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The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era.^[1] Its subject is the Return to Zion following the close of the Babylonian captivity, and it is divided into two parts, the first telling the story of the first return of exiles in the first year of Cyrus the Great (538 BCE) and the completion and dedication of the new Temple in Jerusalem in the sixth year of Darius (515 BCE), the second telling of the subsequent mission of Ezra to Jerusalem and his struggle to purify the Jews from the sin of marriage with non-Jews. Together with the Book of Nehemiah, it represents the final chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew bible.^[2]

Ezra is written to fit a schematic pattern in which the God of Israel inspires a king of Persia to commission a leader from the Jewish community to carry out a mission; three successive leaders carry out three such missions, the first rebuilding the Temple, the second purifying the Jewish community, and the third sealing of the holy city itself behind a wall. (This last mission, that of Nehemiah, is not part of the Book of Ezra.) The theological program of the book explains the many problems its chronological structure presents.^[3] It probably appeared in its earliest version around 400 BCE, and continued to be revised and edited for several centuries after before being accepted as scriptural around the time of Christ.^[4]

Summary[link]

For the bible text, see Bible Gateway (opens at NIV version) or see King James Version

The Book of Ezra consists of ten chapters: chapters 1-6, covering the period from the Decree of Cyrus to the dedication of the Second Temple, are told in the third person; chapters 7-10, dealing with the mission of Ezra, are told largely in the first person. The book contains several documents presented as historical inclusions.

Chapters 1-6 (documents included in the text in italics)

• 1. Decree of Cyrus, first version: Cyrus, inspired by God, returns the Temple vessels to Sheshbazzar, "prince of Judah", and directs the Israelites to return to Jerusalem with him and rebuild the Temple.
• 2. 42,360 exiles, with men servants, women servants and "singing men and women", return from Babylon to Jerusalem and Judah under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua the High Priest.
• 3. Jeshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel build the altar and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. In the second year the foundations of the Temple are laid and the dedication takes place with great rejoicing.
• 4. Letter of the Samaritans to Artaxerxes, and reply of Artaxerxes: The "enemies of Judah and Benjamin" offer to help with the rebuilding, but are rebuffed; they then work to frustrate the builders "down to the reign of Darius." The officials of Samaria write to king Artaxerxes warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt, and the king orders the work to stop. "Thus the work on the house of God in Jerusalem came to a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia."
• 5. Tattenai's letter to Darius: Through the exhortations of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, Zerubbabel and Joshua recommence the building of the Temple. Tattenai, satrap over both Judah and Samaria, writes to Darius warning him that Jerusalem is being rebuilt and advising that the archives be searched to discover the decree of Cyrus.
• 6. Decree of Cyrus, second version, and decree of Darius: Darius finds the decree, directs Tattenai not to disturb the Jews in their work, and exempts them from tribute and supplies everything necessary for the offerings. The Temple is finished in the month of Adar in the sixth year of Darius, and the Israelites assemble to celebrate its completion.

Chapters 7-10

• 7. Letter of Artaxerxes to Ezra (Artaxerxes' rescript): King Artaxerxes is moved by God to commission Ezra "to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of your God" and to "appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates—all who know the laws of your God." Artaxerxes gives Ezra much gold and directs all Persian officials to aid him.
• 8. Ezra gathers a large body of returnees and much gold and silver and precious vessels for the Temple and camps by a canal outside Babylon. There he discovers he has no Levites, and so sends messengers to gather some. The exiles then return to Jerusalem, where they distribute the gold and silver and offer sacrifices to God.
• 9. Ezra is informed that some of the Jews already in Jerusalem have married non-Jewish women. Ezra is appalled at this proof of sin, and prays to God: "O God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence."
• 10. Despite the opposition of some of their number, the Israelites assemble and send away their foreign wives and children.

Historical background[link]

In the early 6th century Judah rebelled against Babylon and was destroyed. As a result the royal court, the priests, the prophets and scribes, were taken into captivity in Babylon. There a profound intellectual revolution took place, the exiles blaming their fate on disobedience to their God and looking forward to a future when he would allow a purified people to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. The same period saw the rapid rise of Persia, previously an unimportant kingdom in present-day southern Iran, to a position of great power, and in 539 BCE Cyrus II, the Persian ruler, conquered Babylon.^[5]

It is difficult to describe the parties and politics of Judah in this period because of the lack of historical source, but there seem to have been three important groups involved: the returnees from the exile who claimed the reconstruction with the support of Cyrus I; "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin"; and a third group, "people of the land," who seem to be local opposition against the returnees building the Temple in Jerusalem.

The following table is a guide to major events in the region during the period covered by the Book of Ezra:

Texts[link]

Ezra-Nehemiah[link]

The oldest texts of the Bible treat Ezra-plus-Nehemiah as a single book. It was divided into two separate works by the time of the 3rd century Christian scholar Origen, and the separation became entrenched in Christian Bibles in the Western European tradition when this was followed by Jerome in his Latin translation.^[1] It was not until the Middle Ages that the two became separated in Jewish Bibles.^[9]

First Esdras[link]

1 Esdras (or Esdras α - there is also an Esdras β) - is an alternate Greek-language text of Ezra. This text has one additional section (and related changes) in the middle of Ezra 4. The addition arranges the text around a chiastic structure and relieves a textual problem surrounding the identity of King Ahasuerus in Ezra 4:6. Although the content is substantially the same, the verses are numbered differently from Ezra.

Structure, composition and date[link]

Structure[link]

The contents of Ezra-Nehemiah are structured in theological, rather than chronological, order: "The Temple must come first, then the purifying of the community, then the building of the outer walls of the city, and so finally all could reach a grand climax in the reading of the law."^[10] The "plot" follows a repeating pattern in which the god of Israel "stirs up" the king of Persia to commission a Jewish leader (Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah) to undertake a mission; the leader completes his mission in the face of opposition; and success is marked by a great assembly.^[11] The tasks of the three leaders are progressive: first the Temple is restored (Zerubabbel), then the community of Israel (Ezra), and finally the walls which will separate the purified community and Temple from the outside world (Nehemiah).^[12] The pattern is completed with a final coda in which Nehemiah restores the cult of Yahweh.^[13] This concern with a schematic pattern-making, rather than with history in the modern sense of a factual account of events in the order in which they occurred, explains the origin of the many problems which surround both Ezra and Nehemiah as historical sources.^[14]

Composition[link]

In the 20th century views on the composition of Ezra revolved around the competing views that either it was written by Ezra himself, who may also have been the author of the Books of Chronicles, or alternatively, that the author of Chronicles was also the author of Ezra.^[15] More recently it has been increasingly recognised that Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles all have extremely complex histories stretching over many stages of editing,^[16] and most scholars now are cautious of assuming a unified composition with a single theology and point of view.^[17] As an indication of the many layers of editing which Ezra has undergone, one recent study finds that Ezra 1-6 and Ezra 9-10 were originally separate documents, that they were spliced together at a later stage by the authors of Ezra 7-6, and that all have undergone extensive later editing.^[18]

Date[link]

There is general recognition that the editing of Ezra continued well into the Hellenistic era^[4] The question of when the core of the book originated depends in the first place on the dates assigned to Ezra himself (assuming him to have been a historic person). The only clue to go by is the note in Ezra 7:7-8 that he arrived in Jerusalem in "the seventh year of Artaxerxes." Unfortunately there were three kings of this name and the text doesn't specify which one. The traditional date, and currently the most popular candidate, is 458 BCE, based on the assumption that the king is Artaxerxes I. A date of 398 BCE, based on the possibility that the king might be Artaxerxes II, was once popular but has been seriously challenged in recent scholarship. A date of 428 BCE, based on the idea that the "seventh" year of Artaxerxes is a mistake for "thirty-seventh" year, has become less popular, as it is based entirely on conjecture.^[19]

Persian documents[link]

Seven purported Persian decrees of kings or letters to and from high officials are quoted in Ezra. Their authenticity has been contentious; while some scholars accept them in their current form, most accept only part of them as genuine, while still others reject them entirely. L.L. Grabbe surveys six tests against which the documents can be measured (comparative known Persian material, linguistic details, contents, presence of Jewish theology, the Persian attitude to local religions, and Persian letter-writing formulas) and concludes that all the documents are late post-Persian works and probable forgeries, but that some features suggest a genuine Persian correspondence behind some of them.^[20]

See also[link]

• Greek Ezra
• Ezra-Nehemiah

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) p.1
2. ^ Albright, William (1963). The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra: An Historical Survey. Harpercollins College Div. ISBN 0-06-130102-7. http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Period-Abraham-Ezra-Historical/dp/0061301027. 
3. ^ Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) pp.1-3
4. ^ ^{a b} Blenkinsopp, Joseph, "Judaism, the first phase" (Eerdmans, 2009) p.87
5. ^ Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) p.10
6. ^ Coggins, R.J., "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Cambridge University Press, 1976) p.xi
7. ^ Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) pp.10-16
8. ^ Min, Kyung-Jin, "The Levitical authorship of Ezra-Nehemiah" (T&T Clark, 2004) pp.31-32
9. ^ Dillard, Raymond B.; Longman, Tremper (January 1994). An Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-310-43250-0. LCCN 2006005249. OCLC 31046001. http://books.google.com/?id=nydPyx_n1vYC&pg=PA180. Retrieved 2012-02-24. 
10. ^ R.J. Coggins, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Cambridge University Press, 1976)p.107, quoted in Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) p.3
11. ^ Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) pp.2-4
12. ^ Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) p.3
13. ^ Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) p.2
14. ^ Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992) pp1-3
15. ^ Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982) pp.1-2 ff.
16. ^ Pakkala, Juha, "Ezra the scribe: the development of Ezra 7-10 and Nehemiah 8" (Walter de Gryter, 2004) p.16
17. ^ Grabbe, L.L., "A history of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1" (T&T Clark, 2004) p.71
18. ^ Pakkala, Juha, "Ezra the scribe: the development of Ezra 7-10 and Nehemiah 8" (Walter de Gryter, 2004), pp.132, 135, and p.302, Appendix C: reconstructed text of Ezra 7-10
19. ^ Min, Kyung-Jin, "The Levitical authorship of Ezra-Nehemiah" (T&T Clark, 2004) p.32
20. ^ Grabbe, L.L., "A history of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1" (T&T Clark, 2004) p.78

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Book of Ezra

Commentaries etc.

