- published: 26 May 2011
- views: 813051
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. Zorn brings these styles to his work, which he refers to with the label avant-garde/experimental.
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."
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. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with varying ensembles to display his diverse output.
Volume 10 is a hip hop artist from Los Angeles, California. He was part of the Heavyweights Crew, which included artists Freestyle Fellowship, Medusa, Ganjah K, and other Los Angeles acts from what later became Project Blowed. His 1994 hit single Pistol Grip Pump was released to critical acclaim despite being edited for radio and referred to simply as Pump.
Volume 10 is featured in Ava DuVernay's 2008 hip hop documentary This Is the Life.
Volume 10's single "Pistol Grip Pump" was covered by Rage Against The Machine on their album Renegades.
"Pistol Grip Pump" was also featured in the movie Set It Off but was briefly heard.
"Pistol Grip Pump" was featured on the video game Def Jam: Fight for NY as a soundtrack song.
John Zorn - Jazz in Marciac - Live 2010 (Full Show)
John Zorn - Mirrors of Being
John Zorn - Zorn@60 // Warsaw Summer Jazz Days 2013 - Sala Kongresowa, Warszawa
John Zorn | The Gift (2001)
Bar Kokhba Sextet (John Zorn) - Lucifer: Book of Angels Volume 10 (2008) (Full Album)
John Zorn - Shaolin Bossa
John Zorn - Gevurah
John Zorn - Book of Angels - Marciac 2012 (Full Show)
John Zorn - Besos de sangre
John Zorn - Filmworks XV: Protocols of Zion (2005)
No one knows better than the king
Life's a filthy dirty game
Very very hard to win
No one knows better than the king
How to disregard the pain
Never, never let it in
No one knows better than the king
That an angry man goes blind
Knocks his head against the wall
No one knows better than the king
How it hurts a man to fight
That he's human after all
No one knows better than the king
What a desperate man may do
When it gets too hard to bear
No one knows better than the king
How to spit on the taboos
As they thought he'd never dare
No one knew better than the king
How to care for number one
How to take and never give
No one knew better than the king
That when all is said and done
That's the only way to live
No one knew better than the king
Just how angry you can be
When they cage you in with laws
No one knew better than the king
That a man who thinks he's free
knocks his head against a wall
No one knew better than the king
Just how bitter it would be
To be beaten after all
No one knew better than the king
They're the ones who fix the game
They're the ones with loaded dice
No one knew better than the king
That they'd get him all the same