Conspirator
John Zorn
Composer and saxophonist. He played a set with Lou Reed’s band on my first tour, sat in with Metal Machine Trio, and shared the drones.
John Zorn (born 1953, New York) is an American composer, saxophonist, arranger and producer, a central figure of the downtown New York scene since the mid-1970s, whose work spans jazz, hardcore, classical, film music and Jewish music. He broke through with The Big Gundown (1986), led Naked City and Painkiller, and from 1994 to 2018 composed over three hundred Masada pieces. He founded Tzadik Records in 1995 and The Stone in 2005, was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2006, and was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame by Lou Reed in 2011.
But it was the set-long appearance by saxophonist John Zorn that allowed all to hit their strides.
Jesse Jarnow, The Village Voice, May 6, 2008, on the Highline Ballroom show
Four nights
On May 5, 2008, the last night of my first tour with Lou, he played most of the set with the band at the Highline Ballroom. On April 24, 2009, the second night of Metal Machine Trio’s “A Night of Deep Noise” at the Blender Theater at Gramercy, he sat in; that night’s recording is the source of the ambisonic installation The Creation of the Universe. In 2019 we both played Lou Reed Drones, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on March 13, where he opened on the organ, and at the Prospect Park Bandshell on August 3.
His Aleph-Bet Sound Project at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, 2008 to 2009, included Lou’s guitar processed through Kyma, which my site of the time linked as “The Conversation: Grace Memory.” I have named him among the improvisers I explored the Introspections ideas with.
The creditJohn Zorn and Sarth Calhoun: the Highline Ballroom with Lou Reed’s band, May 5, 2008; Metal Machine Trio at the Blender Theater at Gramercy, April 24, 2009; Lou Reed Drones at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, March 13, 2019, and the Prospect Park Bandshell, August 3, 2019.
Left to rightRob Wasserman, Mike Rathke, Lou Reed, Sarth Calhoun, Tony “Thunder” Smith, John Zorn, Steve Hunter, Kevin Hearn. Highline Ballroom, May 5, 2008. Named by Sarth Calhoun, September 23, 2026. Photo: Mark McGauley.
My thoughts
The profile is from public sources, linked where they appear. What we made is the record on this site and the sources cited above.