In the summer of 2007, I gave a reading at a church in Amherst, Massachusetts. I began the reading, as I ordinarily do, with a bunch of letters I get at WFMU (where I am a DJ going by the name of Kenny G) intended for the other Kenny G. (You can read more about these letters and view several of them here at the Brooklyn Rail)
After the reading, a young man came up to me with his hand outstretched and said, "Kenny G. May I introduce myself. I'm John Zorn." Now, I know what John Zorn looks like and, friends, this was not that John Zorn. As it turned out, he was the other John Zorn, better known as the composer Jonathan Zorn. We immediately looked at each other and realized that we just had to do a collaboration, the fruits of which appear here. I simply read several of my Kenny G letters and sent the files to Mr. Zorn to work his magic on.
All of these are true. I haven't touched 'em. None of the names have been changed to protect the innocent. All resemblances to persons living or dead are entirely uncoincidental. Rock on!
Kenneth Goldsmith
New York City, November 2007
The Kenny G Letters (2007)
voice: Kenneth Goldsmith, electronics: Jonathan Zorn, saxophone samples: Kenny G Duotones and John Zorn The Classic Guide to Strategy
Since the beginning of my involvement in experimental and improvised music I've known that eventually I would have to creatively address the peculiarity of being the "other" Jo(h)n Zorn. So when Kenneth Goldsmith (the other Kenny G) asked me to set the Kenny G Letters to music it seemed like the perfect project for playing with my name. I said yes right away and then had to think for awhile as to what setting a text would mean in the context of my compositional activity. Much of my recent work had been in developing interactive computer music systems for small ensembles, and we agreed that I should in some way use samples that alluded to our various "other" names, so it seemed fitting to approach this project in a similar way to my interactive pieces and think of the overall sound as a trio of voice and two saxophones with live electronics. I set about the task of creating eight different systems that could listen to all three players and respond to coincidences and relations between them. Some of the letters, such as the one from the Brazilian fan seeking Miami Sound Machine lyrics, immediately suggested processes from previous pieces, in this case the repetitive nature of the spoken lyrics suggested adapting the program I created for Talking/Typing. Since I knew these would be first and foremost recorded pieces and not necessarily performance pieces, I felt that I should continue these processes in ways beyond what I could do in a live performance. In some cases I carried out the processes multiple times with different variations leading to dense multi-layered textures of electronic sound. In others I re-entered the processed tracks in the same system with different relations to create more complex correspondences between the voice and sampled sounds.
The challenge for me in working with the letters was to continue along the lines of my previous pieces with voice and electronics while keeping the voice as intelligible as possible. In many of my previous pieces I tend to obscure the voice and break up the syntax. In the Letters no matter how complex the processes became they were all done with the aim that the voice should remain for the most part intelligible, so that the listener might enjoy the sounds as well as the bizarreness of the letters.
Jonathan Zorn
Charlottesville, VA, November 2007

Alto Saxophone – John Zorn, Tim Berne
Artwork [Cover Art] – Mark Beyer
Bass – Mark Dresser
Drums – Joey Baron, Michael Vatcher
Engineer – Steve Rinkoff
Engineer [Mixing] – Martin Bisi
Mastered By – Robert C. Ludwig
Producer – John Zorn
Producer [Associate] – Elliott Sharp
Recorded August 18 and 19, 1988, at Power Station, New York City.
Mixed October 18 and 19, 1988, at B.C. Studio, Brooklyn, New York.
Tim Berne is heard in the left channel. John Zorn is heard in the right channel.
CD print information
Ⓟ1989 Elektra/Asylum/Nonesuch Records
Made In U.S.A. by WEA Manufacturing Inc.

Classic solo Zorn. No one plays the alto quite the way he does.

American saxophonist and composer, born 2 September 1953 in New York City, USA. He owns the Tzadik record label and has worked with a large number of experimental musicians, particularly in improvised music, modern classical music and jazz, though he has produced music in most styles. As a child, he played piano, guitar and flute. He went to college in St. Louis where he discovered free jazz, before dropping out and moving to Manhattan. There he gave concerts in his small apartment, playing a variety of reeds, duck calls, tapes, etc; almost anything. In the mid 1980s he signed to the Elektra Nonesuch label. Since then, he has released a very large number of records, usually putting out several each year. Zorn's recorded output includes records by two bands of his own, Masada (a klezmer band playing music that is often described as Jewish jazz) and Naked City (an often aggressive mix of jazz, rock and grindcore). He has also worked with musicians like Bill Frisell, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Keiji Haino, and Bill Laswell. He has written music for television and film, which has been collected in the ongoing Filmworks series of records on his Tzadik label. Some of these are jazz-based, others are classical. He has also written several "game pieces", in which performers are allowed to improvise while following certain structural rules. These works are in the main named after sports, and include Pool, Archery and Lacrosse, as well as Cobra.

