John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist, and multi-instrumentalist with hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, and producer across a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and improvised music. He incorporates diverse styles in his compositions, which he identifies as avant-garde or experimental. Zorn was described by Down Beat as “one of our most important composers”.
Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid-1970s, performing with musicians across the sonic spectrum and developing experimental methods of composing new music. After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and received wide acclaim with the release of The Big Gundown, an album reworking the compositions of Ennio Morricone. He attracted further attention worldwide with the release of Spillane in 1987 and Naked City in 1990. After spending almost a decade travelling between Japan and the US, he made New York his permanent base and established his own record label, Tzadik, in the mid-1990s.
Tzadik enabled Zorn to maintain independence from the mainstream music industry and ensured the continued availability of his growing catalog of recordings, allowing him to prolifically record and release new material, issuing several new albums each year, as well as promoting the work of many other musicians. Zorn has led the hardcore bands Naked City and Painkiller, the Jewish music-inspired jazz quartet Masada, composed 613 pieces as part of the three Masada songbooks that have been performed by an array of groups, composed concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, and produced music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with many other musicians and ensembles that perform his diverse output.
John Zorn Biography / Wiki
| Name | John Zorn |
| Also Know | ジョン・ゾーン |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Sound |
| Place of Birth | Manhattan, New York, USA |
| Date of Birth | September 02, 1953 |
| Age(as in 2023 Feb) | 69 |
| Deathday |
John Zorn Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn | Himself | 2002-01-01 | Claudia Heuermann’s A Bookshelf On Top of the Sky gives us a rare peek into the working methods of one of the most notorious and reclusive composers o… |
| Rising Tones Cross | Himself | 1985-09-30 | This film is a documentary composition of new jazz, New York as the city that generates it, and the musicians playing it. The thoughts of the saxopho… |
| Sabbath in Paradise | Himself | 2000-07-07 | Documentary examining contemporary Jewish musical culture in New York’s avant garde Jazz scene in the 1990s…. |
| Masada: Live at Tonic 1999 | Himself | 2004-11-09 | Jazz visionary John Zorn Masada burst onto the scene with a vengeance, pushing the boundaries of the genre by melding it with punk rock, classical mus… |
| John Zorn: The Hermetic Organ Volume 10 – Bozar, Brussels | Himself | 2022-12-02 | Part of a CD+DVD set released by Tzadik. Recorded at the powerful organ at Henry LeBoeuf Hall, Bozar in Brussels, this is one of Zorn’s most beautif… |
| Zorn III (2018 – 2022) | Himself | 2022-03-11 | For 12 years now, Mathieu Amalric has been filming the stupendous New York saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Whirligig films that Zorn likes to prog… |
| Zorn I (2010 – 2016) | Himself | 2017-10-13 | Mathieu Amalric’s film with John Zorn began as a European TV commission that was quickly abandoned in favor of something more intimate: an ongoing d… |
| Zorn II (2016 – 2018) | Himself | 2018-02-04 | For 12 years now, Mathieu Amalric has been filming the stupendous New York saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Whirligig films that Zorn likes to prog… |
| Money | Himself | 1985-01-01 | Money (1985) is an historical document of the early days of “language poetry” and the downtown improvised music scene. A manic collage film from the … |
| Kikoe | 2009-01-25 | Experimental documentary about Japanese experimental musician Otomo Yoshihide. Includes interviews with multiple musicians, artists, and writers as we… | |
| Put More Blood Into the Music | Himself | 1988-08-06 | PBS produced documentary in two parts: the first is dedicated to saxophonist and composer John Zorn; the second is about Sonic Youth at the height of … |
| The Revenge of the Dead Indians | Himself | 1993-01-01 | This is a full-length documentary honoring the life and work of American composer and artist John Cage. Cage is considered one of the most influential… |
| Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis | Himself | 2007-04-11 | In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith’s perform… |
John Zorn Production Movies
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| Pierre Hebert/Bob Ostertag: Between Science and Garbage | Executive Producer | 2004-04-27 | A spectacular collaboration between prize winning Canadian animator Pierre Hébert and cutting edge electronics wizard Bob Ostertag. Outrageous noise … |
| Bhima Swarga: The Journey of the Soul from Hell to Heaven | Executive Producer | 2007-07-12 | Loosely based on a section of the great Indian Mahabharata epic, Mori’s Bhima Swarga (The Heaven of Bhima) is a riveting audiovisual exercise that use… |
Writing
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| The Port of Last Resort | Musical | 1998-01-01 | Documentary that follows the lives of several Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during WWII…. |
| Well Then There Now | Writer | 2011-11-20 | An unfaithful interpretation of John Zorn’s early 80’s film script, “A Treatment For A Film in 15 Scenesâ€. I consider “Well Then There Now  |
| 15 Scenes: 254 Shots | Writer | 2011-01-01 | Iconic film moments juxtaposed with the ordinary. The methods to create the shots run from classic studio set-ups to shooting on location using todayâ… |
| Bare Room | Writer | 2011-01-01 | B-movies, industrial films, TV commercials, home movies, animation, and softcore porn have been collected and reassembled into a fractured noir murder… |
Sound
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| In the Mirror of Maya Deren | Music | 2002-03-15 | Documentary about the life of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, who led the independent film movement of the 1940s…. |
| White and Lazy | Music | 1986-01-01 | Short movie…. |
| The Golden Boat | Music | 1990-09-30 | Inspired in form by American police TV shows and soap operas, The Golden Boat is a madcap, surreal dash through the streets of New York city, telling … |
| Le deuxième jour | Music | 1988-01-01 | A film by Robert Cahen… |
| She Must Be Seeing Things | Music | 1987-09-14 | Agatha is an international lawyer, Jo a filmmaker. The two women are lovers. While Jo is on the road showing her films, Agatha discovers and reads her… |
| Boy | Music | 2008-08-10 | The life of the old horse comes to end behind that – the death. But before the death, the fortune gives him the last fantastic vision which opens the … |
| Notes on Marie Menken | Music | 2006-04-20 | A look at avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken…. |
| The Port of Last Resort | Music | 1998-01-01 | Documentary that follows the lives of several Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during WWII…. |
| Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII | Music | 2002-08-02 | Through interviews we meet some of the people who risked their lives to hide Jewish children during World War II and how this experience has continued… |
| Belle de Nature | Music | 2009-01-01 | The more the knots tighten around her body, the more Clara’s imagination flies away. She finds herself naked at the edge of a forest. The grass tickle… |
| A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn | Music | 2002-01-01 | Claudia Heuermann’s A Bookshelf On Top of the Sky gives us a rare peek into the working methods of one of the most notorious and reclusive composers o… |
| Tears of Ecstasy | Music | 1995-11-10 | A conceptual pinku film by renowned experimental artist Hiroyuki Oki, which is conceived of 60 shots which all are 60 seconds long and represent an ab… |
| KiyaKiya | Music | 2011-01-01 | — The term “KiyaKiya” comes from the old Japanese expression “mune ga kiyakiya suru.” I first encountered it in Shibusawa Tatsuhiko’s book Introduc… |
| Sabbath in Paradise | Music | 2000-07-07 | Documentary examining contemporary Jewish musical culture in New York’s avant garde Jazz scene in the 1990s…. |
| Astronome: A Night at the Opera (A Disturbing Initiation) | Music | 2009-01-01 | An opera by John Zorn and Richard Foreman… |
| Latin Boys Go to Hell | Music | 1997-09-05 | A cute, openly gay latin boy’s hormones go into overdrive when his hunky cousin Angel arrives for an extended stay. The two explore the young and some… |
| Die Kunst des Erinnerns – Simon Wiesenthal | Music | 1994-10-23 | This film by Johanna Heer and Werner Schmiedel represents a homage to a man revered internationally as one of the great humanitarians of the 20th cent… |