• Blenkinsopp, Joseph, "Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary" (Eerdmans, 1988)
• Blenkinsopp, Joseph, "Judaism, the first phase" (Eerdmans, 2009)
• Coggins, R.J., "The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Cambridge University Press, 1976)
• Fensham, F. Charles, "The books of Ezra and Nehemiah" (Eerdmans, 1982)
• Grabbe, L.L., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (Routledge, 1998)
• Grabbe, L.L., "A history of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1" (T&T Clark, 2004)
• Pakkala, Juha, "Ezra the scribe: the development of Ezra 7-10 and Nehemiah 8" (Walter de Gryter, 2004)
• Throntveit, Mark A., "Ezra-Nehemiah" (John Knox Press, 1992)

Translations

• Ezra (Judaica Press) translation [with Rashi's commentary] at Chabad.org
• Bible Gateway (opens at NIV version)
• Ezra - King James Version

Ezra from Guillaume Rouillé's Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum

Site traditionally described as the tomb of Ezra at Al Uzayr near Basra.

Ezra ( /ˈɛzrə/; Hebrew: עזרא, Ezra;^[1] fl. 480–440 BC), also called Ezra the Scribe (Hebrew: עזרא הסופר, Ezra ha-Sofer) and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem (Ezra 7-10 and Neh 8). According to First Esdras, a non-canonical Greek translation of the Book of Ezra, he was also a high priest.

His name may be an abbreviation of Azaryahu, "God-helps". In the Greek Septuagint the name is rendered Esdras (Greek: Ἔσδρας), from which Latin: Esdras.

The Book of Ezra describes how he led a group of Judean exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem (Ezra 8.2-14) where he enforced observance of the Torah and cleansed the community of mixed marriages.^[2][3]

Ezra, known as "Ezra the scribe" in Chazalic literature,^[4] is a highly respected figure in Judaism.^[5]

In the Hebrew Bible[link]

The canonical Book of Ezra and Book of Nehemiah are the oldest sources for the activity of Ezra,^[3] whereas many of the other books ascribed to Ezra (First Esdras, 3-6 Ezra) are later literary works dependent on the canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Book of Ezra-Nehemiah

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally one scroll. (Nehemiah 3:32, footnote)^[6] Later the Jews divided this scroll and called it First and Second Ezra. Modern Hebrew Bibles call the two books Ezra and Nehemiah, as do other modern Bible translations. A few parts of the Book of Ezra (4:8 to 6:18 and 7:12:12-26) were written in Aramaic, and the majority in Hebrew, Ezra himself being skilled in both languages.^[7][8] Ezra, a descendant of Seraiah the high priest, was living in Babylon when in the seventh year (~ 457 BCE) of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, the king sent him to Jerusalem to teach the laws of God to any who did not know them. Ezra led a large body of exiles back to Jerusalem, where he discovered that Jewish men had been marrying non-Jewish women. He tore his garments in despair and confessed the sins of Israel before God, then braved the opposition of some of his own countrymen to purify the community by enforcing the dissolution of the sinful marriages. Some years later Artaxerxes sent Nehemiah, a Jewish noble in his personal service, to Jerusalem as governor with the task of rebuilding the city walls. Once this task was completed Nehemiah had Ezra read the Law of Moses (the Torah) to the assembled Jews, and the people and priests entered into a covenant to keep the law and separate themselves from all other peoples.

In later Second Temple period literature[link]

1 Esdras[link]

1 Esdras, probably from the late 2nd/early 1st centuries BCE, preserves a Greek text of Ezra and a part of Nehemiah distinctly different from that of Ezra-Nehemiah - in particular it eliminates Nehemiah from the story and gives some of his deeds to Ezra, as well as telling events in a different order. Scholars are divided on whether it is based on Ezra-Nehemiah, or reflects an earlier literary stage before the combination of Ezra and Nehemiah accounts.

Josephus[link]

The first century Jewish historian, Josephus, deals with Ezra in his Antiquities of the Jews. He preferred 1 Esdras over the canonical Ezra–Nehemiah and placed Ezra as a contemporary of Xerxes son of Darius, rather than of Artaxerxes.^[9]

The apocalyptic Ezra traditions[link]

The apocalyptic fourth book of Ezra (also called the second book of Esdras) was written c.AD 100, probably in Hebrew-Aramaic. It was one of the most important sources for Jewish theology at the end of the 1st century. In this book, Ezra has a seven part prophetic revelation, converses with an angel or God three times and has four visions. Ezra, thirty years into the Babylonian Exile (4 Ezra 3:1 / 2 Esdras 1:1), recounts the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon's Temple.^[2] This would place these revelations in the year 557 BC, a full century before the date given in the canonical Ezra. The central theological themes are "the question of theodicy, God's justness in the face of the triumph of the heathens over the pious, the course of world history in terms of the teaching of the four kingdoms,^[10] the function of the law, the eschatological judgment, the appearance on Earth of the heavenly Jerusalem, the Messianic Period, at the end of which the Messiah will die,^[11] the end of this world and the coming of the next, and the Last Judgment."^[2] Ezra restores the law that was destroyed with the burning of the Temple in Jerusalem. He dictates 24 books for the public (i.e. the Hebrew Bible) and another 70 for the wise alone (70 unnamed revelatory works).^[12] At the end, he is taken up to heaven like Enoch and Elijah.^[2] Ezra is seen as a new Moses in this book.^[2]

There is also another work, thought to be influenced by this one, known as the Greek Apocalypse of Ezra.

Ezra in rabbinic literature[link]

Woodcut for Die Bibel in Bildern, 1860, by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

Traditionally Judaism credits Ezra with establishing the Great Assembly of scholars and prophets, the forerunner of the Sanhedrin, as the authority on matters of religious law. The Great Assembly is credited with establishing numerous features of contemporary traditional Judaism in something like their present form, including Torah reading, the Amidah, and establishing the feast of Purim.^[13]

In Rabbinic traditions, Ezra is metaphorically referred to as the "flowers that appear on the earth" signifying the springtime in the national history of Judaism. A disciple of Baruch ben Neriah, he favored study of the Law over the reconstruction of the Temple and thus because of his studies, he did not join the first party returning to Jerusalem in the reign of Cyrus. According to another opinion, he did not join the first party so as not to compete, even involuntarily, with Jeshua ben Jozadak for the office of chief priest.^[13] According to Bamidbar Rabbah, Ezra was doubtful of the correctness of some words in the Torah and said, "Should Elijah... approve the text, the points [ed: dots that he scribed above the letters] will be disregarded; should he disapprove, the doubtful words will be removed from the text".^[13][14]

According to tradition, Ezra was the writer of the Books of Chronicles.^[13]

In the Syrian village of Tedef, a shrine said to be the burial place of Ezra has been venerated by Jews for centuries. Another tradition locates his tomb near Basra, Iraq.

