“John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in New York City) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn's recorded output is prolific with hundreds of album credits as a performer, composer, or producer. His work has touched on a wide range of musical genres, often within a single composition, but he is best-known for his avant-garde, jazz, improvised and contemporary classical music. Zorn has led the punk jazz band Naked City, the klezmer-influenced quartet Masada and composed the associated 'Masada Songbooks', written concert music for classical ensembles, and produced music for film and documentary. Zorn has stated that "I've got an incredibly short attention span. My music is jam-packed with information that is changing very fast... 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."”
Zorns connections are laid out as clearly as they ever will be in this record, easily one of his most accessible and mild mannered albums (excluding song "Unjust Reward" from said comment). This soundtrack is the musical narrative of the film "Invitation Suicide", a dark comedy about a son trying to save his father in the hospital by charging people money to see his suicide. There are 10 core songs in the album, each one arranged differently to create a paralleled multi-layered walk that becomes more recognized and proportionately different as the album progresses, akin to taking a stroll through a familiar park with the seasons changing in front of your eyes. My favorite work I've heard from Zorn yet.
Filmworks XIII-Invitation to Suicide
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