Tonight's concert, celebrating the 60th birthday of New York maverick John Zorn, lasted well over three hours, featured 22 musicians in seven separate lineups and hopscotched through countless musical genres. There's a string quartet and a thrash metal trio; a lounge band who sound like they're playing Charlie Brown themes; and an a cappella quintet who sound like a medieval Andrews Singers. Faith No More's Mike Patton and Norah Jones's co-writer Jesse Harris are on hand to provide words for several of Zorn's instrumentals. Yet all this still barely scrapes the surface of Zorn's prodigious output over four decades.
It's still difficult to believe Zorn is 60. He still looks about 30 and dresses like a teenage slacker, in combat pants, a T-shirt and a hoodie. He barely performs tonight: instead he conducts his remarkable musicians, peering over his spectacles like an encouraging teacher, flailing his arms and occasionally dancing along. When he finally picks up his alto sax to mutilate Jewish folk themes with his jazz-rock septet, he resembles Kermit the Frog: gangly, bug-eyed, raising his left leg at odd intervals.
Zorn's freewheeling, ecumenical approach often invites comparisons with Frank Zappa, but Zorn has more in common with conceptual artists such as Joseph Beuys or Carl Andre – making discrete artistic statements with materials in which he feels comfortable. Tonight's works apparently pay tribute to mystical, transgressive thinkers throughout history, from Dr John Dee to Arthur Rimbaud. However, when Patton howls and barks while accompanied by a Napalm Death-style sonic barrage, you wouldn't guess he's delivering an essay on the Knights Templar.
No one could possibly like everything they hear tonight, but equally you can't imagine anyone not loving something in this exhausting, exhilarating and brilliant concert. The audience's impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday is well deserved.
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