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My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music it's our music.
John Zorn
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John Zorn
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: September 2
Clarinetist
Composer
Jazz Musician
Musician
Pianist
Record Producer
Saxophonist
New York City
New York
Improvisation
Onstage
Mike
Solo
Together
Patton
Music
Improvise
Fred
Improvising
More quotes by John Zorn
The idealists will always be in society, and we will survive
John Zorn
I mean I have had a very combative relationship with critics because I'm very impatient with people that don't give my work the respect I feel it deserves.
John Zorn
One of the reasons I started Tzadik, which is my own label, is to keep things in print. I got tired of labels dropping things out of print when they don't sell.
John Zorn
No one sits in front of a drum set and thinks they invented it all out of whole cloth. The fact that the set is there means that you've got some dues to pay to Baby Dodds.
John Zorn
Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.
John Zorn
As soon as you get a certain amount of attention, then everybody kinda wants to start taking pot shots at you. All your old friends that supported you don't support you any more.
John Zorn
It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen.
John Zorn
People are great. But there's people who you get together with and you talk and you go away feeling energized, you feel inspired. And then there's people who you talk with and you go away feeling horrible, feeling drained, feeling like you're incapable of doing anything. Those people are psychic vampires and I now stay away from them.
John Zorn
I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing.
John Zorn
Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like
John Zorn
You know, when we were kids, we had to go to a theater to see a movie. And then television came in and you had to wait until midnight to see the one you wanted to see. Now, all you've got to do is go to a store and buy it and you can watch it whenever you want!
John Zorn
Eye was a great discovery. He is one of the great vocalists of all time.
John Zorn
One thing that I do ask myself when I'm in the creative process is, 'Does the world need this?'
John Zorn
Music is about people for me. It's not about sounds. It's about people it's about putting people into challenging situations. And for me, challenges are opportunities.
John Zorn
If you can make art with sound, can't you make music with objects?
John Zorn
For about seven years. I really like it there. There are a lot of great musicians. The scene is very open. A lot of stuff going on. People's ears are really open, they are not closed. A lot of scenes here, people just get tunnel vision and are into one thing.
John Zorn
I put together the influences of my life in as clear a way as I possibly can, in the same way that Beethoven or Schoenberg or Bach put their influences together.
John Zorn
You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy
John Zorn
We're not on the outside looking in, we're on the outside looking out.
John Zorn
I used to look at composing music as problem solving. But as I get older, it's not about problem solving anymore. There are no solutions, because there are no problems. You just turn the tap and it flows out.
John Zorn