Ezra in Christian traditions[link]

Early Christian writers occasionally cited Ezra as author of the apocalyptic books attributed to him. Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata referred to Ezra as an example of prophetic inspiration, quoting a section from 2 Esdras.^[15]

Ezra in Islam[link]

In Islam he is known as Uzair (Arabic: عزير). He was mentioned in the Qur'an. Although he was not mentioned as one of the Prophets of Islam, he is considered as one of them by some Muslim scholars, based on Islamic traditions.^[16][17] His tomb at Al-ʻUzair on the banks of the Tigris near Basra, Iraq, is a pilgrimage site for the local Marsh Arabs.^[18][19]

Academic view[link]

Historicity and genealogy[link]

Mary Joan Winn Leith in The Oxford History of the Biblical World believes that Ezra was an historical figure whose life was enhanced in the scripture and given a theological buildup.^[20] Gosta W. Ahlstrom argues the inconsistencies of the biblical tradition are insufficient to say that Ezra, with his central position as the 'father of Judaism' in the Jewish tradition, has been a later literary invention.^[21] Those who argue against the historicity of Ezra argue that the presentation style of Ezra as a leader and lawgiver resembles that of Moses. There are also similarities between Ezra the priest-scribe (but not high priest) and Nehemiah the secular governor on the one hand and Joshua and Zerubbabel on the other hand. The early 2nd century BCE Jewish author Ben Sira praises Nehemiah, but makes no mention of Ezra.^[20]

Timeline[link]

Scholars are divided over the chronological sequence of the activities of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra came to Jerusalem "in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the King".^[22] The text does not specify whether the king in the passage refers to Artaxerxes I (465-424 BCE) or to Artaxerxes II (404-359 BCE).^[23][24] Most scholars hold that Ezra lived during the rule of Artaxerxes I, though some have difficulties with this assumption:^[3] Nehemiah and Ezra "seem to have no knowledge of each other; their missions do not overlap;^[25] and no reflection of Ezra's activity appears in Jerusalem of Nehemiah."^[26] These difficulties have led many scholars to assume that Ezra arrived in the seventh year of the rule of Artaxerxes II, i.e. some 50 years after Nehemiah. This assumption would imply that the biblical account is not chronological. The last group of scholars regard "the seventh year" as a scribal error and hold that the two men were contemporaries.^[3][27]

See also[link]

Esdras, about the classification of the books adscribed to Ezra: Book of Ezra (and Book of Nehemiah for the non-rabbinical tradition, combined with the former into Ezra-Nehemiah), 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bossman, D. (1979). "Ezra's Maniage Reform: Israel Redefined". Biblical Theology Bulletin 9: 32–38. DOI:10.1177/014610797900900105. 
• Bright, John (1981). A history of Israel (3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Westminster Press. ISBN 0-664-21381-2. 
• Fensham, F. Charles (1983). The books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8028-2362-9. 
• LaSor, William Sanford; Hubbard, David Allan; Bush, Frederick William (1982). Old Testament survey. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-3556-2. 
• Williamson, H.G.M. (1987). Ezra and Nehemiah. Sheffield: JSOT for the Society for Old Testament Study. ISBN 1-85075-045-9. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ezra

• Jewish Encyclopedia: Ezra the Scribe
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Esdras

Ezra Taft Benson
edit data
13th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
November 10, 1985 (1985-11-10) – May 30, 1994 (1994-05-30)
Predecessor	Spencer W. Kimball
Successor	Howard W. Hunter
President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
December 30, 1973 (1973-12-30) – November 10, 1985 (1985-11-10)
End reason	Became President of the Church
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
October 7, 1943 (1943-10-07) – November 10, 1985 (1985-11-10)
Called by	Heber J. Grant
End reason	Became President of the Church
LDS Church Apostle
October 7, 1943 (1943-10-07) – May 30, 1994 (1994-05-30)
Called by	Heber J. Grant
Reason	Deaths of Sylvester Q. Cannon and Rudger Clawson[1]
Reorganization at end of term	Jeffrey R. Holland ordained
15th United States Secretary of Agriculture
In office
January 21, 1953 – January 20, 1961
Preceded by	Charles F. Brannan
Succeeded by	Orville Freeman
Political party	Republican Party
Personal details
Born	(1899-08-04)August 4, 1899 Whitney, Idaho, United States
Died	May 30, 1994(1994-05-30) (aged 94) Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
Resting place	Whitney Cemetery 42°04′40″N 111°50′28″W / 42.0778°N 111.84110°W / 42.0778; -111.84110 (Whitney Cemetery)
Spouse	Flora Smith
Children	6
Signature

Ezra Taft Benson (August 4, 1899 – May 30, 1994) was the thirteenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1985 until his death and was United States Secretary of Agriculture for both terms of the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Biography[link]

Born on a farm in Whitney, Idaho, Benson was the oldest of eleven children. He was the great-grandson of Ezra T. Benson, who was appointed by Brigham Young as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in 1846. Benson began his academic career at Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University), where he first met Flora Smith Amussen. Benson's alternated quarters at USAC with work on the family farm.^[2]

Benson served a church mission in Britain from 1921 to 1923. It was while serving as a missionary, especially an experience in Sheffield that caused Benson to realize how central the Book of Mormon was to the Restored Gospel message and converting people to the LDS Church.^[2] He later served as president of the Newcastle Conference.

After his mission Benson studied at Brigham Young University and finished his bachelors degree there in 1926. That same year he married Flora Smith Amussen, shortly after her return from her mission in Hawaii. He received his masters degree from Iowa State University. Several years later did preliminary work on a doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley, but never completed this degree.

Just after receiving his masters he returned to Whitney to run the family farm. He later became the county agriculture extension agent for Oneida County, Idaho. He later was promoted to the supervisor of all county agents and moved to Boise.

Ezra Taft and Flora Benson were the parents of six children.

In 1930, Benson moved to Boise, Idaho where he worked in the central stake extension office connected with the University of Idaho Extension Service. He also founded a farmers cooperative. He was superintendent of the Boise Stake (Latter Day Saints)Stake Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association and later a counselor in the stake presidency. By 1939 he had been made president of the Boise Stake.

In 1939 he moved to Washington, D.C. to become Executive Secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, and became the first president of a new LDS Church stake there.

In August 1989, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President George H. W. Bush.

Apostle[link]

On October 7, 1943, both Benson and Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) became members of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, filling two vacancies created by the deaths of apostles that summer. Because Kimball, being older, was ordained first, he was given seniority over Benson in the Quorum. Succession to the presidency of the church is by chronological order of ordination to apostleship, allowing Spencer W. Kimball to become president of the church years earlier than Benson. Upon Spencer W. Kimball's death in 1985, Benson became the president of the church.

Political career[link]

Benson while Secretary of Agriculture

In 1953, Benson was appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture by President Eisenhower. Benson accepted this position with the permission of Church President David O. McKay and therefore served simultaneously in the United States Cabinet and in the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Benson opposed the system of government price supports and aid to farmers which he was entrusted by Eisenhower to administer, arguing that it amounted to unacceptable socialism. Nonetheless, he survived in his cabinet position for all eight years of Eisenhower's presidency. He was selected as the administrator-designate of the Emergency Food Agency, part of a secret group that became known as the Eisenhower Ten. The group was created by Eisenhower in 1958 to serve in the event of a national emergency.

Benson was an outspoken opponent of communism and socialism, and supporter, but not a member, of the John Birch Society, which he praised as "the most effective non-church organization in our fight against creeping socialism and Godless Communism."^[3] He published a 1966 pamphlet entitled Civil Rights, Tool of Communist Deception.^[4][5] In a similar vein, during a 1972 general conference of the LDS Church, Benson recommended that all Mormons read Gary Allen's New World Order tract "None Dare Call it A Conspiracy".^[6]

Church presidency[link]

Benson succeeded Kimball as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1973, and as President of the Church in 1985. During his early years as Church President, Benson brought a renewed emphasis to the distribution and reading of the Book of Mormon, reaffirming this LDS scripture's importance as "the keystone of [the LDS] religion." He is also remembered for his general conference sermon condemning pride.^[7]

Scouting[link]

Benson was a lifelong supporter of Scouting. He started in 1918 as assistant Scoutmaster. On May 23, 1949 he was elected a member of the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America. He received the three highest national awards in the Boy Scouts of America—the Silver Beaver, the Silver Antelope, and the Silver Buffalo—as well as world Scouting’s international award, the Bronze Wolf.^[8]

Health problems and death[link]

Benson suffered poor health in the last years of his life from the effects of blood clots in the brain, dementia, strokes, and heart attacks, and was rarely seen publicly in his final years. He was hospitalized in 1992 and 1993 with pneumonia.

Benson died May 30, 1994 of congestive heart failure in his Salt Lake City apartment at the age of 94. Funeral services were held June 4, 1994 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and conducted by Gordon B. Hinckley. He was buried near his birthplace in Whitney, Idaho, at the Whitney City Cemetery.

Published works[link]

• Reed A. Benson., ed. (1960). So Shall Ye Reap: Selected Addresses of Ezra Taft Benson. Deseret Book Company. ISBN B0007E7BME. 
• The Red Carpet. Bookcraft. 1962. ISBN B0007F4WJI. 
• Title of Liberty. compiled by Mark A. Benson. Deseret Book Company. 1964. 
• An Enemy Hath Done This. Bookcraft. 1969. ISBN 0-88494-184-1. 
• Civil Rights, Tool of Communist Deception. Deseret Book Co. 1969. ISBN (ASIN) B0007FRU42. 
• God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties. Deseret Book Company. 1974. ISBN B0006CF3MC. 
• Cross Fire: The Eight Years With Eisenhower. Doubleday. 1976. ISBN 0-8371-8422-3. 
• This Nation Shall Endure. Deseret Book Company. 1977. ISBN 0-87747-658-6. 
• Come Unto Christ. Deseret Book Company. 1983. ISBN 0-87747-997-6. 
• The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner. Deseret Book Company. 1986. ISBN 0-87579-216-2. 
• The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson. Bookcraft. 1988. ISBN 0-88494-639-8. 
• A Witness and a Warning: A Modern-Day Prophet Testifies of the Book of Mormon. Deseret Book Company. 1988. ISBN 0-87579-153-0. 
• A Labor of Love: The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson. Deseret Book Company. 1989. ISBN 0-87579-275-8. 
• Come, Listen to a Prophet's Voice. Deseret Book Company. 1990. ISBN 0-87579-351-7. 
• Missionaries to Match Our Message. Bookcraft. 1990. ISBN 0-88494-779-3. 
• Elect Women of God. Bookcraft. 1992. ISBN 0-88494-838-2. 
• Sermons and Writings of President Ezra Taft Benson. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 2003. 

