50 Facts About John Zorn

John Zorn was born on September 2,1953 and is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category".

John Zorn entered New York City's downtown music scene in the mid-1970s, collaborating with improvising artists while developing new methods of composing experimental music.

John Zorn spent time in Japan in the late 1980s and early '90s but returned to Lower East Side Manhattan to establish the Tzadik record label in 1995.

Tzadik enabled John Zorn to establish independence, maintain creative control, and ensure the availability of his growing catalog of recordings.

John Zorn prolifically recorded and released new material for the label, issuing several new albums each year, along with recordings by many other artists.

John Zorn has composed concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, and produced music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary.

John Zorn was born in New York City, to a Jewish family, attended the United Nations International School, and studied piano, guitar and flute from an early age.

John Zorn's family had diverse musical tastes: his mother, Vera, listened to classical and world music; his father, Henry John Zorn, was interested in jazz, French chansons, and country music; and his older brother collected doo-wop and 1950s rock and roll records.

John Zorn taught himself orchestration and counterpoint by transcribing scores and studied composition under Leonardo Balada.

John Zorn began playing saxophone after discovering Anthony Braxton's album For Alto when he was studying composition at Webster College in St Louis, Missouri, where he attended classes taught by Oliver Lake.

John Zorn immersed himself in the underground art scene, assisting filmmaker Jack Smith with his performances and attending plays by Richard Foreman.

John Zorn's most enduring game piece is Cobra, composed in 1984 and first recorded in 1987 and in subsequent versions in 1992,1994 and 2002, and revisited in performance many times.

John Zorn's breakthrough recording was 1985's widely acclaimed The Big Gundown released on Nonesuch Records, where John Zorn offered radical arrangements of Ennio Morricone's music for film.

John Zorn followed with another major-label release Spillane in 1987 featuring compositions performed by Albert Collins, the Kronos Quartet, along with the title track, an early "file-card" composition.

John Zorn demonstrated his hard bop credentials as a member of the Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, recording Voodoo in 1986.

John Zorn recorded Spy vs Spy featuring hardcore punk versions of Ornette Coleman's compositions in 1989.

John Zorn stated that "After my record The Big Gundown came out I was convinced that a lot of soundtrack work was going to be coming my way".

John Zorn produced a series of commercial soundtracks for the advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy, including one directed by Jean-Luc Godard, a long-term John Zorn inspiration.

John Zorn used his film commissions to record new ensembles like Masada and the Masada String Trio.

In 2013, after releasing 25 volumes in his Filmworks Series, John Zorn announced that he would no longer be releasing music for film.

John Zorn established Naked City in 1988 as a "compositional workshop" to test the limitations of a rock band format.

In 1991, John Zorn formed Painkiller with Bill Laswell on bass and Mick Harris on drums.

John Zorn's earliest released classical composition, Christabel for five flutes, first appeared on Angelus Novus in 1998.

Later works expanded to include vocal and operatic works; Mysterium released in 2005 featured Frammenti del Sappho for female chorus; Rituals featured John Zorn's opera composed for the Bayreuth Opera Festival in 1998; and La Machine de l'Etre composed in 2000, premiered at the New York City Opera in 2011, and recorded for the 2012 album Music and Its Double.

Conversations with Joey Baron led John Zorn to explore and embrace Jewish culture.

John Zorn set himself the task of writing 100 compositions using the scale within a year.

In 1993 John Zorn engaged Baron along with Dave Douglas and Greg Cohen to provide musical cues for Joe Chappelle's first film Thieves Quartet and established the first Masada group to perform his recent compositions using the instrumental lineup and improvisational approach of Ornette Coleman's pioneering free jazz quartet.

In 1996, John Zorn released Bar Kokhba featuring Masada compositions recorded by a rotating group of musicians.

In 2019, John Zorn formed the New Masada Quartet with Julian Lage, Jorge Roeder, and Kenny Wollesen.

In 2004, John Zorn began composing the second Masada Book, The Book of Angels, resulting in an additional 316 compositions.

John Zorn released thirty-two volumes of Masada Book Two compositions performed by many varied artists.

John Zorn completed the third Masada book, titled The Book Beriah, in 2014.

John Zorn released one of his most popular albums, The Gift, in 2001, which surprised many with its relaxed blend of surf, exotica and world music.

On February 29,2008, at St Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, John Zorn premiered The Dreamers, which saw a return to the gentle compositions first featured on The Gift and established the band of the same name.

In 1992, John Zorn curated the Avant subsidiary of the DIW label and released several Naked City recordings on the label as well as many other albums featuring Zorn affiliated musicians including Derek Bailey, Buckethead, Eugene Chadbourne, Dave Douglas, Erik Friedlander, Wayne Horvitz, Ikue Mori, Bobby Previte, Zeena Parkins and Marc Ribot.

In 1995, in co-operation with jazz producer Kazunori Sugiyama, John Zorn established the Tzadik record label to ensure the availability of his catalogue and promote other musicians.

On Friday April 13,2007, John Zorn played the final night at Tonic before it closed due to financial pressures.

John Zorn was the principal force in establishing The Stone in 2005, an avant-garde performance space in New York's Alphabet City which supports itself solely on donations and the sale of limited-edition CDs, giving all door revenues directly to the performers.

John Zorn holds the title of artistic director and regularly performs 'Improvisation Nights'.

On January 10,2008, John Zorn performed with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson at a special benefit night at The Stone which was released on The Stone: Issue Three on CD.

On February 25,2018, the last performance was held at the original venue and John Zorn moved operations to The New School's The Glass Box Theatre on the basis of a handshake deal.

In September 2003, John Zorn celebrated his 50th birthday with a month-long series of performances at Tonic in New York, repeating an event he had begun a decade earlier at the Knitting Factory.

John Zorn conceptualized the month into several different aspects of his musical output.

John Zorn's bands performed on the weekends, classical ensembles were featured on Sundays, John Zorn performed improvisations with other musicians on Mondays, featured his extended compositions on Tuesdays and a retrospective of game pieces on Wednesdays.

The European leg of John Zorn@60 commenced at the Barbican Theatre in London in July 2013.

In 2000, Zorn edited the book Arcana: Musicians on Music featuring interviews, essays, and commentaries by musicians including Anthony Coleman, Peter Garland, David Mahler, Bill Frisell, Gerry Hemingway, George E Lewis, Fred Frith, Eyvind Kang, Mike Patton and Elliott Sharp, on the compositional process.

John Zorn released the second volume of Arcana: Musicians on Music in the summer of 2007.

John Zorn appeared on the 1985 Henry Hills film Money about the financial struggles of Manhattan avant garde artists during the age of Reaganism.

In 2001, John Zorn received the Jewish Cultural Award in Performing Arts from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

In 2011, John Zorn was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame by Lou Reed, and was awarded the Magister Artium Gandensis, an honorary degree from the University of Ghent.