Can his new, neoclassical chops finally get him the props?
by CHRIS YURKIW “Sometimes you get the feeling like you’re misunderstood,” John Zorn tells me, “especially when you do things that are difficult to understand–a little unusual.” It’s not unusual to find John Zorn a little difficult to understand. Twenty years after he began what would become a leading role in the famed “downtown” avant-garde music scene of New York, and some 10 years after he broke into the world’s wider consciousness with major-label releases like The Big Gundown, Spy Vs Spy and Naked City, seasoned music writers are still forced to do things like review three of his projects at a time to keep up with his ultra-prolific output, and to begin such endeavours with lines like, “Whatever it is that John Zorn does.” (The Wire, April 1996). What is unusual is that John Zorn is making such a statement at all–not because he’s given to uncharacteristic understatement but because he’s making it to a seasoned music writer. Ten years ago, when the media anointed him poster boy f
