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*points to door that says “High Voltage”*

John Zorn

John Zorn was being an insufferable hipster nerd way before 21st century insufferable hipster nerds were continuing to be uncool with it.

When your extremely impressionable music listening years are dominated by an insatiable Zappa appetite like mine was, a large discography isn’t daunting. In fact, it’s enticing! And it doesn’t get much larger than John Zorn’s catalogue. Solo outputs, jazz ensembles, inaccessible grindcore projects, minimalist orchestral works, instrumental surf rock, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum. I don’t remember exactly how I stumbled upon Zorn in around 2010. Perhaps it was my interest in the various Mike Patton projects that led me to the massive John Zorn discography page on Wikipedia? And that discography page has only doubled in the last twelve years. Easily.

It was difficult to get into him at first. I still hadn’t been exposed to too much EXTREEEEEME or avantgarde music yet; not even that much free jazz or modern classical either, so albums like The Classic Guide to Strategy and Locus Solus and Cobra were tough nuts to crack. I gravitated toward the more accessible Masada project, a phenomenal mix of experimental jazz and klezmer that was eye-opening and rewarding. Even stuff like Naked City and Painkiller were too out-there for me, but I have this really pesky tendency to persist for years until things start clicking. Admittedly, the idea of liking Zorn was more motivating than liking Zorn himself. It was the immature pursuit of a badge of honor that kept me going.

I don’t know when I realized I actually started legitimately loving the guy. What first appeared to be a giant collection of same-y material slowly revealed itself to be richly diverse body of work. A richly diverse body of work that draws most of its inspiration from the Jewish scales, but diverse all the same. I’ve always been naturally drawn toward the various scales of the Eastern European / Middle Eastern traditions. Zorn delivers. There’s some Ennio Morricone influence too, that’s fun.

Even though I’ve binged hardcore on Zorn in recent weeks, I’ve barely scratched the surface on albums I haven’t heard yet. Some day he’ll die and I’ll finally be able to catch up.

Anthony Braxton

Speaking of nerds, presenting jazz’s earliest completely unapologetic insufferable hipster nerd.

Anthony Braxton: the guy who was Zorning before Zorn even started Zorning. Braxton gets lumped in with the free jazz movement, but he’s so much more than that. His active years began after free jazz was already widely established by greats like Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, and Cecil Taylor, but his approach is and was always more calculated and methodical. Therefore, being the insufferable hipster nerd that I am, this resonates with me profoundly. And it must have resonated for John Zorn too, because Braxton’s groundbreaking For Alto record is why Zorn picked up the saxophone in the first place.

While John Zorn’s work is greatly influenced by his Jewish heritage, Braxton’s work doesn’t seem to be influenced by his own heritage at all. In fact, this dork was super into space travel and electronics. He spent a lot of time tinkering with circuit boards and studying wiring schematics and taking drafting classes. He found the idea of composing music akin to developing engineering prints and drawings. His compositions have incredibly creative names like “Opus 40M” and” 308M-64 / 30 / C4DM(R)- Z”. Sometimes they don’t even have titles; sometimes his titles are literally, literally, just drawings that look like abstract molecule diagrams. His improvisations are like little games where he invents systems with sets of rules and organized classifications. His orchestras are laboratories where he can conduct live experiments, dismantling and rebuilding composed pieces as if they were machinery parts.

I love that I guy like Anthony Braxton exists. As a terminally open-minded music listener with a deep background in STEM disciplines and total comfort with his obsessive-compulsive left-brain tendencies, this guy is my guy. A kindred fucking spirit. The music being so chaotic and satisfying and excellent is just the icing on the cake for me; his take on jazz and classical music is thoroughly engaging and exciting. And his discography is just as vast and varied as Zorn’s. Some day he’ll die too and I’ll finally be able to catch up.

Other Quick Thoughts

I said it before and I’ll say it again: This guy absolutely does not get laid.

-Man, I’m on such a jazz kick lately that I haven’t mustered up desire to listen to much else. I usually stick to the tried-and-true classics from the bebop era forward, my favorites being Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, and Dexter Gordon. Passing interest in Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Bill Evans, Sonny Rollins, Pharaoh Sanders, and Freddie Hubbard. I’m not the biggest fan of jazz fusion, so Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock can take a hike! Modern jazz artists? Mary Halvorson is cool. Avishai Cohen is all right. Kamasi Washington is fine. Esperanza Spalding is interesting. Tigran Hamasyan has got it goin’ on. Jaga Jazzist? BOO!

-All that jazz has taken my attention away from everything else right now, including, much to my chagrin, new releases. I just don’t feel like listening to new shit these. I’m sure the new Jack White “slaps”. I’m sure the new Lizzo “goes hard”. I’m sure the new Alan Parsons solo album is a “banger” that’s really “jake” with the “droogs”. But I dunno, nothing new sounds particularly interesting to me at the moment. These phases last a month at most, usually. WE SHALL SEE. Until I get my groove back, Newer Release Roundup will be updated sporadically.

All right, thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next AudioBiography installment where I discuss Gordon Lightfoot’s hip-hop era, which was just an excuse for him to use excessive racial slurs!