Benson also wrote the foreword to The Black Hammer, a book by Wes Andrews and Clyde Dalton. In the foreword, Benson alleges that the civil-rights movement is a communist plot for revolution in America.

See also[link]

Scouting portal

• Steve Benson (Grandson and Pulitzer Prize Winning Cartoonist)

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Ensign Editor (July 1994). President Ezra Taft Benson: A Sure Voice of Faith. Ensign. p. 8. http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1994.htm/ensign%20july%201994.htm/president%20ezra%20taft%20benson%20a%20sure%20voice%20of%20faith.htm?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$q=$x=. 
• Monson, Thomas S. (July 1994). President Ezra Taft Benson—A Giant among Men. Ensign. p. 35. http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Ensign/1994.htm/ensign%20july%201994.htm/president%20ezra%20taft%20benson%20a%20giant%20among%20men.htm?f=templates$fn=document-frame.htm$q=$x=. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ezra Taft Benson

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More spoken articles

• Papers of Ezra Taft Benson, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Ezra Taft Benson Oral History finding aid, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Ezra Taft Benson at Find a Grave
• A biography of Ezra Taft Benson
• Ezra Taft Benson's comments on freedom and the U.S. Constitution
• Ezra Taft Benson's comments on freedom, the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers
• Some Speeches (audio) of Ezra Taft Benson
• audio excerpt from “Our Immediate Responsibility.” Devotional Address at Brigham Young University. c. 1968
• Papers of Miller F. Shurtleff, assistant to Ezra Taft Benson, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Ezra Taft Benson" is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]

v t e United States Secretaries of Agriculture Coleman Rusk Morton Wilson Houston Meredith HC Wallace Gore Jardine Hyde HA Wallace Wickard Anderson Brannan Benson Freeman Hardin Butz Knebel Bergland Block Lyng Yeutter Madigan Espy Glickman Veneman Johanns Schafer Vilsack

v t e Cabinet of President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) Vice President Richard Nixon (1953–1961) Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1953–1959) Christian A. Herter (1959–1961) Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson (1953–1957) Neil H. McElroy (1957–1959) Thomas S. Gates, Jr. (1959–1961) Secretary of the Treasury George M. Humphrey (1953–1957) Robert Bernard Anderson (1957–1961) Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. (1953–1957) William P. Rogers (1957–1961) Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield (1953–1961) Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay (1953–1956) Fred Andrew Seaton (1956–1961) Secretary of the Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson (1953–1961) Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks (1953–1958) Lewis Strauss (1958–1959) Frederick H. Mueller (1959–1961) Secretary of Labor Martin P. Durkin (1953) James P. Mitchell (1953–1961) Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Oveta Culp Hobby (1953–1955) Marion B. Folsom (1955–1958) Arthur S. Flemming (1958–1961)

John Zorn
Zorn performing in 2006
Background information
Also known as	Dekoboko Hajime, Rav Tzizit
Born	(1953-09-02) September 2, 1953 (age 58)
Origin	New York City, United States
Genres	Avant-garde, experimental[1]
Occupations	Composer, producer
Instruments	Saxophone, clarinet, flute, guitar, keyboards, double bass, drums, percussion
Years active	1973–present
Labels	Tzadik, Avant, DIW, Elektra Nonesuch, Earache, Hat Hut, Shimmy-Disc, Eva, Toy's Factory, Nato, Lumina, Black Saint, Subharmonic, Parachute, Yukon, Rift
Associated acts	Naked City, Masada, Painkiller, Hemophiliac, Weird Little Boy, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson
Website	www.tzadik.com
Notable instruments
Clarinet, Piano, Theremin, Wind machine

John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in New York City) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer. He has had experience with a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore punk, classical, extreme metal, klezmer, film, cartoon, popular, and improvised music.^[2] Zorn brings these styles to his work,^[2] which he refers to with the label avant-garde/experimental.^[1]

Zorn has stated: "All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person - the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there."^[3]

Zorn has led the punk jazz band Naked City and the klezmer-influenced quartet Masada, composed Masada Songbooks (written concert music for classical ensembles), and has produced music for film and documentary.

Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid 1970s and has since composed and performed with a wide range of musicians working in diverse musical areas. By the early 1990s Zorn was working extensively in Japan, attracted by that culture's openness about borrowing and remixing ingredients from elsewhere, before returning to New York as a permanent base in the mid-1990s.^[4][5][6] Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with varying ensembles to display his diverse output.^[7][8]

After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and attracted wide acclaim in 1985 when he released The Big Gundown, a cover of music composed by Ennio Morricone.^[9] He attracted further attention when worldwide by following this with the release of Spillane in 1987, and Naked City by Naked City in 1989.^{[1][10][11][12]} Zorn then recorded on the Japanese DIW label and curated the Avant subsidiary label before forming Tzadik in 1995, where he was prolific in issuing several new recordings each year as well as releasing the work of many other musicians.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

John Zorn was born in New York City and learned piano, guitar and flute as a child.^[13] He grew up in a household full of a broad spectrum of sound: his mother listened to classical and world music, his father to jazz, French chansons, and country music, and his older brother to doo-wop, and 1950s rock and roll.^[14] Zorn recalled an episode of his life, after buying a record by Mauricio Kagel in 1968 at the age of fifteen, that influenced his subsequent taste for experimental and avant-garde music:^[15][16]

Here we are: Kagel, "Improvisation Ajoutée." I bought this when I was about 15. Still marked: got it at Sam Goody in September, for 98 cents. And it's a really crazy piece, with the guys screaming and hooting, something that attracted me. I was over at my friend's house, and he really liked the Rolling Stones. And I just got this record, and I put it on and he looked at me like...who the hell are you? Are you out of your mind? And his mother was there, and she was like [puts palm on cheek] my God, take this off... and right then and there, I decided: this was the music.

Zorn spent time in his teenage years listening to classical music, film music, and, "listening to The Doors and playing bass in a surf band."^[14] He taught himself about orchestration and counterpoint, by transcribing scores and using in his own compositions, a procedure of "plagiarizing, stealing, quoting, or whatever you can call it", of collage and transposition into his own world, that he has been using throughout his career.^[17] He also studied music under Leonardo Balada.^{[citation needed]}

Zorn picked up the saxophone after discovering Anthony Braxton's album For Alto (1969) while studying composition at Webster College (now Webster University) in St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended classes taught by Oliver Lake.^[18][19] While still at Webster, Zorn incorporated elements of free jazz, avant-garde and experimental music, film scores, performance art and the cartoon scores of Carl Stalling into his first recordings which were later released as First Recordings 1973 (1995).^[20]

Zorn dropped out of college. Following a stint on the West Coast, Zorn moved to Manhattan. There he gave concerts in his apartment and other small NY venues, playing saxophone and a variety of reeds, duck calls, tapes, and other instruments.^[21] He founded a performance art project called Theatre of Musical Optics, in 1975 and became a major participant in the fertile, avant-garde, downtown music scene as a composer, performer and producer of music that challenged the confines of any single musical genre.^[22] Zorn later used the term "Theatre of Musical Optics" for the publishing company of his compositions.

Early composition[link]

Zorn's early major compositions included several "game pieces" or "game theories", which he's described as "complex systems harnessing improvisers in flexible compositional formats,"^[23] and which "involved strict rules, role playing, prompters with flashcards, all in the name of melding structure and improvisation in a seamless fashion."^[1] Game pieces were often named after sports, and include Baseball (1976), Lacrosse (1976), Dominoes (1977), Curling (1977), Golf (1977), Hockey (1978), Cricket (1978), Fencing (1978), Pool (1979), and Archery (1979) which was recorded at Martin Bisi's studio. His most enduring "game piece" is Cobra (1984) which he first released on album in 1987 and in subsequent versions in 1992, 1994 and 2002, and has revisited in performance many times.^[24][25][26] Zorn addresses both his own history and the musical philosophy behind his early works in the book Talking Music by William Duckworth.^[27]

In 1981, Zorn was "blowing duck calls in buckets of water at fringe venues," which included 8BC, Roulette, Chandelier, and Zorn's own clubhouse, the Saint.^[1] Zorn's first solo saxophone (and duck call) recordings were originally released in two volumes as The Classic Guide to Strategy in 1983 and 1986 on the Lumina label. Zorn's early small group improvisations are documented on Locus Solus (1983) which featured Zorn with various combinations of other improvisers including Christian Marclay, Arto Lindsay, Wayne Horvitz, Ikue Mori, and Anton Fier. Ganryu Island featured a series of duets by Zorn with Satoh Michihiro on shamisen, which received limited release on the Yukon label in 1984. Zorn has subsequently released these recordings as CDs on Tzadik making them more widely available than the original vinyl pressings.

