just for that.

There are more, that I might mention latter.

I'll get back to you on my feelings about Zorn sometime tomorrow...I have a test tomorrow, not the best time...

This one is blues based and swinging. Zorn, along with Wayne Horvitz, Ray Drummond and Bobby Previte cover the music of Sonny Clark. They play it pretty straight ahead, but you can tell that these are not old school musicians. I really enjoy listening to the title cut, with its syncopated walk on the dark side vibe.

It's not a core recording of what Zorn is all about, but it is a nice listen.

you have all of those at your library? damn. I need to live near you.

the only thing we have here are basically mainstream material, since we don't have that much money to spend.

I live in a Penn State town. I'm not a student, but they let me take out materials. It's amazing how much they have here... Only about 4 Stockhausen CDs, though! When my girlfriend was in school, we had access to the interlibrary loan system...man, was that crazy.