Filmworks XIX: Dimitri Geller's the Rain Horse

John Zorn

Native New Yorker John Zorn is one of the most important, influential figures in avant-garde jazz, particularly the downtown NYC improv scene. Zorn started out in the 1970s, forging a new template for jazz-based improvisation, drawing inspiration from both '60s free jazz and experimental New Music composition. Over the years, he's led numerous groups (Naked City, Masada, Painkiller, and others) and incorporated everything from Klezmer and classical to punk and heavy metal in his genre-defying music, working with the world's finest musicians along the way. Zorn's own label, Tzadik, has become a key source of inventive unconventional music by other artists, not to mention his own voluminous discography.