The John Zorn Thread

The idea for this thread came about from the Bill Frisell thread I have linked here.

Let this be a place for us to talk about the strangeness ( and wonder if you like ) that is John Zorn.

Gregg and I have had many an email exchange about Zorn and we agree and disagree about him.

With regard to what has already been said on the Frisell thread and to get the conversational juices flowing, here is what I think:

• To me, Masada is the best thing John Zorn has ever done. It seems like an extension of Ornette Coleman's quartets of the 60's and the Jewish flavour is one of its strongest points and so is Joey Baron.
• With the regard to Fred's comment on William Parker as compared with Zorn :"William Parker, even though his roots are also in earlier decades, looks like he'll leave a more substantial musical legacy. " I totally agree...Parker seems to be more connected with meaning than Zorn and perhaps he should be the next candidate for the genius grant.
  
• Other than finding it plain awful, I don't see Zorn's Naked City project as anything more than a rebellious wall of sound. Like Fred, I do not believe generations looking back on music though the 80's, 90's and 2000's onwards will to Naked City as an essential peice of "artwork". I will not at least.
  
• Does Zorn deserve the genius status? I am not sure. It would depend who is doing the judging and what characteristics are being judged as genius. Myself, I see him as mainly experimental and can do without hearing most of his "music". <-- perhaps a cheap sentence but I have said it, and particularly mean the last half of it.

Bill Frisell

This is for Fred. And I would like to say in honour of Bill's recent album but I don’t have it yet.

I make no question that I think Bill Frisell is the reason the guitar was invented. I might like other guitarists for certain reasons, but Bill Frisell is what guitar is supposed to be. Now, you might be thinking ‘well, WHICH Bill? Old, weird Bill? Country Bill? ECM Bill? Motian Trio Bill? Any number of other Bills? ’ and my answer is yes. ALL Bill. Bill is able to play anything and still sound like himself, what ever that may mean in that situation. So many people say this, but from thrash with Zorn to standards with a banjo, Bill is one of the few who can actually DO it, and has. Bill makes it his own, but still manages to blend and play everything right. Everything Bill plays is right, always. You get the feeling that there was no other choice than to play what Bill played at that point. Opinion? Technically, but go ahead, debate me.

In my conversations with Fred (who is not fond of Bill’s Americana/country undertones and strongly dislikes ‘Nashville’) I came up with an analogy for Bill. Bill’s playing and ideas are a carnival. I was going to explain out each aspect, but then realized that you should just make up your own mind when hearing him what part he is at that time. From the ferris wheel and bumper cars to the beer tent and the hog calling contests, it’s all there. Bill discography is massive and I include all his sideman stuff too as it is equally important in seeing where he is coming from. I don’t know a single person that does NOT at least really like Bill Frisell. Sure, some may like certain aspects or periods of his playing more than others, I recognize that although I love all of it, not everyone does. There are few musicians that I can honestly say that I like EVERYTHING they have done, very few (though I won’t name them here), but Bill is obviously one of them.

G