Music
click here for my favorite albums

Although I played cornet for seven years back in my school days, I don't play any instrument now, mainly because I just don't get around to it.  However, I do listen to a wide variety of styles, and am an undisciplined record and cd collector.  I'm interested in a variety of styles, some discussed below.  In particular, I enjoy stretching my boundaries with avant-garde jazz and classical stuff--Zorn, Bailey, Gayle, Stockhausen.  I used to think late John Coltrane was nearly unlistenable.  Not any more!  Despite my fairly catholic tastes, I abhor several genres:  new country music (e.g., Shania, Garth), Christian rock, New Age, and generic modern pop.

Most of my favorite musicians incorporated a number of distinct styles during their careers.  That's what makes them so interesting; you never knew what was coming next, and the constant change kept their music fresh (well, a couple albums by both Neil and Miles in the '80s weren't the greatest).  Still, the ability to be open to new ideas and to trying new ways of attacking the same questions is what makes great art, and all these folks below are certainly great.

The Incomparable
J.S. Bach
   
The Great Sopranos
Maria Callas and John Coltrane
  The Greatest!
Miles Davis
 

I only got to see Miles once--although I'm probably lucky for that.  He played looking at the floor, with his back to the crowd the whole time, but he was still an amazing player.  I strongly suggest looking up his autobiography--he was a wild cat.
 

ROCK 'N ROLL
Neil Young

I saw Neil in the summer of 1999 at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis--a solo acoustic show.  He was incredible.  At one point, he went into a five minute diatribe about the evils of corporate farming, a very perceptive commentary, too.  Then he launched into "Homegrown", which he said has mutated from being about weed in the '70s to organic farming now.  I've also seen "the other Neil" in Atlanta during the Weld tour--it was easily the loudest show I've ever seen.  Sonic Youth opened with a great, loud set, but Neil turned it up higher!  Of all Neil's albums, I recommend On the Beach as the best, but unfortunately, it's only available as an import CD right now.  Otherwise, almost anything is good, with the sole exception of Landing On Water, in which I can find no redeeming feature.  All his other albums have at least something decent on them.  For Neil web-based information:
Official Site, Hyperrust
 

AVANT-GARDE
John Zorn
I don't know how this guy keeps it all together.  He's made a ton of albums, ranging from transcendently beautiful (Filmworks VIII, The Circle Maker, Bar Kokhba), to wildness incarnate (Naked City, Cobra, some of the S&M type stuff from various Filmworks), to fantastic jazz (Voodoo:  The Music of Sonny Clark), to minimalist splendor (Redbird, which is dedicated to Agnes Martin, one of my favorite painters), to ... well, you get the picture.  He also has his own label (Tzadik) that releases a series of Radical Jewish Culture disks, a bunch of wierdness from Japan, and other things.  One RJC disk worth checking out is his tribute to Burt Bachrach, with covers by a ton of downtown Manhattan folks.

Unofficial John Zorn Homepage
John Zorn on the Jazzweb at Northwestern Univ. includes John Zorn Discography and John Zorn Mailing List
John Zorn and Postmodernism

Some of my favorites (click to get the All Music Guide review):
Bar Kokhba, The Circle Maker, Masada 3, Filmworks VIII, The Big Gundown, Redbird

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