I'm glad this thread is still alive. It has made me start to revisit, and appreciate, my Zorn albums.
Tonight's playlist was Invitation to a Suicide. While a little repetitive, the overall theme is very nice and there are some really great tracks. I love "Bugsy's Jazztet" which blends a great bass groove with some nice Skronk overtones and "Lonely are the Dumb" which has Marc Ribot playing in his imitable Tom Waits fashion (a la swordfishtrombone).
Does anyone have the complete naked city collection? The remastered ones of all their albums in one box set? Its pretty hefty but it makes sense to me to get that rather than all the individual albums one by one.
I can heartily recommend Live at Tonic 2001, particularly if you're looking for some more 'conventional' jazzy Zorn. 2 CDs, John Zorn (sax), Dave Douglas (trumpet), Greg Cohen (bass) and the infallible Joey Baron (drums).
What a huge subject JZ is! You have the jazz, the experimental rock, the soundtracks, the classical concert pieces, the experimental free improv, the Masada stuff ... he does more genres than most artists do albums.
Some personal favourites: Masada Live at the 50th Birthday Celebration; Madness Love and Mysticism; Invitation to a Suicide, Erik Friedlander's Volac album, Six Litanies for Heliogabalus, Naked City's Radio. That doesn't even scratch the surface.
Originally Posted by Sarah /img/forum/go_quote.gif Same here! Totally changed my attitude towards live music especially. I was broadcasting an internet radio show and there was a regular listener that I had gotten to be friendly with, we had some similar tastes in music. He suggested I check out some Zorn and I did, though it took me a while to find something that I liked on first listen. (The actual strange part about that story is that I found out later that the guy who recommended it to me was 12 or 13 years old at the time... not necessarily relevant except that I'm completely impressed with anyone who has such an understanding of music at that age.)
conducting, the improv solos, the game aspects, and the concert-hall sonic impact - it just changed how I think about music, how I hear music. Things I didn't "get" before made sense afterwards. It opened my ears so much.
Zorn is an acquired taste. I gravitate to the Masada work. Not so much the screechy stuff. The birthday discs are a good place for someone to start. Skip the Frith, though.
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