The Dreamers have always been John Zorn’s most immediately appealing project. With The Dreamers, Zorn finally set aside the kabbalistic solemnity that suffused so much of his late 90s work in favor of the pulpier, less austere sounds of exotica, surf, lounge, library music and mod jazz. When Zorn’s combo applied their considerable skills to classic holiday fare in 2011, they managed to make one of the greatest and grooviest Christmas albums of all time.
Category: John Zorn
Punk Jazz :: John Zorn’s Spy vs Spy at 35
Sometime in the mid-1980s, John Zorn was hanging out in New York City’s East Village when he made a career-altering choice: to take in a hardcore show at CBGBs. The experience profoundly shaped his next album, the ultra fast, ultra brief Spy vs Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman.
John Zorn :: The Gift
The genre known as exotica stands just next door to a number of considerably better respected musical forms. Speed up that reverbed guitar and you’ve got surf. Slow it down and you’re in the spaghetti western territory of Ennio Morricone. With a good deal more distortion and chops, you’ll be at spitting distance from acid rock. With a fleshed out jazz instrumentation and an expanded improvisational element and you’re not too far from the early Sun Ra. Perhaps this is what drew the American avant-garde saxophonist, composer and impresario John Zorn to it.