| Little Lieutenant | Music Arranger | 1994-01-01 | Little Lieutenant is a look back at the late Weimar era with its struggles and celebrations leading up to world war, a period piece. Scored to John Zo… |
| Little Lieutenant | Conductor | 1994-01-01 | Little Lieutenant is a look back at the late Weimar era with its struggles and celebrations leading up to world war, a period piece. Scored to John Zo… |
| Little Lieutenant | Musician | 1994-01-01 | Little Lieutenant is a look back at the late Weimar era with its struggles and celebrations leading up to world war, a period piece. Scored to John Zo… |
| The eye | Music | 1999-01-01 | Short animation from Nicolas Brault… |
| Neo-Geo: An American Purchase | Music | 1989-01-01 | Produced during a year-long residency in New York, Neo Geo is a vivid portrayal of the contemporary American cultural landscape…. |
| Despite Treblinka | Music | 2002-04-06 | In 1942, nazi leaders met in Wansee to organize the final solution to the Jewish problem. The Warsaw guetto was first. Treblinka was created in a rura… |
| Maohgai | Original Music Composer | 1993-08-06 | Kishi is a 37-year-old personnel officer and fairly happy with work, wife and child. But he turns out to be susceptible to a more exciting life. Throu… |
| Masada: Live at Tonic 1999 | Music | 2004-11-09 | Jazz visionary John Zorn Masada burst onto the scene with a vengeance, pushing the boundaries of the genre by melding it with punk rock, classical mus… |
| Arcana | Music | 2010-01-01 | A globally composed, musically arranged montage-round: so Henry Hills’s arcana appears to be, a fulminant 30-minute cut-up epic that takes footage â… |
| Thieves Quartet | Music | 1993-10-01 | Art gathers the ex-prisoners Jimmy and Mike with his girlfriend Jessica and presents a plan for kidnapping the daughter of a millionaire. The plan wor… |
| The Elegant Spanking | Music | 1995-01-01 | SM curio immaculately shot by Maria Beatty…. |
| A Lot of Fun for the Evil One | Music | 1994-01-01 | Where art & erotica meet! Using a series of exciting sex games in which sadism and punishment are central, dark masturbation tales are portrayed. On t… |
| Credits Included: A Video In Red And Green | Music | 1995-03-09 | With his hand-held video camera, Jalal Toufic presents faces of ordinary people living in a war-ravaged country. He begins with a 1987 US state depart… |
| The Black Glove | Music | 1996-06-27 | The mysterious world of the senses that Maria inhabits is one of complete surrender to the wills and whims of the hypnotically intense Mistress Morgan… |
| Mechanics Of The Brain | Music | 1997-01-01 | MECHANICS OF THE BRAIN is an experimental film in the form of a scientific documentary. A “remake” of the documentary film of the same name by Poudovk… |
| Anton, Mailman | Music | 1997-03-14 | Short comedy film from Dina Waxman…. |
| Hollywood Hotel | Music | 1995-12-11 | A young Taiwanese filmmaker explores the lives, dreams, and aspirations of a group of tenants at the Hastings Hotel, a resident hotel located in Holly… |
| Ray Bandar: A Life With Skulls | Music | 2009-09-07 | He’s been called Dr. Bones and Reptile Ray. Usually dressed in tattered “field-trip” clothes, Ray Bandar has been a fixture at the California Academy … |
| The Last Supper | Music | 2009-01-01 | The Man goes to the encounter of the Woman in a mysterious place where creatures live. While making love to one of them, he becomes her by changing ge… |
| Shaolin Ulysses: Kung Fu Monks in America | Music | 2003-01-01 | Traces the journey of five kung fu monks in search of the American dream. Hailing from China’s legendary Shaolin Temple, these Zen masters and kung fu… |
| Invitation to a Suicide | Music | 2004-11-09 | A black comedy set in the Polish immigrant neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn about a man selling tickets to his own suicide to save his father’s li… |
| Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise | Music | 2005-01-01 | A story told by director Ken Jacobs but without conventional storyline. Using a modified magic lantern, an early type of image projector developed in … |
| Gotham | Music | 1990-01-01 | Gotham is a music video commissioned by Elektra Records to the Naked City song “Batmanâ€. Naked City is John Zorn (alto), Bill Frisell (guitar), Wa… |
Credit: TMDB
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