Breakthrough recordings[link]

Zorn's breakthrough recording was 1985's The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone, where Zorn offered radical arrangements of the Roman composer's themes from movies including The Big Gundown (1966), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), A Fistful of Dynamite (1971), and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). The Big Gundown was endorsed by Morricone, who is quoted as saying: "This is a record that has fresh, good and intelligent ideas. It is realization on a high level, a work done by a maestro with great science-fantasy and creativity... Many people have done versions of my pieces, but no one has done them like this".^[28] Zorn's versions of Morricone's compositions incorporated elements of traditional Japanese music, soul jazz, and other diverse musical genres. Zorn's fifteenth-anniversary re-release of the album featured additional explorations of Morricone's work.

He first released the composition "Godard", a tribute to French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard whose jump-cut technique inspired Zorn's compositional approach, on the French tribute album The Godard Fans: Godard Ca Vous Chante? in 1986.^[29] Zorn followed this with his second major-label release Spillane in 1987 composed of three different tribute compositions. The title track featured text by Arto Lindsay set to an array of sonic film noir references, "Two-Lane Highway", a blues-based form to highlight the guitar of Albert Collins and "Forbidden Fruit", Zorn's tribute to a Japanese film star, performed by the Kronos Quartet.^[29] Further exploration of film noir themes were recorded for radio plays and released by Zorn as The Bribe: variations and extensions on Spillane (1998).^[30] "Godard" and "Spillane" were re-released as a single CD, Godard/Spillane, on Tzadik in 1999.^[31]

These pieces are described by Zorn as "file-card compositions", a method of combining composition and improvisation in which Zorn would write down a description of what he wanted on file-cards and arrange them to form the piece.^[32] Zorn described the process in 2003: "I write in moments, in disparate sound blocks, so I find it convenient to store these events on filing cards so they can be sorted and ordered with minimum effort. Pacing is essential. If you move too fast, people tend to stop hearing the individual moments as complete in themselves and more as elements of a sort of cloud effect... I worked 10 to 12 hours a day for a week, just orchestrating these file cards. It was an intense process - one I don't want to go through again."^[3]

Zorn's "file-card" method of organizing sound blocks into an overall structure largely depended on the musicians he chose, the way they interpreted what was written on the file cards, and their relationship with Zorn. "I'm not going to sit in some ivory tower and pass my scores down to the players." said Zorn, "I have to be there with them, and that's why I started playing saxophone, so that I could meet musicians. I still feel that I have to earn a player's trust before they can play my music. At the end of the day, I want players to say: this was fun - it was a lot of fucking work, and it's one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it was worth the effort."^[3]

Jazz interpreter[link]

Beginning in 1986 Zorn participated in several projects focused on modern jazz composers which highlighted his saxophone style. These included Voodoo (1986) by The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet, with Wayne Horvitz, Ray Drummond and Bobby Previte and Spy vs Spy (1989) featuring hardcore punk-informed interpretations of Ornette Coleman's music performed by Zorn and Tim Berne on saxophones, Mark Dresser on bass and Joey Baron and Michael Vatcher on drums.^[33] News for Lulu (1988) and More News for Lulu (1992) featured Zorn, Bill Frisell and George Lewis performing compositions by Kenny Dorham, Sonny Clark, Freddie Redd, and Hank Mobley. He performed on two recordings by organist Big John Patton - Blue Planet Man (1993) and Minor Swing (1995) and contributed to the Sax Legends series (later re-released as The Colossal Saxophone Sessions) in 1993 with a version of Wayne Shorter's composition "Devil's Island" alongside Lee Konitz, who Zorn has described as "one of my all-time heroes".^[34]

While Zorn is often considered a jazz musician his schema is considerably broader. He stated: "The term 'jazz', per se, is meaningless to me in a certain way. Musicians don’t think in terms of boxes. I know what jazz music is. I studied it. I love it. But when I sit down and make music, a lot of things come together. And sometimes it falls a little bit toward the classical side, sometimes it falls a little bit towards the jazz, sometimes it falls toward rock, sometimes it doesn’t fall anywhere, it's just floating in limbo. But no matter which way it falls, it's always a little bit of a freak. It doesn’t really belong anywhere. It's something unique, it's something different, it's something out of my heart. It's not connected with those traditions."^[1] "But the music is not jazz music, it’s not classical music, it’s not rock music. It’s a new kind of music... So I feel like that created a deep misunderstanding in what this music is. People started judging this new music with the standards of jazz, with the definitions of what jazz is and isn’t, because stories about it appeared in jazz magazines. And now I’ll do a gig at the Marciac Jazz Festival and I’ll get offstage and Wynton Marsalis will say, 'That’s not jazz.' And I’ll say, 'You’re right! But this is the only gig I’ve got, man. Give me another festival and I’ll play there.'"^[35]

Film music[link]

Zorn has written music for documentaries, underground films, television advertisements and cartoons which are documented in the Filmworks albums on the Tzadik label. Some of these film scores are jazz-influenced, others classical, and most feature ensembles consisting of rotating combinations of downtown musicians. Zorn has often used his cinematic and television commissions to experiment with line-ups and forms that would become more established parts of his musical canon.

Zorn stated that "After my record The Big Gundown came out I was convinced that a lot of soundtrack work was going to be coming my way".^[36] While Hollywood acclaim was not forthcoming he attracted the attention of many independent filmmakers. The first director to commission him was Rob Schwebber for the 1986 short White and Lazy followed by his work for Sheila McLaughlin's film, She Must Be Seeing Things (1986). In 1990, he composed the soundtrack for the Raul Ruiz film The Golden Boat. All these soundtracks appeared on Filmworks 1986-1990 along with a sixty-four second interpretation of the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which featured future members of Naked City.

Zorn's second Filmworks release documented his Music for an Untitled Film by Walter Hill (1996) which was composed for the film Trespass (1992) but replaced by a score by Ry Cooder.^[37] Filmworks III: 1990-1995 (1997) featured the first recordings by the Masada lineup for Joe Chappelle's Thieves Quartet (1993) along with early drafts for the Cynical Hysterie Hour project, duets with Marc Ribot which featured in Mei-Juin Chen's Hollywood Hotel (1994), and a series of commercial soundtracks for the advertising firm Weiden and Kennedy, including one directed by Jean-Luc Godard - a long-term Zorn inspiration.^[38] Filmworks IV: S&M + More (1997) and Filmworks V: Tears of Ecstasy (1996) both included music written for films dealing with BDSM.^[39] Filmworks VI: 1996 contains the soundtracks to three underground films produced in 1996; Dina Waxman's Anton, Mailman, Henry Hills' Mechanics of the Brain, and Maria Beatty's The Black Glove.

Filmworks VII: Cynical Hysterie Hour re-released the themes that Zorn produced for a Japanese cartoon which had only been previously available in limited release in Japan. Zorn regained the rights to these recordings by trading a booking at The Knitting Factory to Sony executives.^[40] Filmworks VIII: 1997 features music for the documentary Port Of Last Resort (1998), which detailed the experiences of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during the years preceding World War II, and the soundtrack to the underground film Latin Boys Go to Hell (1997).^[41][42]

Zorn's next soundtrack work did not appear until 2000 with Filmworks IX: Trembling Before G-d featuring music for an award winning documentary about gay and lesbian Orthodox Jews trying to reconcile their sexuality with their faith directed by Sandi Simcha DuBowski.^[43] The following year Filmworks X: In the Mirror of Maya Deren (2001) featured music for a documentary by Martina Kudlacek on the life and work of underground filmaker Maya Deren.^[44]

The year 2002 was a very productive one for Zorn's cinematic scores. Filmworks XI: Secret Lives (2002) featured the Masada String Trio performing music for Aviva Slesin's documentary film on Jewish children hidden from the Nazis.^[45] Filmworks XII (2002) features music for three documentaries; Homecoming: Celebrating Twenty Years of Dance at PS 122, Shaolin Ulysses, a film about Shaolin Monks in America, and variations on the theme for Family Found, a documentary on outsider artist Morton Bartlett.^[46][47][48] Zorn released his third soundtrack collection of 2002 with Filmworks XIII: Invitation to a Suicide, written for a black comedy about a man selling tickets to his own suicide to save his father's life.^[49]

Zorns next two Filmworks releases featured in documentaries examining Jewish identity and antisemitism. Filmworks XIV: Hiding and Seeking (2003) provided the soundtrack a documentary about an Orthodox Jewish father attempting to alert his sons of the dangers of creating barriers between themselves and those outside their faith.^[50] Filmworks XV: Protocols of Zion (2005) featured music for a documentary about a resurgence of antisemitism in the United States in the wake of the September 11 attacks.^[51]

Filmworks XVI: Workingman's Death (2005) presented themes for a documentary portraying hazardous employment undertaken in the Ukraine, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and China.^[52]

Filmworks XVII (2006) featured music for Martina Kudlacek's documentary Notes on Marie Menken intertwined with Zorn's percussive score for Beth Cataldo's portrait Ray Bandar: A Life with Skulls.^[53][54] Filmworks XVIII: The Treatment (2006) featured music for Oren Rudavsky's romantic comedy based on the tango music of Astor Piazolla.^[55]

Filmworks XIX: The Rain Horse (2008) was written for an animated children's short film by Russian director Dimitri Gellar. Also released in 2008 were Filmworks XX: Sholem Aleichem containing music for a documentary on the Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem, Filmworks XXI: Belle de Nature/The New Rijksmuseum featuring soundtracks for another of Maria Beatty's films and a documentary on the restoration of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, and Filmworks XXII: The Last Supper.

