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Information About

John Zorn




  Years Active 1973 to present
  Origin New York City , USA
  Music Genre Free Jazz , Improvised , Modern Classical Music
  Record Label Tzadik


John Zorn (born September 2 , 1953 in New York City ) is an American Composer and Saxophonist /multi-instrumentalist. He owns the Tzadik record label and has worked with a large number of experimental Musician s, particularly in improvised music, incorporating Modern Classical Music , Jazz and even Death Metal and Grindcore as well as having produced music to include most styles.

As a child, he played '', wherein Zorn offered a number of often radical Arrangement s of Morricone's famed songs from various Movie s. ''The Big Gundown'' was endorsed by Morricone, and incorporated elements of traditional Japanese Music , Soul Jazz , and other diverse Musical Genres .

Zorn is perhaps best known for his work with Masada , with Joey Baron (drums), Dave Douglas (trumpet), Greg Cohen (bass); Masada is an Ornette Coleman -influenced band playing compositions based on Jew ish Scale s. The Masada songs are part of a songbook with several different arrangements. These include the Masada String Trio , Bar Kohkba , and Electric Masada . He has also played with Painkiller (a mix of Grindcore and Free Jazz in which he is joined by Mick Harris of Napalm Death ) and Naked City (an often aggressive mix of jazz, rock and Thrash Metal ). He has also worked with musicians such as Bill Frisell , Wayne Horvitz , Derek Bailey , Cyro Baptista , Trevor Dunn , Mark Feldman , Fred Frith , Erik Friedlander , Keiji Haino , Bill Laswell , Arto Lindsay , Mike Patton , John Medeski , Ikue Mori , Robert Quine , Marc Ribot , Jamie Saft , Kenny Wolleson , and the Violent Femmes . 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 .

Zorn has also written several "game pieces", in which performers are allowed to improvise while following certain structural rules. These works are in the main named after sports, and include ''Pool'', ''Archery'', and ''Lacrosse'', as well as ''Cobra''. He is also often noted for his .

Most recently, he has become the principal force behind the opening of The Stone , an avant-garde performance space in NY's Alphabet City that supports itself solely on donations, giving all door revenues directly to the performers. Zorn holds the title of artistic director.

Zorn has lived and worked extensively in Japan and performs and records under the name Dekoboko Hajime , collaborating with and producing for numerous artists including Merzbow , Otomo Yoshihide , Melt Banana and of course Yamatsuka Eye . Many of these artists have now released albums on Tzadik and some regularly travel to New York where Zorn is based.


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