John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music.

A special concert to benefit The Stone by three legends of the New York Underground! Indisputably one of the greatest and most influential musicians in Rock History, Lou Reed has been exploding and exploring new sounds since the mid sixties. Always with a connection to the avant-garde, Lou here teams up with maverick composer/performer John Zorn for a series of improvisations and sound compositions that will surprise and startle even their hardcore fans. With a special appearance by Laurie Anderson, one of the most original voices of this or any other century, this is one of the most unusual and legendary meetings in the New Music scene.
Zorn - Saxophone
Reed - Guitar
Anderson - Violin, Keyboards

专辑类型：Avant-Garde Jazz / Jewish Music / Modern Composition / Chamber Jazz / Modern Creative
专辑厂牌：Tzadik
专辑介绍：
John Zorn的音乐丰富多变，被标志为美国现代音乐的后现代主义者。喜欢卡通电影，屡屡将悲壮史诗的电影音乐改编成噪音爵士，颇令人发指。Zorn极爱拼贴各种音乐，举凡古典，通俗，前卫，独奏，二重，三重，多重，朗诗，尖叫，哭喊，音乐与表演艺术的界线在John Zorn的作品与表现中崩解于无形。
90年代初John Zorn开始寻求犹太人的文化根，结合优秀的纽约音乐家，组成Masada乐团，先由日本唱片公司发行数张昂贵的西低，而后在美国创立自己的厂牌Tzadik，积极推动“激进犹太文化”，并有系统的重新发行其他类型的创作，Masada在美发行第一套专集Bar Kokhba，获摇滚杂志Spin选为1996年十大专集之一，以钢管乐器表现为主，即兴演奏有浓厚民族风味的爵士乐。
另附：前卫爵士音乐唱片品牌介绍——Tzadik Records
TZADIK:JOHN ZORN 在纽约和东京同时开设的前卫品牌。除了他自己的作品外,也出版了DEREK BAILEY、FRED FRITH、LEO SMITH以及日本先锋艺术家的大量唱片。是最极端也是最前卫的90年代实验声学厂牌之一。
厂牌所出产的范畴包括：Avant Garde、Free Improvisation、Transgressions、tribal/ethnic、Ambient、Minimal。分为6个系列“作曲家”、“犹太文薄ⅰ靶氯毡尽薄ⅰ暗缬芭淅帧薄ⅰ暗蛋浮薄?“疯子边缘”，8个专栏。内里超过100张唱片简介和70多首的选段试听。
虽说是日本的地下公司，除本土日本艺人之外，旗下所签的大部分是纽约的先锋艺术家。且多数属于Improvisers（即兴）作曲家，例如前卫音乐鬼才Rodd Keith、 Sample实验大师David Shea（旗下发表过颠峰之作“Hsi-Yu Chi 西游记” （David shea & 吴蛮 & John Zorn）、激进原始派Ikue Mori、用Saxophonist将 日本民乐和俄罗斯音乐通婚的东欧前卫作曲家Compostels、错乱蓝调之王Rodd Keith...当然也有杰出的日本实验音乐高手，如大友良英、灰野敬二(Keiji Haino) 。除此之外，相当部分推荐的唱片都属珍贵的临时性跨地域合作。此唱片公司极其注重即兴实验噪音的艺术追求。

The Big Gundown is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone. It was originally to be called "Once Upon a Time in the Lower East Side".
The album is named after a 1966 spaghetti western of the same name, directed by Sergio Sollima, starring Lee Van Cleef, and scored by Morricone. It was first released in 1985 on the Nonesuch/Icon label. In 2000 a remastered 15th Anniversary Edition with additional tracks was released on CD on Zorn's Tzadik Records label.
1. "The Big Gundown" - 7:26
2. "Peur Sur La Ville" - 4:16
3. "Poverty" (Once Upon A Time In America)- 3:49
4. "Milano Odea" - 3:02
5. "Erotico (The Burglars)" - 4:27
6. "Battle Of Algiers" - 3:50
7. "Giu La Testa" (Duck You Sucker!) - 6:06
8. "Metamorfosi" (La Classe Operaia Va In Paradiso) - 4:37
9. "Tre Nel 5000" - 4:37
10. "Once Upon a Time in the West" - 8:44

John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music.

New Traditions in East Asian Bar Bands is an album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn consisting of improvised music from paired instruments and narration in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.[1] The pieces are listed individually within Zorn's game pieces and were composed in 1986, 1988 and 1990 respectively.[2]