Hardcore[link]

Zorn established Naked City in 1988 as a "compositional workshop" to test the limitations of a rock band format.^[56] Featuring Zorn on saxophone, Bill Frisell (guitars), Fred Frith (bass), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), Joey Baron (drums), and occasional vocals from Yamatsuka Eye, Bob Dorough, and later Mike Patton, Naked City incorporated Zorn's appreciation of hardcore bands like Agnostic Front and grindcore bands like Napalm Death with his other influences and experimented with compositional form and cover versions.^[57]

Named after a 1945 book of graphic black and white photographs by Weegee the band performed an aggressive mix of "soundtrack themes, bluesy hard bop, speedy hardcore rock, squealing free jazz [and] metallic funk".^[58] Zorn has stated that "Naked City started with rhythm and blues/Spillane type things then went into this hard-core thing... because I was living in Japan and experiencing a lot of alienation and rejection... My interest in hard-core also spurred the urge to write shorter and shorter pieces."^[59]

Naked City followed the release of their self-titled album with Torture Garden a collection of 42 "hardcore miniatures", intense brief compositions often lasting less than a minute, in 1989. Some of these tracks had featured on Naked City and others would resurface on the band's next full-length release, Grand Guignol (1992), which also included performances of works by Claude Debussy, Alexander Scriabin, Orlande de Lassus, Charles Ives, and Olivier Messiaen. The band's third album, Heretic (1992), featured more of these short improvisations produced for the soundtrack of an underground S/M film Jeux des Dames Cruelles. The band released a second EP, Leng Tch'e, in 1992 featuring a single composition which lasted just over half an hour. Radio, released in 1993, was the first Naked City album composed solely by Zorn, and featured tracks drawing on a wide range of musical influences including Charles Mingus, Little Feat, Ruins, Booker T. and the M.G.'s, Colin Wilson, Albert King, Chuck Brown, Orchestra Baobab, the Accüsed, the Meters, Tony Williams' Lifetime, Anton Webern, Sammy Cahn, Frank Sinatra, Morton Feldman, Igor Stravinsky, the Melvins, Beatmasters, Septic Death, Abe Schwartz, Ivo Papasov, Naftule Brandwein, Repulsion, Led Zeppelin, Bernard Herrmann, Santana, Extreme Noise Terror, Conway Twitty, Siege, Ornette Coleman, Corrosion of Conformity, Massacre, Quincy Jones, Sam Fuller, Funkadelic, Carcass, Liberace, Jan Hammer, Eddie Blackwell, Charlie Haden, Mick Harris, Carole King, Red Garland, Boredoms, Jerry Reed, SPK and Roger Williams in addition to Zorn's previously identified touchstones.^[60] The final recording from the band Absinthe (1993) featured a blend of ambient noise styled compositions with tracks titled after the works of Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire and other figures in the fin de siècle Decadent movement, and a dedication to Olivier Messiaen. Zorn disbanded Naked City after this release but briefly reformed the band for a European tour in 2003.

Zorn also formed Painkiller with Bill Laswell on bass and Mick Harris on drums in 1991. Painkiller's first two releases, Guts of a Virgin (1991) and Buried Secrets (1992), also featured short grindcore and free jazz-inspired compositions. They released their first live album, Rituals: Live in Japan, on the Japanese Toys Factory label in 1993, followed by the double CD Execution Ground (1994), which featured longer dub and ambient-styled pieces. A second live album, Talisman: Live in Nagoya, was released in 2002 and the band was featured on Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Volume 12 (2005) with Hamid Drake replacing Harris on drums and guest vocalist Mike Patton.^[61]

Both bands attracted worldwide interest, particularly in Japan, where Zorn had relocated following a three-month residency in Tokyo.^[62] Zorn collaborated with, and produced, numerous Japanese 'noise' artists including Merzbow, Otomo Yoshihide, Melt Banana and frequent collaborator Yamatsuka Eye. Many of these artists have now released albums on Tzadik and some regularly travel to New York to perform.

Releases from both bands were criticized for their graphic album covers. The cover of the eponymous album by Naked City used the Weegee photograph "Corpse with Revolver C.A. 1940", which shows a gangland killing as did their later live album.^[63] Zorn left Electra Nonesuch after the company's response to the artwork for Naked City's Grand Guignol, releasing the remaining Naked City albums on a Japanese-based label, Avant.^[64] The Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence protested against Zorn because they believed that the images used in the graphic design of Naked City's Torture Garden and Leng Tch'e portrayed degrading images of Asian people. To avoid problems, Zorn removed the original albums from retail sale and later replaced the artwork with new packaging titled Black Box.^[65] Painkiller's Guts of a Virgin EP was banned in the UK after customs seized and destroyed the first shipment for violating the Obscene Publications Act.^[66] Execution Ground was also released with the original cover photograph of a lynching removed. Zorn later re-released the Naked City and Painkiller albums as box sets with restored artwork after forming his own record label.^[67]

Zorn recorded Hemophiliac in 2002 with Mike Patton and Ikue Mori which continued his interest in hardcore improvisations. The first release from this trio was a double CD set that was signed by the performers. Limited to 2,500 copies, this album soon became a highly sought-after collectors item.^[68] The trio also released a live recording as part of Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Series.

In 2006 Zorn formed the hardcore voice/bass/drums trio of Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn, and Joey Baron which became known as the Moonchild Trio.^[69] That year two albums of Zorn's compositions performed by the trio were released: Moonchild: Songs Without Words and Astronome. A third album with the trio, but also featuring Zorn, Ikue Mori, Jamie Saft and chorus, Six Litanies for Heliogabalus, was released in 2007.^[70] Their fourth release The Crucible appeared in 2008.^[71]

Concert music[link]

John Zorn has established a diverse repertoire of music written for chamber musicians and orchestras. As Zorn's interest in Naked City waned he "started hearing classical music in [his] head again."^[72] Zorn began composing the suites Elegy (1992) (dedicated to Jean Genet) and Kristallnacht (1993) both of which drew on chamber music arrangements of strings, percussion and electronic instruments.

Zorn was quoted in 1998 as saying "Sometimes I get the feeling that people just don't see me as a composer, but it's what I've always been since I was eight years old... I've always thought of myself as a composer, but the world has had a hard time looking at me as a composer because a lot of what I compose is controversial."^[73] The establishment of Tzadik allowed Zorn to release many compositions which he had written, over the previous two decades, for classical ensembles. Zorn's earliest released "classical" composition (for five flutes), "Christabel", was written in 1972 and first appeared on Angelus Novus in 1998. Redbird (containing new compositions for bass drums and a harp/viola/cello/percussion quartet inspired by Agnes Martin) and The Book of Heads (35 etudes for solo guitar written in 1978 for Eugene Chadbourne and realised by Marc Ribot) were released in 1995 as part of Tzadik's Composer Series. Zorn credits the composition of his 1988 piece for string quartet "Cat O' Nine Tails", commissioned and originally released by the Kronos Quartet, to awakening him to the possibilities of writing for classical musicians. This composition was featured on The String Quartets (1999) and Cartoon S/M (2000) along with variations on "Kol Nidre", inspired by the Jewish prayer of atonement which was written at the same time as (but not part of) the first Masada Book.^[74] Duras: Duchamp (1997) consists of two 'tribute' compositions, the first dedicated to Marguerite Duras has four movements lasting roughly thirty-four minutes influenced by the composition of Oliver Messiaen, the second "69 Paroxyms for Marcel Duchamp" lasts just over thirteen minutes. Aporias: Requia for Piano and Orchestra (1998) was Zorn's first full-scale orchestral release featuring pianist Stephen Drury, the Hungarian Radio Children's Choir and the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.

Songs from the Hermetic Theatre (2001) featured four experimental compositions; "American Magus", was Zorn's first piece of electronic music dedicated to Harry Smith; "BeuysBlock", a meditation on the work of Joseph Beuys; "In the Very Eye of Night", a tribute to Maya Deren; and "The Nerve Key", Zorn's first piece of computer music. Madness, Love and Mysticism (2001) featured "Le Mômo", inspired by Antonin Artaud, performed by Stephen Drury (piano) and Jennifer Choi (violin); "Untitled", dedicated to Joseph Cornell, a cello solo for Erik Friedlander; and "Amour Fou" featuring the trio. Chimeras (2001) was inspired by Arnold Schoenberg's atonal composition "Pierrot Lunaire".

