And the genius grant goes to....

Look, nobody was more surprised than me when John Zorn won one of this year's MacArthur Foundation Genius Grants. Zorn has long been a personal music hero for me, so, as a result, I completely expected him to toil away in obscurity forever.

Well, ok. One person may have been more surprised.

That person would be Stephen Colbert, who would like to know why he did not win one.



OK, to be fair, John Zorn has put out a LOT of really listenable music, and his constant output of music is one of the most incredible things that exists in modern music.

Here! Check out his band Masada, who are like a klezmer band if Ornette Coleman played klezmer. This stuff is truly awesome.



The musicians in the band for this show were:
John Zorn - alto saxophone
Marc Ribot - guitar
Trevor Dunn - bass
Jamie Saft - keys
Kenny Wollesen - drums
Cyro Baptista - percussion

Genius!

(Many thanks to Toy DeIorio for catching the typo on this post, as well as helping me get started blogging in the first place. Her genius grant is already in the mail.)