By the 1980s, post-bop jazz had fragmented into factions representing traditionalism (exemplified by Wynton Marsalis), freedom (Ornette Coleman, Pharaoh Sanders), and fusion (Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea). Concurrently, the city of New York, never a stranger to new musical directions, played host to some of the biggest figures in the hardcore punk movement. If the great artists of any era are representative of their zeitgeist, then John Zorn is one such artist.
A native New Yorker from birth, Zorn allegedly practiced ten hours per day while in college, but certainly did not focus on the bebop language. You may consider him the John Cage of jazz; in his hands, every object is an instrument, every sound a melody.
A scene sprung around Zorn and his colleagues, converging on sites like the Knitting Factory, where Zorn would host regular performances of a game piece called “Cobra.”
The music of New York’s downtown challenged the sensibilities of jazz traditionalists (one track on a CD by the Zorn-led Naked City is entitled “Jazz Snob Eat Shit”); and its influence reached the work of rock musicians, including Michael Patton of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, and members of Soul Coughing. Patton, originally from the West Coast, would eventually collaborate with Zorn; and Mike Doughty formed Soul Coughing while working as a doorman at the Knitting Factory.
Whereas fusion sought to borrow elements of rock and soul while remaining a jazz style, Zorn’s projects betrayed a complete irreverence for tradition, treating the jazz language as only one of many tools for the creation of a pure music. His works touch all traditions while never remaining grounded in any single one.
The scope of Zorn’s catalog is vast. He has released film soundtracks (including some inspired rearrangements of Ennio Morricone), hard-bop and freeform jazz albums, classical works, experimental and “noise” albums, and even music for children. But my favorite project was Naked City, which he described as a “composition workshop.” Naked City’s self-titled debut album featured noir soundtrack pieces like “I Want to Live” and “Chinatown” alongside grindcore tracks, many clocking in at under a minute, and featuring the screams and warbles of vocalist Yamataka Eye (Michael Patton in some live performances).
Naked City’s second studio album, Grand Guignol, ditched the noir themes for arrangements of classical pieces by Debussy, Scriabin, and Messaien, but retained the noisy vignettes. The highlight of this album, “Speedfreaks,” clocks in at around one minute, and has the performers jumping musical genres with dizzying rapidity.
My one experience watching Zorn live was when his Jewish music combo, Masada, opened for the Maria Schneider big band. His quartet was so aggressively dynamic as to steal a bit of thunder from Schneider — no easy feat.
