Someone once said that the best way to start building a jazz collection would be to buy a couple albums from each decade that Miles Davis was recording and, after that, choose a sideman from each of these selections and buy one of his solo albums. The same could be said of John Zorn and his collaborators, which would give you a wonderful cross-section of the avant-garde.
For someone who goes out of his way to shield himself from the world, Zorn has managed to work with a lot of great musicians over the past three decades. His dozens of collaborators have included everyone from big names such as Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, John Medeski and Bill Laswell to lesser-known artists like Cyro Baptista, Keiji Haino, Ikue Mori, Min Xiao-Fen and Derek Bailey.
Many critics -- and even some fans -- reflexively pigeonhole Zorn as the saxophone-and-duck-call playing leader of New York's downtown experimental scene. This rendering of the man obscures the fact that he has been composing an astonishing variety of fun and intelligent music from an early age. Yes, there are the hardcore albums and the improvisational "game pieces" that might sound a bit too random to qualify as music, but there are also classical arrangements for string quartets, gorgeously lyrical Jewish music, more than a dozen collections of film soundtracks, lounge, exotica . . . the list is ever-growing. However, one element binds this body of work: Even when it sounds like an identifiable style, Zorn's compositions inevitably exist between genres, sometimes subtly and at other times defiantly.