I just got the following message from a friend:
And now, a question for you. Believe it or not, I talked about John Zorn for about 10 minutes in my Humanities course yesterday. We were covering 1870-1914, and I played selections from Debussy ("Claire de Lune"), Stravinksy (a selection from Rite of Spring), and a song by Schoenberg. One student commented that Schoenberg seemed to be trying too hard, being jarring just for the sake of being jarring and jumping from one thing to another quickly. The student commented that he wasn't aware of any contemporary musicians who do this kind of jumping around. I brought up Zorn and his jump-cut, cartoon-influenced aesthetic, and then I went into his interests in game theory, cartoon music, Japanese noise-as-aesthetic, thrash metal, jazz, klezmer, and classical music. I said I'd bring something in on Tuesday to play for them. Hence the question. If I have five or so minutes to play a representative piece or two, what would you recommend that best illustrates that jump-cut practice of his?
Can anyone help me/my friend? I suggested some Naked City stuff, but if there's a better sample of jump-cutting in Zorn's catalogue I'm open to suggestions. Thanks, Tom