John Zorn - In Case You Didn't Know

There will always be independent artists, there will always be some freak that says, “This is not right, I’m gonna do it my way.” There will always be experimental music. There will always be people who wanna listen to it. But I just don’t see them taking over the world, you know? Maybe when I was 22 years old I thought we were gonna take over the world, that this was the real music. But now that I have a perspective and I’m 46, 1 look back and I say, “Look at the his tory.” Look at thousands of years of how it’s been and how people are manipulated and how greed functions in our society. - John Zorn

JZ is something of a hero 'round here. I even forgive him his trousers. I've had a Zornological afternoon, and as is usually the case when delving into his musical universe, my mind's reeling from the diversity and dazzling brilliance of much of what he's done. Like Sun Ra, his is a creative cosmos, the totality of which is almost impossible to fully explore. But you can spend a fascinating few hours trying. From minimalist electronic experiments to speed metal, chamber music, rockabilly, surf, blues, jazz, noise and on, he's got to be the most eclectic cat in town. I mean, sometimes I wonder if he has time to do anything else, his output is so enormous. Can you imagine him getting a girlfriend? Perhaps he has one. I don't know and shouldn't comment. Wearing those trousers, I don't reckon his chances much. If by chance you've never heard a John Zorn album, I recommend starting with Film Works III because it offers a good taster of various styles. My favourites include The Bribe and The Big Gundown  but that's because I'm also a fan of film noir and Morricone. The more adventurous amongst you might try Cobra: Game Pieces Vol II. As a regular IMO reader, I know you're pretty adventurous musically, aren't you? I know you have great taste too, which leads me to think you must be into Zorn, and I'm probably wasting my time but, you know, strangers might wander in here looking for something new...strangers for whom Zorn is an unknown entity, perhaps. If you're one of them, I hope this leads you on a mind-boggling musical trip. I've learnt almost nothing over the years, but one thing I have learnt is that it's wrong to assume that 'everyone' appreciates certain great artists, and I don't mean because they should , but that it seems logical, allowing for taste, of course. I'm still surprised, though, when someone expresses total ignorance of Kenyon Hopkins, but that's another matter.

Here is a site you might want to visit for more Zorn. 

And there's a great recent interview here

'Flame Out' Tracklisting.

The 'Flame Out' comp is now available as a download. Listen hear.

1. ?

2. ?

3. Spillane (excerpt) – John Zorn
4. Sitting Target – Stanley Myers
5. Transport – Moebius
6. Cleanliness and Order – Boyd Rice/Daniel Miller
7. ?

8. Cello concerto – Bach

9. Last Tango In Paris – Gato Barbieri

10. ?

11. Flame Out – 101 Strings

12. Bloody Pom Poms - ?

13. Locked grooves

14. ?

15. What’s Wrong? (from ‘THX1133) – Walter Murch

16. Sirius B – Heliocentrics

17. Willie Nelson – Miles Davis

18. ?

19. Shock – Libra

20. du pop a lane (excerpt) – Bernard Parmegiani

21. Steve Allen

22. Deja Vu – Mort Garson

23. ?

24. The School Bus (from ‘Dirty Harry’) – Lalo Schifrin

25. Happy Trails -

Question marks represent samples that would take too much time to describe.

Zorn & Morricone

One of my favourites from JZ. Nightmare alley jazz...

A masterpiece from EM. Minimalist audio terror... 

Interzone - John Zorn

Words falling...notes falling...
   New York’s post-No Wave Freeform Orientalist Metal Jazz soundtrack master musician (?) embarks on a three-part trip through Interzone via almost as many musical styles as there are plagiarised lines in the average Burroughs text.
   It starts in the bazaar and moved like a giant black centipede through Avant-Rock, Improv, Free Jazz and more regular grooves, with all contributors getting an improvisational fix along the way.
   Like The Zone, this is a vast building, each track being a room that bulges to accommodate the players, so Medeski, Wollesen and Ribot make the most of the space. There’s also an electronic element from Ikue Mori.
   Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman have already laid down one trail with their soundtrack to the film, ‘Naked Lunch’; here Zorn find his own. It’s as rewarding and challenging as the words that fell from Bill and Brion’s blades and undoubtedly the best sonic tribute to them so far.

