John Zorn Tradition and Transgression [Paperback]

John Zorn is one of the most prolific and active American composers/performers working today. He has been a fixture of New York's Downtown Scene since the mid-70s as a tireless proponent of avant-garde and experimental music. Despite the acclaim and respect he has achieved in America and abroad, very little attention has been paid to Zorn by musicologists or music theorists. Author John Brackett suggests that the reason for the relative paucity of writing on Zorn's music and musical thought has to do with the difficulties and challenges they present both for listeners and scholars. Zorn's musical languagean amalgam of seemingly incongruous techniques, sounds, styles, and genrescreates complex and sometimes confusing listening experiences that are difficult to categorize in terms of overarching thematic or narrative design. Brackett offers a number of perspectives for understanding Zorn's music and musical practices, while challenging certain assumptions that limit the ways in which contemporary music is typically addressed.

Though his book plumbs depths of theory and esoteric cultural history that may interest only the most hardcore Zorn and experimental-art fans, those very depths make it an invaluable guide to the aesthetic methods and motivations of an artist who pays homage to the old as he seeks to make it new. August/September 2009

Contents<\>
Foreword by John Zorn
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. From the Fantastic to the Dangerously Real: Reading John Zorn's Artwork
2. Magick and Mysticism in Zorn's Recent Works
3. Tradition, Gifts, and Zorn's Musical Homages
4. Continuing the Spiral: Aporias and the Prisms of Tradition
Epilogue
Discography/Filmography
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Brackett offers a number of perspectives for understandign Zorn's music and musical practices, while challenging certain assumptions that limit the ways in which contemporary music is typically addressed.January 26, 200lc4