John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2020 Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Marc Ribot is an American guitarist and composer.
Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith is an American trumpeter and composer, working primarily in the field of creative music. He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for Ten Freedom Summers, released on May 22, 2012.
Ikue Mori, also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022.
Naked City was an avant-garde music group led by saxophonist and composer John Zorn. Active primarily in New York City from 1988 to 1993, Naked City was initiated by Zorn as a "composition workshop" to test the limits of composition in a traditional rock band lineup. Their music incorporated elements of jazz, surf, progressive rock, classical, heavy metal, grindcore, country, punk rock, and other genres.
Bobby Previte is a drummer, composer, and bandleader. He earned a degree in economics from the University at Buffalo, where he also studied percussion. He moved to New York City in 1979 and began professional relationships with John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, and Elliott Sharp.
Adult Themes for Voice is a 1996 album by Mike Patton. Recorded in hotel rooms while touring as a member of Faith No More, the album is solely composed of vocal sounds arranged as noise music. Released on John Zorn's Tzadik Records label, the album has largely met with negative reviews citing its abstruse and inaccessible nature.
Painkiller is an avant-garde jazz and grindcore band that formed in 1991. Later albums incorporated elements of ambient and dub.
Jesse Harris is an American singer-songwriter, producer, and guitarist. He has worked with Norah Jones, Melody Gardot, Madeleine Peyroux, Nikki Yanofsky, and Lizz Wright.
Erik Friedlander is an American cellist and composer based in New York City.
The Big Gundown is the third studio album by American composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist John Zorn. It comprises radically reworked covers of tracks by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.
Death Ambient is an American experimental and ambient music trio comprising Kato Hideki, Ikue Mori, and Fred Frith (guitar). The group was formed by Kato and Mori in 1995 and recorded three albums: Death Ambient (1995) Synaesthesia (1999), Drunken Forest (2007) with guest Jim Pugliese (percussion).
Daniel Zamir is an Israeli saxophonist and singer. Having started on alto saxophone, Zamir is mainly known for his soprano playing.
Anthony Coleman is an avant-garde jazz pianist. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked with John Zorn on Cobra, Kristallnacht, The Big Gundown, Archery, and Spillane and helped push modern Jewish music into the 21st century.
Sylvie Courvoisier is a composer, pianist, improviser and bandleader. She was born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has been a resident of New York City since 1998. She won Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022 and was named Pianist of the Year for 2023 in the international critics poll of Spanish jazz publication El Intruso. NPR’s Kevin Whitehead has encapsulated the distinctive character of Courvoisier’s art this way: “Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground.”
Hemophiliac is a limited edition album of improvised experimental music by John Zorn, Ikue Mori and Mike Patton. The album was released as a limited edition 2-CD set of 2,500 copies, personally autographed by Zorn, Patton and Mori, on Zorn's Tzadik label.
Femina is the eleventh album by John Zorn recorded in New York City in December 2008 and released on the Tzadik label in October 2009. The album is a tribute to the artistic creativity of women.
Okkyung Lee is a South Korean cellist, improviser, and composer.