High Jazz - Madlib (Various Artists)

After Jyoti’s ‘Ocotea’ comes this, another excursion into places and spaces past and present in the great jazz continuum – no less.

   I’ve long been cynical about attempts at modern Fusion although a few tunes down the years such as Carl’s ‘Bassbin’ and Roni’s ‘Paper Bag’ did at least throw something of a fresh jazzy twist onto the ‘floor. But there’s seldom enough meat on the bones of all those breaks and techno tunes made in the name of ‘jazz’ as far as I’m concerned. No frightening the horses with such horrors as solos! Only mad people would dance to, say, 12mins 10secs of Jazz, called ‘Sayonara Blues’, as we used to do at the legendary Cutting Edge.

   There’s no time now to have to listen to players expressing themselves – what a bore! I’m waiting for a Jazz album for the Twitter generation – each track lasting no more than five seconds – a toot here, bass note there, one chord on the piano etc. Hold on, John Zorn’s already probably done it.

   So the arch crate-digger and maverick producer Madlib orchestrates, organisers and promotes this here new Jazz thing of various groups and projects. Dave (no surname given) tells us in the liner notes that when Madlib ‘was in the room, everyone was professional: smoke some weed, lay down the tracks, no distractions’. Hold on, ‘smoke some weed’?! Christ, if that’s what passes for professional behaviour amongst musicians these days, what are the unruly ones like? Smoking crack, shooting heroin and forming the beast with two backs between occasional attempts to play instruments? JB would weep. Now he was a hard taskmaster. He sacked Bootsy Collins...not for hedonistic behaviour, but for insisting on spouting The Pinocchio Theory whenever he got the chance...so I heard.

   There’s a wonderfully wayward feel to much of the music on ‘High Jazz’, which is not to say it’s unprofessional, but more the product of minds made hysterical, wandering the negro streets of LA, probably, listening to all that jazz and trying to (re)make sense of it in these times. Take Yesterdays New Quintet, whose ‘live’ ‘medley’ starts simply enough with an instrumental version of Stevie’s ‘Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing’, but after the applause (so it’s not really a ‘medley’) they’re off into a far freer form of modal contemplation lead by keyboards and for part three, another introspective excursion, but this time with bass to the fore. And as on many tracks, the spirit of Sun Ra and Herbie is never far away. Generation Match’s ‘Electronic Dimensions’ captures the mood perfectly, a marriage of rhythm and synth abstraction. This is a real triumph regarding carrying the torch of the electric pioneers of Jazz. And I haven’t said that very often during all my years of blabbering on about music.

   Poyser, Riggins & Jackson’s ‘Funky Butt Part 1’ does what you’d expect from the title, with added edge that distances it from most modern reworkings of the Jazz-Funk formula. And The Big Black Foot Band add another dimension to the collection with two tracks that admirably echo the ‘spiritual jazz’ tradition, complete with poetry that is neither embarrassing, nor too lengthy. In these tracks we hear all the influences, from The Last Poets to Ornette’s ‘Science Fiction’ and Shepp’s African sessions.

   There’s a lot going on here, a world of Afro-Futuristic-Fusion...grooves, improvisation, bursts of energy, righteous madness...various ways in which the past can be made present and correct. As the Art Ensemble used to proclaim: from the ancient to the future.

Writers - A Spotify Playlist

From Graham Greene to Mickey Spillane, I've not excercised any quality control here, but thought it would be interesting to see how many tracks I could find that are named after writers. There are no doubt more, but, you know, life is too short. My favourite is Zorn's tribute to Spillane.

http://open.spotify.com/user/slimjenkins/playlist/2dQDWqBu66CIkdLOphYNhO