Several of Zorn's later concert works drew inspiration from mysticism and the works of Aleister Crowley in particular. Magick (2004) featured the Crowley Quartet on "Necronomicon: for string quartet" and "Sortilège" written for two bass clarinets. A 2009 performance of "Necronomicon" was described as "...frenetic vortexes of violent, abrasive motion, separated by eerily becalmed, suspenseful sections with moody, even prayerful melodies. The music is sensational and evocative, but never arbitrary; you always sense a guiding hand behind the mayhem".^[75] Mysterium released in 2005 featured "Orphée" performed by a sextet of flute, viola, harp, harpsichord and electronics; "Frammenti Del Sappho" for female chorus; and "Wulpurgisnacht" for string trio. Rituals (2005) featured Zorn's five movement opera for mezzo soprano and ten instruments composed for the Bayreuth Opera Festival in 1998. From Silence to Sorcery (2007) features three compositions; "Goetia" consists of eight variations for solo violin performed by Jennifer Choi; "Gris-Gris" is composition for thirteen tuned drums performed by William Winant; and "Shibboleth" is a tribute to Paul Celan scored for clavichord, strings and percussion.

Zorn's concert works have been performed all over the world and he has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic and Brooklyn Philharmonic.^[76] When the piece for the Brooklyn Philharmonic was played at New Music America festival, he wrote in the pamphlet with the music:^[77][78]

Less than an actual music festival, New Music America is a one-sided overview that's more about politics, marketing, and sales than about the music it pretends to support...it's no more than a convention for the people in the music business who try to "out-hip" each other in the manipulation of artists. This postmodern yuppie tendency of business people dictating creative policy to artists is a very real danger that I intend to avoid at all costs.

Masada Books[link]

Masada: Joey Baron (dr), Greg Cohen (b), Dave Douglas (tr), John Zorn (as)

John Zorn recorded Kristallnacht in November 1992, his premiere work of radical Jewish culture, featuring a suite of seven compositions reflecting the infamous Night of Broken Glass in late 1938 where Jews were targets of violence and destruction in Germany and Austria.^[79] The experience prompted Zorn to further explore his Jewish heritage and composing using Jewish musical styles.^[80][81] Zorn then set himself the task of writing 100 compositions within a year incorporating klezmer styles with his already broad musical palette.^[82] Within three years, the number of compositions had grown to 200 and became known as the first Masada Book. Zorn explained:

The project for Masada was to create something positive in the Jewish tradition something that maybe takes the idea of Jewish music into the 21st century the way jazz developed from the teens and 1920s into the '40s, the '50s, the '60s and on...

... My initial plan was to write 100 tunes in a year that touched upon the Jewish tradition and that was an interesting challenge. It was really fun as a composer to come home and write a something that could be finished sometimes in 10 minutes, sometimes in an hour or sometimes an evening...

... The Masada songbook was really something that was like the Irving Berlin songbook or the Burt Bacharach songbook or the Thelonious Monk songbook. Here's another lifetime for me. So when I look at what's been accomplished in the world of Masada, it's kind of unbelievable. Of course I had no idea at the times I started. My initial idea was to write a hundred tunes. And then I ended up writing over 200 for the first book and then performed it countless time for years.^[83]

The initial releases featuring this compositional approach were ten albums by Masada appearing on the Japanese DIW label from 1994. Masada (later referred to as "acoustic" Masada) was an Ornette Coleman-inspired quartet with Zorn (alto saxophone), Joey Baron (drums), Dave Douglas (trumpet), and Greg Cohen (bass) that performed jazz-styled compositions based on Sephardic scales and rhythms.^[84] The original Masada albums were titled after the first ten letters of the Hebrew Alphabet – Alef, Beit, Gimel, Dalet, Hei, Vav, Zayin, Het, Tet and Yod – and contained compositions with Hebrew titles. Further releases by Masada consisted of live performances of the band recorded in Jerusalem, Taipei, Middleheim, Seville and in New York at the Knitting Factory and at Tonic and as a DVD, and a double CD of unreleased studio recordings, Sanhedrin 1994-1997 (2005).

The Masada quartet performed at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in March 2007 for what were billed as their final concerts.^[85] Zorn reformed the band as a sextet with Uri Caine and Cyro Baptista in 2009 saying:

I felt like we kind of hit a plateau a little bit with it in 2007 and I said, “Well, maybe the quartet is really done. Maybe we’ve accomplished what we can accomplish. Maybe it’s time to put this to bed.” And then I was asked by the Marciac Jazz Festival to put together a slightly larger group. They asked me what if I added a couple of people to Masada and I said, “I can’t add anybody to the quartet. The quartet is the quartet, that’s what we do.” But then I thought, “Well, if I was going to add someone I would probably ask Uri and Cyro.” So we tried it at Marciac and it was unbelievable. We didn’t even have any rehearsal time. I just passed the charts out and said, “OK, just watch me because I’ll be conducting. Let’s just do it.” And it was one of those magical clicks on the bandstand that sometimes happens. So yeah, this band is taking off again. After 15 years of doing this music, we can still find new things.^[35]

The Masada Book has been performed by many different ensembles and musicians. The Masada String Trio composed of Greg Cohen (bass), Mark Feldman (violin), and Erik Friedlander (cello) regularly performs and records Zorn's Masada pieces. This group, with the addition of Marc Ribot (guitar), Cyro Baptista (percussion), and Joey Baron (drums) also perform as the Bar Kohkba Sextet. Electric Masada, the most recent regular Masada ensemble usually features Zorn, Baptista, Baron, and Ribot, along with Trevor Dunn (bass), Ikue Mori (electronics), Jamie Saft (keyboards) and Kenny Wollesen (drums).^[86] A Tenth Anniversary Series of Masada recordings was released by Zorn beginning in 2003. The series featured five albums of Masada themes including Masada Guitars by Marc Ribot/Bill Frisell/Tim Sparks, Masada Recital by Mark Feldman & Sylvie Courvoisier, Masada Rock by Rashanim and two albums featuring various artists - Voices in the Wilderness and The Unknown Masada.

In 2004, Zorn began composing the second Masada Book, The Book of Angels, resulting in an additional 300 compositions.^[87][88] Zorn explained:

After 10 years of performing the first book, I thought 'Maybe it'd be nice to write some more tunes.' And I wrote 300 more tunes. When I started writing those it was 'Let's see if I can write a hundred songs in a month this time.' I've been working on these scales and playing these tunes all this time. In the back of my head somewhere are lodged all kinds of new ideas. Let's see if I can come up with 100 tunes in a month instead of in a yr. So in the first month, I popped out a hundred tunes; the second month, another hundred; in the third month, a third 100 tunes. I had no idea that was going to happen.^[83]

He has released several albums of Masada Book Two compositions performed by other artists. Recordings by the Jamie Saft Trio, Masada String Trio, Mark Feldman & Sylvie Courvoisier, Koby Israelite, The Cracow Klezmer Band, Uri Caine, Marc Ribot, Erik Friedlander, Secret Chiefs 3, Bar Kokhba Sextet, Medeski, Martin and Wood, and the Masada Quintet have been released in this series. The titles of many Masada Book Two compositions are derived from demonology and Judeo-Christian mythology.

Tzadik record label[link]

In 1992 John Zorn collaborated with the Japanese Disc Union label to curate the Avant imprint, a subsidiary of the DIW jazz label which released the first Masada albums. Several Naked City recordings were released through the Avant label as well as many others on which Zorn featured downtown musicians including Derek Bailey, Buckethead, Eugene Chadbourne, Dave Douglas, Erik Friedlander, Wayne Horvitz, Ikue Mori, Bobby Previte, Zeena Parkins and Marc Ribot.

In 1995, in co-operation with jazz producer Kazunori Sugiyama, Zorn established the Tzadik label to ensure availability of his catalogue and promote experimental musicians. Zorn said that the label is a way to shield from the power of the music industry, with "giant corporations acting like slave masters, like the return of the pharaohs," merging together to get even more powerful like in the Polygram-Universal acquisition; and to shield from distribution companies like Tower, HMV, and Virgin Megastores, that are destroying "the small mom and pop stores—people that love the music and that’s why they have their store," and from the insidious pollution of the tastes of the masses, "with brainwashing and brain-control. These marketing guys who are at the head of all these companies, they’re really the ones that are spoon-feeding everybody shit."^[1]

Zorn is inspired by other artists and different musical styles, particularly those working in improvised music. He has a special attraction to underground artists and musical styles that are extremely loud, wild, or creative. Tzadik has established a diverse catalogue reflecting Zorn's range of musical influences and influence. The Tzadik website describes the label as "...dedicated to releasing the best in avant garde and experimental music, presenting a worldwide community of musician-composers who find it difficult or impossible to release their music through conventional channels".^[89]

The label's releases are divided into series:

• The Archival Series features Zorn's recordings exclusively, including re-releases of several albums that appeared on other labels, Zorn's film work, and recordings from 1973 onwards;
• The 50th Birthday Celebration Series is 11 live albums recorded in September 2003 at Tonic as part of the month-long concert retrospective of Zorn's work;
• The Composer Series features Zorn's music for "classical" ensembles along with work by many other contemporary composers;
• The Radical Jewish Culture Series features contemporary Jewish musicians;
• The New Japan Series covers Japanese underground music;
• The Film Music Series features soundtracks by other musicians (Zorn's Filmworks recordings are feartured in the Archival Series);
• The Oracle Series promotes women in experimental music;
• The Key Series presents notable avant-garde musicians and projects;
• The Lunatic Fringe Series releases music and musicians operating outside of the broad categories offered by other series;^[89] and
• The Spotlight Series promotes new bands and musical projects of young musicians.

