People who release too many damn albums! Pt. 1 (John Zorn)

I would begin with the Parachute Years stuff -- the early more abrasive Zorn with its duck calls and what nots. As for Naked City, I still the think the first major label (ha! what a shock they must have had) is the best. As for the later Jewish Identity stuff, I fell off the wagon after that, abandoning the dt scene. Of course, I also think Zorn plays some kick ass saxophone on one of the songs on Half Japanese's The Band That Would Be King, if your interested in hearing Zorn in a -- um -- slightly more pop context.

*yawn*

lemmie know when you get to Ani.

Probably the obvious answer, but Masada is a great band.

Masada is indeed a great band, but their discography's pretty variable. The live records are way better than the studio ones, and the later ones are better than the earlier ones; _Live at Tonic 2001_ is particularly choice.

My personal favorite Zorn record is _News for Lulu_, a trio with Bill Frisell and George Lewis, playing old Blue Note oddities--the ideal meeting point of his weirdo-experimentation and sweet straight jazz sides. It's also infinitely playable, which you can't say for some of his other records.

There are at least three or four recordings of "Cobra," a wonderful Zorn piece that you really have to see live to "get" (it's played as a game rather than as a composition, and there are lots of visual things going on). If you want to get a vague sense of it, though, I recommend the "live at the Knitting Factory" version, which has 12 different lineups taking it on.

Usually I see people complaining about the uniformity of Masada's group of studio albums, so what you say interests/confuses me, since without having heard all of them I find the comparisons drawn between them and Miles' second quintet's albums plausible.

Uh, if you go to the record store only twice a month, you'll be there just in time for the newest album by the Fall. In the last 25 years, hasn't the fall released something like 30+ records, not counting comps, live albums and EPs?

The Fall definitely release too many damn records. That said, I don't know anyone that argues that anything recent is their best stuff. Everyone is gonna to point you to Hex Enduction Hour or This Nation's Saving Grace and say if you like that get the other albums around it and stop when you have enough. The band just hasn't made enough stylistic leaps to really make their discography that baffling (unlike Zorn or Harris or David Tibet/Steve Stapleton). So it doesn't really matter if they released albums every five years or every ten days, no one views new Fall stuff as anything but just that new Fall stuff. And everyone knows that it's gonna sounds a lot like the last new Fall stuff.

i disagree... i thought "the unutterable" was really fucking good, and i started with "saving grace."

in terms of zorn, his interpretations of Morricone are really good, there's the Locus Solus album, which is closer to no-wave & avant rock, lots of Arto Lindsay on that one... i'm surprised no one mentioned "the gift" which is one of the best 'exotica' abums EVER. no joke, it's a gorgeous album. also have to second the recommendation of Cobra @ the Knitting Factory... but yeah it really does need to be seen to be fully appreciated.

the "so many albums, where to start" argument is really difficult to do with most any jazzer, honestly...

Actually, The Fall went kind of electronica for a little while, with 'Levitate' and I forget the other one.

i revealed Zorn's secret plan herea>

― chaki, Sunday, 17 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh--Masada's Alef, Beit, Gimel and Dalet were all recorded the same day (2/20/94), hence are very similar; Hei and Vav are 7/16-17/95; Zayin is 4/16/96; Het is 8/1/96; Tet is 4/21/97; Yod is 9/15/97. And (to my mind) they really came into their own as a live band after Yod.

The related Masada String Trio thing _Issachar and Zevulun_ is pretty neat too.

Everyone is gonna to point you to Hex Enduction Hour or This Nation's Saving Grace and say if you like that get the other albums around it and stop when you have enough.

This is interesting to me. I'm not a fan of the Fall (and am amazed at their reputation around here), but "This Nation's Saving Grace" has one of the only songs of theirs that I can really say I like, "Paintwork." I used to have that album on vinyl and regret getting rid of it. Actually, I think I'd like them better without Mark E. Smith, which must mean that I am missing the point.

actually i really got a kick of YES THAT'S IT from the implicit claim here: Zorn = Mark E. Smith

Someone else can do the math tho. I am just the visionary genius who er indicated how korrekt other ppl were being yay me.

Classic:
*All* the Masada albums (perhaps due to the fact that they do sound so similar, so how can any one of them be bad, right? Well, not that simple, but when Zorn gets serious for a second, he can often be very interesting, in a mature kind of way.)

*All* the Naked City albums (though Radio is a bit redundant, the rest are universes unto themselves).

Spillane, Godard and The Big Gundown - With TBG perhaps being the worst of the three, at least for me.

Kristallnacht, Bar Kokhba and The Circle Maker

Dud:
Bits of the Filmworks series. Some of these are interesting (7, I think, with the percussion piece, and many Masada-esque pieces comes to mind), though many seem like Zorn-by-the-numbers to me.

Elegy - I've seen this thing get lots of props. I don't know why, because it is one of the least engaging Zorn pieces I've ever heard.

Aporias - Still not totally convinced with Zorn's "proper" classical records -- though, Angelus Novus surprised me.

Not really my cup of tea:
The game pieces (i.e., Cobra, Archery,, Lacrosse, et al). I think we need to see other people, it's not you it's me, it's nobody's fault, etc, etc.

Douglas, I think the string trio thing you're referring to IS just Circle Maker - it's packaged as two discs with those names. (In fact if I remember right the notes only contain titles for one of the discs' songs.)

REVIVE!!!!

from the tzadik website:
NEW JAPAN
Yamataka Eye/John Zorn: Naninani II
Eye and Zorn first met in Tokyo back in 1986. They have travelled
together, toured, performed, laughed, cried, recorded and
collectively been responsible for some of the strangest music ever
conceived. In 1995, nine years after their first meeting, they went
into the studio to create one of the first releases in the Tzadik New
Japan series: Nani Nani. In 2003 they returned to the studio to
create NANINANI II, a wild and crazy compendium of fragile screams
and tender fire. After almost twenty years the telepathic rapport of
these two kindred spirits is stronger than ever.
scheduled to come out in october 2004.