Tzadik also releases special edition CDs, DVDs, books and T-shirts. Since 1998 the designs of Tzadik releases have been created by graphic artist Heung-Heung "Chippy" Chin.^[90]

Music romance[link]

Zorn released Music for Children in 1998.^[91] The album, identified as "Music Romance Volume One" portrayed the broad spectrum of Zorn's compositions. Music for Children opened with a polyrhythmic etude for percussion and celeste, featured three short Naked City compositions, written at the time of Torture Garden, performed by Zorn with the Boston-based band Prelapse, a composition for wind machines and feedback dedicated to Edgard Varèse, a classical chamber piece for violin, percussion and piano, and ended with a music box-styled lullaby. The second "Music Romance" album, Taboo & Exile, was released in 1999 and featured a similar spectrum of broad styles.^[92] One of Zorn's most popular albums was the third in the series, The Gift (2001), which surprised many with its relaxed blend of surf, exotica and world music.^[93] Zorn released The Dreamers in 2008 which is considered to be a sequel to The Gift although not identified as a volume of "Music Romance". The year 2009 also saw the release of the album O'o, featuring the same style of music and set of players as the 2008 album.

50th birthday celebration[link]

In September 2003 Zorn celebrated his 50th birthday with a month-long series of performances at Tonic in New York, repeating an event he had begun a decade earlier at the Knitting Factory.^[94][95][96] He conceptualized the month into several different aspects of his musical output. Zorn's bands performed on the weekends, classical ensembles were featured on Sundays, Zorn performed improvisations with other musicians on Mondays, featured his extended compositions on Tuesdays and a retrospective of game pieces on Wednesdays.^[97] Twelve live albums were released on his 50th Birthday Celebration Series which featured performances by the Masada String Trio, Milford Graves & John Zorn, Locus Solus, Electric Masada, Fred Frith & John Zorn, Hemophiliac, Masada, Susie Ibrarra, Wadada Leo Smith & John Zorn, John Zorn solo, Yamataka Eye & John Zorn, Bar Kokhba Sextet and Painkiller.^[98]

Recent projects[link]

Zorn was the principal force in establishing The Stone in 2005, an avant-garde performance space in New York's Alphabet City which supports itself solely on donations and the sale of limited edition CDs, giving all door revenues directly to the performers.^[99] Zorn holds the title of artistic director and regularly performs 'Improvisation Nights'.^[100] On Friday April 13, 2007, Zorn played the final night at Tonic, the Lower East Side venue where he played regularly for the previous decade, which closed due to financial pressures.^{[101][102][103]} On January 10, 2008, Zorn performed with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson at a special benefit night at The Stone which was also released on The Stone: Issue Three on CD.^[104]

On February 4, 2008, Zorn premiered his work for three cellists "777" performed by Fred Sherry, Erik Friedlander, and Michael Nicolas at the Guggenheim Museum. Zorn premiered The Dreamers with members of Electric Masada on February 29, 2008 at St Anne's Warehouse in Brooklyn.^[105] On March 27, 2008, Miller Theater at Columbia University in New York City, which has been the venue for several premieres of Zorn's concert works, hosted the first performance of a new composition by John Zorn, "The Prophetic Mysteries of Angels, Witches & Demons".^[106][107] Zorn curated the music for the Aleph-Bet Sound Project, a sound installation featuring new music by Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Erik Friedlander, David Greenberger, Chris Brown, Z’EV, Terry Riley, Alvin Curran, Christina Kubisch, Marina Rosenfeld, Raz Mesinai, and Jewlia, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum from June 4, 2008 to January 8, 2009.^[108] Zorn's "Shir Ha-Shirim" premiered in February 2008.^[109] The piece is inspired by the Song of Songs from the old testament and is performed by an amplified quintet of female singers with female and male narrators performing the "Song of Solomon". Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson read the texts in English for the February performances. The group returned to New York for performances at the Guggenheim on November 23 and 24, at which Ayelet Rose Gottlieb and Jeremy Fogel recited in Hebrew. These performances at the Guggenheim Museum in November 2008 featured choreography for paired dancers from the Khmer Arts Ensemble by Sophiline Cheam Shapiro.^[110] The ensemble includes Marc Ribot on guitar, Carol Emanuel on harp, Trevor Dunn bass and the five extraordinary female vocalists. The Daughters of Jerusalem, as they are known for this project are, Lisa Bielawa, Martha Cluver, Abby Fischer, Kathryn Mulvihill and Kirsten Sollek. Photos of February rehearsals. Shir Ha-Shirim was also performed in Milano, Italy on September 24, 2008 and in Paris, France for the Jazz à la Villette event, on Saturday September 5, 2009.

In 2009, American playwright and avant-garde theatre pioneer Richard Foreman directed Astronome: A Night at The Opera based on Zorn's Astronome (2006).^[111]

Publications[link]

In 2000 Zorn edited the book Arcana: Musicians on Music featuring interviews, essays, and commentaries by musicians including Anthony Coleman, Peter Garland, David Mahler, Bill Frisell, Gerry Hemingway, George Lewis, Fred Frith, Eyvind Kang, Mike Patton and Elliott Sharp, on the compositional process.^[112] Zorn released the second volume of Arcana: Musicians on Music in the summer of 2007. According to the preface by Zorn, "This second installment of what will be a continuing series of books presenting radical, cutting-edge ideas about music is made, like the initial volume, out of necessity."^[113] The second volume contains essays by more than 30 musicians including Annie Gosfield, Trey Spruance, Zeena Parkins, Steve Coleman, Marina Rosenfeld, Carla Kihlstedt, David Douglas, Bill Laswell, Trevor Dunn, and Jewlia Eisenberg. In October 2008, a third volume of the Arcana series was released containing essays by Wadada Leo Smith, Frank London, Greg Cohen, Sean Lennon and Jamie Saft.^[114] Volume IV was released in September 2009, including essays by Derek Bailey, Nels Cline, Chris Cutler, Paul Dresher, Kenneth Gaburo, Shelley Hirsch, Wayne Horvitz, Vijay Iyer, Gordon Mumma, Matana Roberts, Katherine Supove and Carolyn Yarnell. Volume V has been released on July 2010, subtitled Musicians on Music, Magic & Mysticism.

Awards and critical reception[link]

In 2001 John Zorn received the Jewish Cultural Award in Performing Arts from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.^[115] In 2006 Zorn was named a MacArthur Fellow.^[116][117] In 2007, he was the recipient of Columbia University's School of the Arts William Schuman Award, an honor given "to recognize the lifetime achievement of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance."^[2] In 2011 Zorn was awarded the Magister Artium Gandensis, an honorary degree from the University of Ghent.^[118]

Zorn has attracted mixed receptions by critics throughout his career stating that "The press has never done anything but ignore and ridicule and marginalize my music—downtown music, because they don't know what to call it."^[119] A 1999 NY Times article by Adam Shatz accused Zorn of "attempt[ing] to recast Jewishness as a defiantly marginalized identity - to claim victim status - [which] has an air of calculation about it that overpowers his music."^[120] Several letters to the Editor from critics and musicians appeared in the following weeks in support of Zorn's artistic merit.^{[121][122][123]} In the opinion of Howard Mandel, who has interviewed Zorn numerous times,^[124] Zorn has often expressed a reluctance to grant interviews and has requested that journalists not review his performances.^[125]

The character of Stephen Colbert from the TV show The Colbert Report mocked the MacArthur Foundation's award of the Genius Grant to Zorn on the September 20, 2006 episode in his segment titled "Who's Not Honoring Me Now". Colbert used a 10-second dissonant excerpt from the 50th Birthday Celebration Series and compared it to his blowing into a saxophone, pleading, "Genius Grant please!"^[126] Zorn's comments on the Colbert segment were "It was hilarious!"^[83]

Discography[link]

Filmography[link]

• Money (1985)
• Put More Blood Into the Music (New York avant garde music), episode 292 of The South Bank Show, aired Sunday March 12, 1989
• Step Across the Border (1990)
• A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn (2004)
• Masada Live at Tonic 1999 (2004)
• Celestial Subway Lines / Salvaging Noise (2005)
• Sabbath in Paradise (2007)
• Astronome: A Night At The Opera (2010)

Bibliography[link]

• Zorn. J. (editor) (2000) Arcana: Musicians on Music, Hips Road: New York (ISBN 188712327X)
• Zorn. J. (editor) (2007) Arcana II: Musicians on Music, Hips Road: New York (ISBN 0978833767)
• Zorn. J. (editor) (2008) Arcana III: Musicians on Music, Hips Road: New York (ISBN 0978833775)
• Zorn. J. (editor) (2009) Arcana IV: Musicians on Music, Hips Road: New York (ISBN 0978833783)
• Zorn. J. (editor) (2010) Arcana V: Musicians on Music, Magic & Mysticism, Hips Road: New York (ISBN 0978833791)

See also[link]

• Musical parody

Notes[link]